There are plenty of great apps to keep track of your running mileage, and a clear winner when it comes to cycling (Strava, duh). But it's a bit harder to pick a winner when you're lifting in the gym. Until recently, all the apps were clunky and hard to use. Now... well, only some of them are.

Putting together a bodyweight workout routine is easy: just do some pushups, and some squats, and some...uh...other stuff. To get a balanced workout, you have to know which exercises target which muscles. Which is why we love this bodyweight exercise chart from Darebee.

How's the bench press challenge going? Hopefully you've managed to lift something, whether that's a traditional barbell, or dumbbells or weights of any size. Today we're looking at another challenge that you might face if you don't have a fully equipped gym: how to bench press without a bench.

Summer is a great time to get in shape — you can enjoy the non-freezing weather, the longer days and, depending on your line of work, you might have more free time. But then a holiday happens, and your fitness goals take a back seat for a little while. Here’s how to minimise the damage.

We’ve squatted and we’ve deadlifted, so it’s about time we tackle the bench press.

And we’re doing it with room for everybody: Even if you’ve never tried, and are perhaps slightly terrified of dropping the bar on your face, you can still join in.

We’ve been through a lot in our October fitness challenge. We committed to doing some deadlifts, we psyched up and stretched out, we experimented with single-leg moves and unusual objects, and we learned how to get plates on and off the bar without a struggle.

Now it’s time to settle up: What did you accomplish, learn or otherwise experience this month?

I hope everybody's having fun in the deadlift challenge, but if you're not, is it because you don't have a barbell to lift? We covered some dumbbell and bodyweight alternatives last week (the trick is to do the deadlifts on one leg), but here are some more options for when you still want to lift something heavy, but you don't have convenient equipment.

Hope everyone's enjoying the deadlift challenge! Even if you're an old hand with free weights, deadlifts can be tricky to set up because the bar is on the ground, not on a rack, and you'll soon be dealing with weights that are heavy enough to be unwieldy.

We're deadlifting this month, and I'd love to hear how it's going for everyone so far. (I did one workout already, and will try to get in two next week.) But if you're new to this, or if you find the move intimidating, we have some suggestions for how to prepare.

Welcome back, friends! We’ve done a lot of bodyweight exercises in our fitness challenges, and last month we got out on the road for some running or walking. This month we head into the gym for some heavy lifting — but don’t worry, even if you don’t have a gym membership we’ll have options for you too.

If the phrase “lift with your legs” never made any sense to you, you aren’t alone. Trying to follow this advice can feel awkward, unnatural and ineffective — even though it isn’t wrong, exactly. Here’s what you’re missing.

You can get fit by running outdoors, or by exercising at a fancy gym, but in the end all your muscles care about is that they got to contract a bunch of times. Need a workout you can do when you’re stuck in one place with no gear? Ask a former prisoner.

How much weight do you need to lift to get stronger? A new study suggests it isn’t as much as you think — but more is still better when it comes to muscle size.

We’ve talked about handstands in our upside-down challenge, and attempted to balance on our heads yoga-style as well. Today’s focus is less about balance and more about how getting sort of upside-down can help you work on strength.

We all hit a slump near the beginning of a fitness program. Not at the very start, when we’re excited to get going — more like a few weeks in. It may take six weeks to notice more muscle or better endurance, but how do you get through that time without losing hope?

Squatting seems so complicated when somebody is telling you all the things that can go wrong — knees behind toes! Butt farther down! Head up! But not too up! If you’re following our challenge, you’re probably doing a lot more squats than you ever have before, so let’s talk about how we’re doing them.

Squats can be as hard or as easy as you want them to be. If you’re doing 100 a day, you may need to ease up to be able to get your quota in without making yourself too sore. And if you’re a total beginner, you may find the simplest squats to be more than enough of a challenge. Here are a few to try.

Get ready for strong legs and a poppin' butt, because July's fitness challenge is squats! This is the classic lower body exercise for a reason: Squats build pretty much every muscle below the waist, and there are a ton of variations for all fitness levels.

It's a beautiful day and we're going on an adventure! For the May instalment of the Lifehacker Fitness Challenge, your mission is to find a fitness trail (sometimes called a parcourse) near you - they're often hiding in plain sight.