THE ARTICLE · 15 MIN
DAREBEE, at darebee.com, is a large, free library of illustrated home workouts. This guide sets out what is on the site, how to find a workout that fits your goal, your time and your level, how its programmes and challenges work, and what research says about the kind of training it offers. We have no connection with the site, accepted nothing from it, and earn nothing from the links on this page.
What you get
DAREBEE describes itself as “a free, ad-free, independent fitness resource”, with workouts, programs, challenges and guides “available without sign-ups, subscriptions, or strings attached”. Its getting-started page says: “No account is needed to use anything on the site.” Most of it is built for a patch of floor at home; the same page says “No equipment required for most workouts.”
The site is organised into five main shelves:
- Workouts. Single sessions, drawn as posters that show, in the site’s words, “the exercise, the form, the reps, the sets” at a glance. Each workout page has a built-in timer and set counter. On 1 October 2026 the workouts page listed 2,809 workouts in its database.
- Programmes. 30 to 90 days of pre-planned training, one workout a day. The programmes page lists “95+” of them.
- Training plans. 7-day schedules that say what type of workout to do each day, while you pick the workouts.
- Challenges. Usually 30 days, with a preset daily task of about 3 to 5 minutes. The challenges page lists “170+”.
- Guides. Short reads filed under exercise, combat training, health, nutrition, recovery, running and well-being.
Around them sit a Workout of the Day, which always comes with a how-to video, an Exercise of the Day that takes under 60 seconds, a video exercise library, and free PDF collections of workouts.
Every workout, programme day and challenge day has a DONE button. Pressing it adds the session to a dashboard with your streak and history. That record lives in your browser rather than in an account, so the site points to its Backup & Restore feature before you switch devices or clear your browser data.
How to choose a workout
The workouts page filters by type (strength, cardio, metcon, HIIT, combat, stretching, wellness and yoga), by focus (full body, upper body, lower body or abs), by difficulty (light, easy, normal, hard or advanced) and by equipment (no equipment, dumbbells, pull-up bar, kettlebells and a few others). The site’s getting-started page suggests five minutes with its Workout Manual first, which explains how to read a poster, what reps and sets mean and what the difficulty levels contain.
By level
Difficulty runs from 1 to 5, and the manual defines each level by the moves you will meet:
| Level | What the manual says you will see |
|---|---|
| 1 · Light | Standing and seated exercises, for beginners or limited mobility |
| 2 · Easy | Low-impact work: floor work is fine, but no planks |
| 3 · Normal | Jumping jacks, lunges, squats, high knees, planks, wall push-ups |
| 4 · Hard | High-impact moves such as push-ups, jump squats and burpees |
| 5 · Advanced | Complex calisthenics, including pull-ups |
The getting-started page adds a tip in its own words: “Start one level lower than you think.” It explains that the number “describes the hardest moves you’ll meet, not how tired you’ll be”. The manual suggests picking a level by looking at the exercises listed for each “and ask which ones you can comfortably do today”.
For a starting point of your own, the site has a fitness test that takes 8 to 10 minutes with no equipment and gives three levels, for cardio, lower body and upper body, matched to the difficulty filters. A “Set for my level” option on the filters then uses the result. A short quiz about goals, time and situation suggests a programme, plan or challenge to start with.
By time
Most of the site’s strength workouts are circuits, according to the manual, and a circuit poster offers three volume options: Level I is 3 sets (about 10 minutes), Level II is 5 sets (about 15 to 20 minutes) and Level III is 7 sets (about 25 to 30 minutes). So one workout can take about ten minutes or about half an hour. These Roman-numeral levels are separate from the 1 to 5 rating: the manual says the 1 to 5 levels describe “how demanding the exercises themselves are”, while Levels I to III let you choose how many sets to do.
A circuit runs through every exercise before a rest; a classic workout finishes all the sets of one exercise before moving on.
By goal
The manual describes each workout type by what it is for:
| If you are after… | Where the site files it | In the manual’s words |
|---|---|---|
| Stamina, heart and lungs | Cardio | “Boost cardiovascular endurance” |
| Muscle and strength | Strength | “Build muscle and improve muscle definition.” |
| Strength and cardio together | Metcon, HIIT | “Short bursts of intense activity with recovery periods” (HIIT) |
| Flexibility and mobility | Stretching, yoga | “Improve flexibility and mobility.” |
| An easy day | Wellness | “Good for active rest days or easing into fitness.” |
Training plans can also be filtered by goal (general fitness, weight loss, muscle building and recomp) and by how many days a week you have, from 2 to 7.
