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Human Barbell

Home Workout for Fitness, for Beginners, 3 Days a Week

For strength work, a gymnast needs only the floor and their own body weight: the body is both the apparatus and the load. “Human Barbell” is built the same way: the whole body three times a week, some floor space and a mat if you like. Find a corner for your mat and get started.

  • GoalMaintenance
  • LevelBeginner
  • WhereHome
  • Workouts24
  • One workout~44 min
  • ForEveryone
Start it in the appThe app calculates the weight of every set from your 1RM

Who it’s for

  • You’re starting to train at home
  • You have no dumbbells or pull-up bar at home
  • You want to stay in overall shape

How it works

  1. 013 workouts a week, 5 exercises each, about 40 minutes per workout; chest, back and legs work in every session
  2. 02Each workout starts with legs and ends with abs, with push-ups and the “Superman” with elbows pulled to the waist in between; 2 sets for abs, 3 for every other exercise
  3. 03Base, 4 weeks: rest between sets shortens week by week from 120 to 102 seconds
  4. 04Build, 4 weeks: the same exercises with more reps, and the load moves in a wave with a step back in week 3
Method

Load from reps and rest

With body weight, the load is set by reps and rest. The app picks your reps from your results: if a set felt easy, the next set in the same workout is longer. Push-ups and a back exercise appear in all three workouts, so chest and back work three times a week.

Weekly volume

Counts sets where the muscle is the main target of the exercise

  • Chest9 sets3 workouts
  • Back9 sets3 workouts
  • Quads6 sets2 workouts
  • Arms6 sets2 workouts
  • Abs6 sets3 workouts
  • Shoulders3 sets1 workout
  • Hamstrings & glutes3 sets1 workout

What the research shows

3

  • Push-ups and a light bench press produced similar gains in muscle and strength

    Kikuchi et al., 2017

  • At comparable muscle load, push-ups build strength as well as the bench press

    Calatayud et al., 2015

  • Light and heavy weights produce the same muscle growth; heavy weights build more strength

    Schoenfeld et al., 2017
The studies compared push-ups with the bench press and light weights with heavy ones; leg and back exercises without equipment were not tested.

Workout A

5 exercises · ~44 min

The whole first workout. Tap an exercise to open its technique with photos and video.

  1. 01Bodyweight SquatQuads3 × 12bodyweight
  2. 02PushupsChest3 × 12bodyweight
  3. 03Prone Superman Lat PullMiddle Back, Lats3 × 12bodyweight
  4. 04Floor Reverse Push-UpTriceps3 × 12bodyweight
  5. 05CrunchesAbs2 × 12bodyweight

All workouts in the program

24 sessions over ~7.5 weeks, 3–4 per week. Workouts A, B and C repeat in a loop, 8 times each. The other workouts and the weight for every set are in the app.

Workout intensity

The load of each session: higher means harder. average per round A–C

hardereasierWorkout 1 (A)Workout 2 (B)Workout 3 (C)Workout 4 (A)Workout 5 (B)Workout 6 (C)Workout 7 (A)Workout 8 (B)Workout 9 (C)Workout 10 (A)Workout 11 (B)Workout 12 (C)Workout 13 (A)Workout 14 (B)Workout 15 (C)Workout 16 (A)Workout 17 (B)Workout 18 (C)Workout 19 (A)Workout 20 (B)Workout 21 (C)Workout 22 (A)Workout 23 (B)Workout 24 (C)Round 1: averageRound 2: averageRound 3: averageRound 4: averageRound 5: averageRound 6: averageRound 7: averageRound 8: average

Workout number

AtletIQ app

Program weights — from your 1RM

1RM is the weight you can lift once. Enter it for the base exercises and AtletIQ will calculate working weights for all 24 workouts of “Human Barbell”.

  • The weight of every set comes from your 1RM
  • All workouts of the program in order, with rest between sets
  • Progress for every exercise
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