Full-Body No-Equipment workout?

[No2]

I seek to be strong without large muscles with high stamina.

The catch is, the only equipment i have is two 20lb dumbells, four walls and some standard furniture. I cannot go to a gym (transportation constraints) or have the money to invest in a home gym.

Can someone help by suggesting some MacGyver-esque exercises I can do?

[Guest]

If you look on the web, there is probably a thousand work-out programs you can do with no equipment. Something taken from a Military or Boxing program will probably be worth some salt.

Running, Skipping, Press-ups, Sit-ups, Pull-ups and Chin-ups. You can do them anywhere, anytime, and they cost nothing.

Swimming is also superb, but not sure if that is an option for you.

Make sure you have progression, so more miles, more rounds and more reps the stronger you get. Make sure you eat well and make sure you rest well. Thats it.

Its not complicated, people just make a lot of money out of convincing you it is.

[Filero]

Head to Rosstraining.com. You'll find a lot of free great advice in the articles section. If you have a spare $25 or so, go to his products page to find Never Gymless, a fantastic no-weights program for combat athletes. It will teach you the various strength and conditioning properties important to combat athletes (strength, explosive power, endurance, etc) and how to develop them all. It will show you a load of fantastic exercises that build the properties. It will take the exercises and build them into sample routines, and then builds those routines into a 50-day sample plan. It will show you how to avoid plateaus and more difficult movements to progress to. The best thing about it is that Ross considers his routines and plan nothing but an example -- he teaches you the principles so you can either adopt his plan or customize it however you'd like. Once you read the book, you can get advice from other athletes on his forum.

Your goals -- lots of endurance, strength without huge muscles -- matches that of combat athletes pretty nicely.

[Greg M.]

Check out The Underground Gym: Russian Kettlebells, Muay Thai kickboxing, Judo, Ju Jitsu, MMA for tons of great free info and some info packed training dvds on bodyweight and kettlebell training!