There are many obstacles to building a better body. There’s the fact it’s damn difficult, all that sweating and grunting, only to spend the next day struggling to walk down stairs. There’s how long it takes, months of calloused hands and clean eating. But mostly, it’s because you have to hand over your hard-earned to spend an uncomfortable hour surrounded by strangers, all of whom look just as unhappy as you are. But a gym membership isn’t a prerequisite to getting in shape. Put simply, your body is probably heavier than your bench press PB. And if you lift it in your living room, you can torch fat just as efficiently as if you’d spent an hour in the gym. Without inhaling anyone else’s perspiration. You should, however, get a taste of of your own. When you’re working with your body weight, compound exercises provide the biggest burn. “‘Compound exercise’ means you are using more than one muscle group,” says Leo Savage, personal trainer at luxury London gym chain The Third Space. “This stimulates an increased hormonal response in the body, raising the potential for muscle growth.” Translation: better results, in less time. Unlike the guys in the gym who spend an hour on bicep curls, you don’t need any equipment to hit all your body’s biggest muscle groups. “You just need to be performing the exercises correctly, at the correct tempo,” says Savage. Tension stimulates growth; by slowing down your reps, your muscles spend more time under tension, which means they get bigger quicker. “So don’t rush through the movement with the aim of getting as many reps done as possible.” Using less weight, but perfect form, means better results than cheating with the biggest weight plates. It’s also handy for avoiding A&E. Savage’s circuit might look simple, but after your fourth round, you’ll understand how appropriate his name is. That fire in your lats and thighs means it’s working. If nothing’s burning, you’re moving too fast. “Take four seconds to go down, hold at the bottom of the rep for two seconds, then back up over one second,” he says. “Use the same tempo for each rep of each exercise.” And when you’re crumpled up on your carpet between rounds, just be thankful that no one’s trying to cut in.