If a move does not suit you
The site’s exercise alternatives page lists lower-impact swaps: march steps for high knees, step jacks for jumping jacks, half or wall squats for squats, and knee, incline or wall push-ups for full push-ups. The getting-started page says “knee push-ups count as push-ups everywhere on the site”.
A first week
For someone who has never followed a programme, the site points to First 7 Days, a seven-day, no-equipment introduction in which each day is a different kind of training: cardio, classic strength, abs and core, stretching, circuit strength, yoga and HIIT.
Programmes and challenges
The getting-started page offers three amounts of structure and says who each suits. Programmes are “Best if you want to show up and follow, not plan.” Training plans are “More flexible than programs, more structure than going solo.” Individual workouts let you “Build your own rotation”, and for those the site suggests 3 to 5 a week, rotated.
A programme sets one workout a day for 30 to 90 days, “the load already balanced for you”. There are no official rest days: the site says the programming is balanced so you “naturally get lighter and heavier days”, and that if a day feels like too much you can repeat it, swap to a lighter workout or rest.
A new challenge launches at the end of each month, usually 30 days of a daily task that takes about 3 to 5 minutes. Any past challenge can be started on any day, and the site suggests stacking one alongside a main routine. Challenge types include fitness, nutrition, running and self-improvement.
The site sums up the point of all this structure in one line: “The goal is consistency over weeks and months, not perfection on any single day.” For what research says about how long new habits take to form, and why if-then plans help people follow through, see our Atomic Habits summary. The site’s community forum has a “Checking In” section for keeping a public workout log; the forum needs its own account.
What the research says about this kind of training
DAREBEE’s workouts include interval (HIIT) and strength sessions, most needing no equipment, done at home without supervision. The studies below are about those kinds of training in general; none of them tested DAREBEE’s own workouts. They describe groups of people in trials and do not tell any one person what to do. Our nine questions to ask of a study can help in weighing findings like these.
For context. The 2020 paper describing the World Health Organization’s physical activity guidelines says “All adults should undertake 150-300 min of moderate-intensity, or 75-150 min of vigorous-intensity physical activity” a week, or a mix of the two, and that the guidelines “recommend regular muscle-strengthening activity for all age groups”. It adds that they reaffirm the message that “some physical activity is better than none”.
Without equipment. In a 2021 trial, 19 healthy, inactive young adults were split between an 11-minute bodyweight session, done 18 times over six weeks, and no training. The session was five exercises, including burpees and squat jumps, each for 60 seconds at a self-chosen “challenging” pace, with walking in between. Afterwards aerobic fitness was higher in the training group than in the group that did not train; leg endurance, grip strength and jump height did not change. In a 2017 trial of 18 young men, push-ups adjusted to match a light bench-press load (40% of the most each could lift once) built chest and triceps muscle and strength about as well as the bench press, done twice a week for eight weeks. Both trials were small, and we found no systematic review of bodyweight-only programmes in healthy adults. A larger 2025 trial of 319 inactive young men tested short burpee sessions, two all-out 20-second bursts done three to five times a week for 12 weeks. Aerobic fitness rose in both burpee groups, including the one that trained unsupervised in everyday conditions, though that group gained less than the supervised one. What this means when you pick a workout: on this evidence, choosing “no equipment” in the filters does not mean giving up on fitness or strength.
A few minutes at a time. In a 2012 trial of 22 recreationally active young women, seven did 30 minutes of treadmill training and seven did a session of about 4 minutes: eight 20-second bursts of one exercise (burpees, jumping jacks, mountain climbers or squat thrusts) with 10 seconds’ rest between, four days a week for four weeks; eight did not train. Aerobic fitness rose by about 7% in the treadmill group and about 8% in the interval group, and the interval group also improved on tests of muscular endurance, including push-ups and sit-ups. What this means when you pick a workout: in young, active women over four weeks, a short, hard session was enough to move fitness.
Interval or steady. A 2015 meta-analysis of 28 studies with 723 healthy adults aged 18 to 45 found that “Endurance training and HIT both elicit large improvements” in VO2max, the standard measure of aerobic fitness, with a possibly small extra gain for interval training. A 2026 meta-analysis of 69 randomised trials found the same small edge for interval training. What this means when you pick a workout: both steady cardio and HIIT, done over several weeks, raised aerobic fitness in these trials, and the gap between them was small.
