Home and gym workouts
One programme. Whichever room you are in.
Two programmes, one for home and one for the gym, reliably become zero programmes. BANKED keeps one and changes the exercises to fit the room, so the week banks whether you are in a squat rack or a hotel corridor.
The problem with “home or gym”
A gym programme assumes a barbell, so at home it collapses. A home programme assumes nothing, so in the gym it feels like a waste of the membership. People end up with two half-programmes, no progression across them, and a lot of Mondays spent deciding.
BANKED does not ask where you train in general. It asks what is in the room today.
How kit becomes exercise
Every session slot is a movement pattern. To fill it, BANKED runs the same rule every time:
- Keep only the exercises whose kit you actually have in this room.
- Prefer one that can be loaded, because weight progresses more smoothly than difficulty.
- Otherwise pick the bodyweight rung nearest your current level in that pattern.
- If nothing fits (no bar, no band for a vertical pull), use the fallback pattern: a horizontal pull instead.
| Slot | Living room, nothing | Spare room, dumbbells | Gym |
|---|---|---|---|
| Squat | Pause squat | Goblet squat ≈ 12 kg | Goblet squat ≈ 12 kg, heavier dumbbells available |
| Horizontal push | Push-up | Dumbbell floor press ≈ 12 kg | Dumbbell floor press ≈ 12 kg (a bench is optional) |
| Horizontal pull | Towel door row | Dumbbell row ≈ 12 kg a side | Dumbbell row ≈ 12 kg a side |
| Hinge | Single-leg glute bridge | Dumbbell Romanian deadlift ≈ 14 kg | Dumbbell Romanian deadlift ≈ 14 kg |
| Core | Plank | Plank | Hanging knee raise (bar) |
Same slots, same set counts, same progression log. Your goblet squat weight in the gym is your goblet squat weight at home, because it is the same exercise.
The travel switch
When you start a session you choose Home or Travel. Travel assumes an empty room regardless of what you own, so nothing is prescribed that you cannot do. Here is Session B, travel, 30 minutes:
Session B · travel · 30 minutes
- Single-leg glute bridge · 3 × 8–15 a side
- Towel door row · 3 × 8–15 (paired with the bridge; no bar, so the vertical pull falls back)
- Pike push-up · 3 × 6–12
- Reverse lunge · 2 × 8–12 a side (paired with the pike push-up)
- Side plank · 2 × 20–45 seconds a side
Three minutes of warm-up first. Rest 60 seconds between sets. A hotel towel and a door handle are the only equipment.
What each purchase unlocks
| Kit | Unlocks | Worth it if |
|---|---|---|
| A pair of adjustable dumbbells | Loaded squats, hinges, presses and rows; weight-based progression on the main lifts | You plan to train at home for more than a few months. The single most useful purchase. |
| Doorframe pull-up bar | A real vertical pull (negatives, pull-ups) and hanging core work | You want your back trained as thoroughly as your chest. Nothing else at home does this properly. |
| Resistance band | Band rows, pulldowns and presses; a vertical pull without a bar | You travel a lot and want more than bodyweight in the hotel. Optional; travel works without it. |
| Kettlebell | Swings as a hinge option | You already enjoy them. Otherwise dumbbells cover it. |
| Bench or sturdy box | Elevated variations | You have the space. A chair or the edge of a bed does most of the job. |
What a gym adds, and what it does not
A gym gives you heavier dumbbells than you would buy, a bench, a proper bar for pull-ups and knee raises, and somewhere that is not your living room. BANKED uses all of that.
Setting it up
- Tick the kit you own at home in You → Equipment, including the heaviest dumbbell per hand, so BANKED never prescribes a weight you do not have.
- In a gym, tick what the gym reliably has. Most have dumbbells, a bench and a bar.
- Travelling, choose Travel when you start the session. Nothing else to configure.
Fair questions
- Do I have to tell it where I am every time?
- Only Home or Travel, one tap when you start a session. Your kit is set once in You and only changes when you buy something.
- I have a gym membership. Is BANKED wasted on me?
- BANKED uses the gym’s dumbbells, bench and bar and progresses you on them. If your gym visit is about barbell lifts, machines or classes, BANKED is not adding much and you should pick a programme that is built around those.
- Can I really progress with no equipment at all?
- For a long time, yes. Every pattern has a ladder of four or five rungs, from incline push-up to archer push-up, from glute bridge to Nordic negative. Most people spend months on the bodyweight ladders before they run out of rungs, and a pair of dumbbells is the natural next step when they do.
- What if my hotel gym has kit?
- Choose Home and use it, if your home kit list matches what is there. Otherwise choose Travel and take the session that always works. Either banks the week.
Tick what you own. The programme does the rest.
Home, gym or hotel: BANKED fits the session to the room and keeps one progress log across all of them. Free.