No matter when you start a new workout program, be it for a new year resolution, after a milestone birthday, or to get in swimsuit shape, odds are your search for the best program brought thousands of results.

Some fancy 12 week programs that promise results with HIIT training, others are all-dumbbell workouts that go for 8 weeks with visions of lean, strong bodies. Still others are a mix of cardio, yoga, and strength based workouts where an elaborate home gym set up will get you to the promised physique.

As someone who has designed hundreds of workout programs for just as many clients and athletes, I can say with 100% certainty, the best program out there is the one you will actually do!

In my strength and conditioning coaching days, when athletes didn’t show up for workouts or practices, guess how much better they got?

Same goes for now as a health coach – when I get clients repeatedly making excuses for not doing the plan, I bet you can guess the results they saw?

The most intricate and individualized program won’t yield a single result if you struggle to even do the program.

Which is what prompted this post about my 2 favorite programs to start out with because they require zero financial investment from you – in equipment or in coaches. (I know it seems a little counter intuitive to me being a health coach, but stick with me here.)

1. Walking

I know! It’s so NOT sexy, right?!

But walking is my top exercise program if you’re looking to go from hardly exercising to consistently exercising. And I’m talking a good paced walk, not the pace where you could meander and chat while sipping a White Claw.

And here’s how I’d recommend going about it:

Start with a duration you know you can do everyday (or, let’s be real, MOST days). I’ll use 5 minutes as an example. 

Walk 5 minutes on most days for 2 weeks.

For week 3 – 6min

Week 4 – 7min

Week 5 – 8min

… and so on until you’re up to 30min most days of the week.

In less than six months you’ll be walking 30 minutes on most days of the week and have racked up over 100 miles of walking! (and that’s assuming only a 3.0 mile per hour pace. I bet yours will be faster).

It also means in less than six months you will have gone from doing basically zero to averaging about a mile per day. In LESS THAN SIX MONTHS!! That’s a massive success.

At first it may sound silly to go for just five minutes, but it’s not about the duration at the beginning, it’s just about DOING IT.

Because remember, the very best program there is, is the one you will actually do!

2. Bodyweight Circuits

Maybe walking isn’t your jam, maybe it’s really inconvenient for you to leave the house to go for walks, or for whatever reason walking isn’t going to work for you. Enter bodyweight circuits.

Again, zero equipment and zero financial investment from you is required. All you need is you and 30ish square feet of space (at most).

And here are a couple ways I’d recommend going about it:

Method 1: AMRAP (As Many Rounds As Possible)

After warming up a bit, pick 4-5 exercises (you can find inspiration on my YouTube channel) and decide how much time to start with (again, something like 5-10 minutes is a great starting point).

Then do 1 rep of each exercise the first round; 2 reps of each exercise the second round; 3 reps the third round; and so on until your designated time runs out.

You can repeat the same exercises, trying to get in more rounds each time. You can also pick different exercises to keep it fresh. And after the first couple weeks, begin adding on time (and thus rounds) to keep progressing.

Method 2: Reps-based.

After warming up a bit, pick 3-5 exercises (again, find inspo on my YouTube channel) and pick a number of reps you’d like to do in a set (typically anywhere from 8-12 will be a good number).

Then do one set of each exercise as a “round”. And do as many rounds as fit into your time frame. 

Neither of these methods are a ‘race’ so to speak, but you can find yourself progressing as if you’re able to get more rounds/reps into the same time frame.

The Best Program

Again, the best program in the whole wide world is the one you’ll actually do.

Most programs go from 0 to 100 in the first week, meaning you go from doing little to doing a lot really early on in the program. So if you’re worried about wasting money on yet another workout program that tries the same strategy… try something else instead!

Try one of the methods above and start small. Instead of going from 0 to 100, go from 0 to 1 and 1 to 2…

Not only are you building a habit that’s set up from the beginning to be sustainable, odds are you won’t even notice the increasing challenge of it because the one minute increments are so small!