Fat loss. Here the reviews differ. Two 2017 meta-analyses, of 13 trials in overweight and obese adults and of 31 studies, found no difference in body fat between interval training and moderate-intensity continuous training; the second added that neither kind of short-term training “produced clinically meaningful reductions in body fat”. A 2026 meta-analysis of 19 randomised trials of interval cycling likewise found it comparable to moderate continuous training for body fat percentage and fat mass. A 2023 meta-analysis of 29 randomised trials in young and middle-aged adults found extra benefits for interval training on waist size and percentage body fat, while calling their clinical significance limited. A 2026 meta-analysis of 20 randomised trials in 745 college students also found interval training lowered body fat percentage more, by about 1.2 percentage points, while rating the evidence for body composition “mostly moderate, low, or very low”. Where the reviews agree: any difference between the two is small. The 2023 review and the 2026 review of college students lean slightly towards interval training, but the 2026 review of interval cycling did not, and a 2025 meta-analysis of 23 trials of sprint intervals found no overall difference in body fat, though fat-mass loss was greater with more weekly sprint time; given the small effects and the low certainty, we read the question as still open. Some DAREBEE pages describe workouts as good for “fat burning”; these trials are the closest evidence we found.
Light and heavy loads. A 2017 meta-analysis of 21 studies compared light loads (up to 60% of the most a person can lift once) with heavier ones, with every set taken to the point where no further repetition was possible. It concluded that “maximal strength benefits are obtained from the use of heavy loads while muscle hypertrophy can be equally achieved across a spectrum of loading ranges”. Those studies used weights, not bodyweight training. Some DAREBEE posters ask for reps “To Failure / MAX”, which the manual defines as “As many reps as possible while maintaining proper form”, adding: “Stop when form breaks down.”
Older adults at home. A 2021 meta-analysis of 21 randomised trials with 4,053 adults aged 60 and over looked at strength training done at home without supervision. “No major adverse events were reported”, adherence averaged 67% (range 47 to 97%), and there were modest gains in lower-limb strength, muscle power and one measure of balance. The authors found no benefit for grip strength, walking speed, quality of life or falls. DAREBEE publishes a collection called Fitness Over 60.
Safety
Talk to a doctor before starting a new exercise programme, especially if you have a health condition or an injury, are pregnant, or are coming back after a long inactive spell.
DAREBEE’s disclaimer, linked at the foot of its pages, says its content “is not medical advice”, and asks anyone who has a health condition, is pregnant or postpartum, or takes medication that affects exercise to talk to their health care provider first. It also says: “If you feel pain, dizziness or anything that doesn’t feel right, stop.”
The site’s warm-up page describes a short, active warm-up before a session and a cool-down and stretch after it. For its own circuits it suggests using the first set as the warm-up, done “slower and with less intensity”, and it keeps a collection of ready-made warm-ups.
Hard sessions and the heart. In a study of 4,846 people with coronary heart disease doing organised training at three Norwegian cardiac rehabilitation centres, there were three cardiac arrests in 175,820 hours of exercise: one fatal, during moderate exercise, and two non-fatal, during interval exercise, which made up about a quarter of the hours. That works out at one event per 129,456 hours of moderate exercise and one per 23,182 hours of interval exercise. With only three events in all, the two rates cannot be compared with any precision. The authors judged the risk low for both interval and moderate training in that setting. Those sessions were organised by rehabilitation centres; a home workout is not, which is one more reason for the doctor’s line above.
Who’s behind it
The site’s press page says DAREBEE “was created by Neila Rey, who began sharing her own no-equipment workouts online in 2012”. Companies House lists DAREBEE, company number 10193570, as an active private company limited by guarantee without share capital, incorporated on 23 May 2016. The site’s privacy policy calls DAREBEE “a non-profit registered in the UK”.
On money, the site says it is “a non-profit, community-funded resource” with “No corporate backing, no advertisers, no sponsors”. Donations are optional.
The privacy policy says your progress tracking “is stored locally on your device, in your browser’s storage (localStorage), not on our servers”, and that the site uses Google Analytics “to see roughly how many people visit”.
The materials are under a Creative Commons licence, CC BY-NC-ND 4.0. In plain terms, the terms page says you may share posters and workouts unchanged, with the copyright visible, but may not sell them, use them commercially, alter them, or put them in a packaged product such as an ebook or app, “even if it’s free”. That is why this page links to the site rather than showing its posters.
The one press article we found is a Men’s Fitness piece from January 2025, also carried by Yahoo, in which two personal trainers describe the site favourably and pick workouts from it.
Sources
- DAREBEE: home page, about, getting started, Workout Manual, workouts, programmes and programmes overview, training plans, challenges and challenges overview, guides, quiz, warm-up and stretching, exercise alternatives, First 7 Days, Fitness Over 60, press, how we are supported, books, privacy policy, terms of use and disclaimer.
- Companies House, DAREBEE, company number 10193570.
