Training Away from the Gym with Bodyweight or Dumbbells

A planned session does not have to be skipped because the gym is out of reach. The same session can be done at home or in a hotel room with the body alone, or with a pair of dumbbells, as long as what drives the adaptation stays the same. This document says what is kept, what changes, which equipment counts as available, and how each movement is replaced.

What stays the same

The away-from-the-gym version is the same session with different tools:

• The order of the session. Each exercise keeps its place, so the hardest work still comes first.
• The number of sets of each exercise, warm-up sets included. Hard sets are the unit of training volume, and volume is what the plan dosed for the week. The one exception is two exercises that end up as the same movement (below): they become one exercise, and its working sets add up.
• The target effort of every set, as RPE or repetitions in reserve. Sets taken close to failure produce similar muscle growth across a wide range of loads, roughly from 30% to 80% of a one-repetition maximum. Very light loads, around 20%, fall short of heavier ones even when the volume is matched, which is why the bodyweight version prefers harder variations to endless repetitions.
• Rest, tempo and supersets, as planned.
• The progression of the phase. Week by week the repetitions and the target effort move exactly as in the gym version; only the load step differs, because a dumbbell moves in 2 kg steps and the body does not move at all.

Push-ups are the best studied case. Push-ups and bench press performed at a comparable level of muscle activity gave the same gain in bench press strength, and push-ups matched to a light bench press load gave the same growth of the chest and triceps. Progressive push-up variations kept pace with bench press training in moderately trained men. The same holds for the legs: training only with the rear-foot-elevated split squat improved squat strength as much as training with the back squat.

What changes: the load

• Bodyweight. There is no external load. Effort comes from leverage (feet elevated, a longer lever), from training one limb at a time, from range of motion and from a slower lowering phase. The plan's repetitions are the starting point and the target effort decides: if a set reaches the target effort only well past the planned repetitions, the next set uses the harder variation or a slower tempo.
• Dumbbells. Where the dumbbell variation has a documented ratio to the barbell lift (see Loads for Lift Variations), the load of one dumbbell is the confirmed maximum of the barbell lift times the ratio times the planned percentage, rounded to 2 kg. Everywhere else the load is chosen by effort.
• The heaviest dumbbell. No set asks for more than the heaviest dumbbell the athlete owns. When that dumbbell is lighter than the plan's load, the set reaches the same effort with more repetitions or a slower lowering, inside the same limits as above.

Where it falls short: maximal strength

Muscle growth does not depend much on the load; maximal strength does. Heavy loads produce larger gains in one-repetition maximum than light loads taken to the same effort, because strength is specific to the load and to the movement that is trained. Heavy here means the loads recommended for maximal strength: sets at 80% of a one-repetition maximum or more, or sets of five repetitions or fewer close to failure. A session at home keeps the movement pattern and the effort, but it does not train the heavy single, double or triple. In a phase built around heavy lifting, the away-from-the-gym version maintains what was built; it does not replace the heavy work, and the next gym session picks the progression up where the plan left it.

Equipment that counts as available

Context	Available	Not available
Bodyweight	The floor, a sturdy chair, a sturdy table, a sofa, a wall	Pull-up bar, dip bars, rings, bench, box, bands, kettlebells, barbell, plates, cables, machines
Dumbbells	Everything above, plus a pair of dumbbells	Bench, barbell, kettlebells, plates, bands, cables, machines

Household objects stand in for the missing equipment, and the plan says how to use them:

• A sturdy table: rows lying underneath it, the only horizontal pull without equipment.
• A chair: the rear foot in split squats, the hands in dips, the feet in decline push-ups, step-ups, one hand in single-arm rows, seated presses and curls.
• A sofa: feet hooked under it for hamstring curls on the knees, shoulders on it for hip thrusts.
• A wall: wall sits, and the feet in handstand push-ups.

A dumbbell also works as a single weight held in the hands: a crunch or a sissy squat with a dumbbell at the chest, a farmer's walk.

Movement by movement

Each movement is replaced by the closest movement that works the same muscles in the same pattern. When the session already contains the first choice, the second is used, so that two different exercises do not become the same one twice.

Some movements have only one replacement. Without equipment the table row is the only pull, so pulldowns, rows, face pulls, shrugs and curls all become table rows, and pike push-ups are the only shoulder press. When every replacement of a movement is already in the session, the exercise joins the one that is already there instead of appearing twice:

• it joins the exercise that stays as it is, if there is one, otherwise the one with more working sets, and only inside the same part of the session;
• its working sets are added after the others, up to five working sets, or up to the sets the receiving exercise already had when that is more. Five is the same cap the plan uses for any exercise: past it the extra sets add fatigue more than stimulus, and the volume belongs on another day;
• its warm-up sets are dropped, because the receiving exercise is already warm, and the moved sets take the load of the receiving exercise;
• the exercise says which exercises it also replaces, and the session says when sets were left out ("5 working sets instead of 7");
• a superset left with one exercise becomes a straight exercise with its own rest.

Movement	Bodyweight	Dumbbells
Horizontal press: bench press, chest press	Push-up	Floor press
Incline press	Decline push-up, feet on a chair	Floor press
Decline press	Incline push-up, hands on a chair	Floor press
Chest fly	Push-up	Floor press
Close-grip press	Diamond push-up	Floor press
Dips	Chair dip	Chair dip
Overhead press	Pike push-up	Standing dumbbell press
Lateral and front raises	Pike push-up	Dumbbell raises
Rear shoulders, face pulls	Table row, wide grip	Dumbbell reverse fly
Shrugs	Table row	Dumbbell shrug
Vertical pull: pull-ups, pulldowns	Table row	One-arm dumbbell row
Horizontal pull: rows	Table row	Bent-over dumbbell row
Biceps curls	Table row, underhand grip	Dumbbell curl
Triceps extensions and pushdowns	Diamond push-up	Overhead dumbbell extension
Squat	Rear-foot-elevated split squat	Goblet squat
Leg press	Rear-foot-elevated split squat	Rear-foot-elevated split squat
Lunges and split squats	Reverse lunge	Dumbbell reverse lunge
Leg extension	Reverse lunge	Sissy squat with a dumbbell
Deadlift	Single-leg hip thrust	Dumbbell deadlift
Romanian deadlift, good morning	Hamstring curl on the knees, feet under a sofa	Dumbbell Romanian deadlift
Leg curl	Hamstring curl on the knees	Hamstring curl on the knees
Hip thrust, glute bridge	Single-leg hip thrust	Single-leg hip thrust with a dumbbell
Calf raise	Single-leg calf raise	Single-leg calf raise with a dumbbell
Back extension	Superman	Superman
Weighted crunches and machine crunches	Crunch	Crunch with a dumbbell
Hanging leg raises	Lying leg raise	Lying leg raise
Olympic lifts	Jump squat	Dumbbell snatch
Kettlebell swing	Frog jumps	Dumbbell snatch
Cardio machines	Jumping jacks	Jumping jacks

What has no equivalent away from the gym

• The lats without a bar. Rows under a table train the upper back; the lats get less work than with pull-ups or pulldowns, and one-arm dumbbell rows only partly close the gap.
• The biceps without weights. The table row with an underhand grip is the closest pulling exercise.
• Grip and forearm work without weights. It is left out of the bodyweight version and comes back at the next gym session.
• Heavy loads for maximal strength, as described above.

The plan states each of these gaps next to the exercise, so that a lighter session is read as a different tool and not as lower performance.