- P. O. Blumberg, “The 7 Best Darebee Workouts, According to Personal Trainers”, Men’s Fitness, 8 January 2025 (read on Yahoo).
- F. C. Bull et al., “World Health Organization 2020 guidelines on physical activity and sedentary behaviour”, British Journal of Sports Medicine 54 (2020).
- L. R. Archila, W. Bostad, M. J. Joyner and M. J. Gibala, “Simple bodyweight training improves cardiorespiratory fitness with minimal time commitment: a contemporary application of the 5BX approach”, International Journal of Exercise Science 14 (2021).
- N. Kikuchi and K. Nakazato, “Low-load bench press and push-up induce similar muscle hypertrophy and strength gain”, Journal of Exercise Science and Fitness 15 (2017).
- M. Hu, X. Chen, J. Nie, Q. Shi and Z. Kong, “Real-world efficacy of equipment-free reduced-exertion high-intensity interval training in improving physical and mental health in inactive males: a randomized controlled trial”, Journal of Exercise Science and Fitness 23 (2025).
- G. McRae, A. Payne, J. G. Zelt, T. D. Scribbans, M. E. Jung, J. P. Little and B. J. Gurd, “Extremely low volume, whole-body aerobic-resistance training improves aerobic fitness and muscular endurance in females”, Applied Physiology, Nutrition, and Metabolism 37 (2012).
- Z. Milanović, G. Sporiš and M. Weston, “Effectiveness of high-intensity interval training (HIT) and continuous endurance training for VO2max improvements”, Sports Medicine 45 (2015).
- F. Mattioni Maturana, N. H. A. Zadon, M. Cocks, A. M. Nieß, D. H. J. Thijssen and E. A. Dawson, “Optimising exercise prescription: a meta-analysis examining the dose response of exercise duration on cardiorespiratory fitness following HIIT and MICT”, Sports Medicine (2026).
- M. Wewege, R. van den Berg, R. E. Ward and A. Keech, “The effects of high-intensity interval training vs. moderate-intensity continuous training on body composition in overweight and obese adults”, Obesity Reviews 18 (2017).
- S. E. Keating, N. A. Johnson, G. I. Mielke and J. S. Coombes, “A systematic review and meta-analysis of interval training versus moderate-intensity continuous training on body adiposity”, Obesity Reviews 18 (2017).
- Z. Guo, M. Li, J. Cai, W. Gong, Y. Liu and Z. Liu, “Effect of high-intensity interval training vs. moderate-intensity continuous training on fat loss and cardiorespiratory fitness in the young and middle-aged”, International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health 20 (2023).
- W. Liang, X. Yan, L. Zhao, S. Xu, C. Liu and W. Huang, “Moderators of body composition change in response to sprint interval training versus moderate-intensity continuous training: a systematic review and meta-regression analysis”, BMC Public Health 26 (2025).
- H. Sun, V. V. Khramov, J. Li and M. Wang, “Effects of high-intensity interval training and moderate-intensity continuous training on body composition and glucose and lipid metabolism in college students”, Frontiers in Endocrinology 17 (2026).
- H. Cheng, S. Song, H. Shu, H. Li, M. Tao and B. Liu, “The effects of HIIT and MICT on body fat composition and cardiopulmonary fitness in adults: a meta-analysis of randomized controlled trials”, BMC Sports Science, Medicine and Rehabilitation 18 (2026).
- J. Stefanovic, V. V. Werndle and D. Reljic, “Effects of high-intensity interval training on cardiorespiratory fitness and cardiometabolic health in real-world settings”, Sports 14 (2026).
- B. J. Schoenfeld, J. Grgic, D. Ogborn and J. W. Krieger, “Strength and hypertrophy adaptations between low- vs. high-load resistance training”, Journal of Strength and Conditioning Research 31 (2017).
- A. Mañas, P. Gómez-Redondo, P. L. Valenzuela, J. S. Morales, A. Lucía and I. Ara, “Unsupervised home-based resistance training for community-dwelling older adults”, Ageing Research Reviews 69 (2021).
- Ø. Rognmo et al., “Cardiovascular risk of high- versus moderate-intensity aerobic exercise in coronary heart disease patients”, Circulation 126 (2012).
Checked October 2026. What we read: DAREBEE’s public pages listed above (the workout count and the filters in a browser), its Companies House record, the Men’s Fitness article (on Yahoo), and the studies above (abstracts, plus the full text of the 2026 review of real-world interval training). We used no account, signed up for nothing, downloaded nothing, donated nothing and accepted nothing from the site. Each paper was checked for retractions and corrections on the day.
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