Your first DAREBEE workout is a cardio session, and before you move a muscle, learn to read the card. Five exercises are drawn on it, each with a number beside its name. That number is how many repetitions - reps, for short - you do of that movement: 10 march steps, 10 butt kicks, 10 punches, 10 step jacks, 10 side jacks. You work through all five in the order they are drawn, left to right along the top row and then the bottom, and one complete trip through that list is called a set. The header says 3 sets in total, so when you finish the last side jack you rest for two full minutes, then start again from the top. Three rounds and you are done. That is the whole workout, and it is called a circuit because you keep moving around the list rather than staying with one exercise.

Cardio simply means work that makes your heart and lungs do more than usual, and this session builds it out of the mildest ingredients available. Everything happens on the spot, and not one movement asks both feet to leave the floor at the same time - there is no jumping anywhere on this card. March steps and butt kicks are walking and running taken apart and slowed down to their component parts. Punches bring the upper body into it and give your legs a moment of relief without stopping the session. Step jacks are the classic jumping jack with the jump removed and a step to the side put in its place, and side jacks add a lean and an overhead reach that opens up the ribs and the waist. Every one of them alternates sides, so the ten reps divide evenly between left and right - five each - and no side ever works twice in a row. The two-minute rest between sets is not a courtesy either: it is there so your breathing settles and round two starts from a fair place instead of a desperate one.

March steps: stand tall and lift one knee to roughly hip height, land with the foot flat, and let the arms swing naturally - it is marching in place, nothing more complicated than that. Butt kicks: stay upright and flick one heel back toward your backside while the other foot stays planted, keeping the movement small and controlled. Punches: bring both fists up beside your chin, extend one arm straight out at shoulder height and pull it all the way back before the other one goes, and keep the non-punching hand up by your face throughout. Step jacks: step one foot out to the side and sweep both arms overhead at the same time, then bring both back together as the foot returns. Side jacks: take a wide stance, plant one hand on your hip, sweep the other arm up and over your head and lean gently away from it, then swap. If any of them leaves you gasping, slow down - none of these is meant to be done fast.

Nothing here asks you to jump, kneel or get down on the floor - day one is simply your body finding out it can keep moving for a few minutes at a time.

Make it Harder: Turn the march steps and butt kicks into a light jog on the spot, lifting the knees and heels higher while keeping the rep counts exactly as written.

Make it Easier: Do 6 reps of each exercise instead of 10 and keep all three rounds - a shorter lap around the same circuit is still three laps.

Day 2 is strength training, and the first thing worth noticing is that its card is laid out differently from yesterday's. There is no single instruction at the top telling you to repeat the whole list. Instead every exercise carries its own label in red: 10 reverse lunges x 3 sets, 10 calf raises x 3 sets, 10 bicep extensions x 3 sets, 10 tricep extensions x 3 sets. That changes everything about how you do it. You stay with one exercise until it is completely finished before you look at the next - ten reverse lunges, rest 60 seconds, ten more, rest, ten more, and only then do you move on to the calf raises. This is called straight sets, and it is the format strength athletes have used for the better part of a century.

Yesterday's circuit kept you moving from exercise to exercise to keep your heart rate up. Today does the deliberate opposite. Hitting the same muscles three times in a row, with a full minute of recovery in between, means every set gets your real effort rather than whatever is left over - and effort is what builds strength. The rest is doing half the job here, so take all sixty seconds even when you feel ready sooner. The four exercises come in two pairs that cover the body top and bottom: reverse lunges and calf raises take the leg from the hip down to the ankle, while bicep extensions and tricep extensions take the arm from the front to the back. Since there are no weights involved, the resistance for the two arm exercises has to come from you - clench your fists and keep the whole arm firm and tense through every rep, and the movement becomes work instead of waving.

Reverse lunge: step one foot straight back, lower the back knee until it is just above the floor, keep the front shin upright, then push through the front heel to stand. Stepping backwards rather than forwards keeps the front knee in a friendlier position, which is exactly what you want while you are learning the shape. Calf raises: rise all the way up onto the balls of both feet, then lower slowly - the controlled descent is half the exercise and the half most people skip. Bicep extensions: start with your fists up at your shoulders, then push your arms out straight to the sides, staying tense the whole way, and curl them back in with the same resistance. Tricep extensions: both arms go overhead together, hands lowering behind your head with the elbows staying up and close to your ears, then straighten your arms fully - only the forearms travel.

Four exercises, no equipment, a minute of quiet between each effort - this is what strength training actually looks like once you take the gym out of it.

Make it Harder: Put your hands on your head for the reverse lunges instead of your hips - it takes the arms out of the balancing job and hands the whole task to your legs.

Make it Easier: Rest one hand on a wall or the back of a chair during the lunges and calf raises, and stretch the rest between sets to 90 seconds.

Day 3 goes to the floor and works the middle of your body. The card returns to the layout you met on Day 1 - one instruction at the top, 3 sets in total, five exercises to work through in order - so you already know the drill: run the whole list, rest two minutes, repeat, three rounds altogether. What is new is the last item. Four of the exercises are measured in reps, but the fifth reads 5-count hold, and a count is simply a steady second ticked off in your head. A hold means precisely what it says: you get into the position shown and stay there without moving until the count runs out. It lands at the end of the circuit because it is part of the circuit, and by then you will feel exactly why it was put there.

Your core is not one muscle and it is not just the part you can see. It is the whole belt of muscle wrapping your middle, and its actual job in daily life is to hold your spine steady while your arms and legs get on with things. Today's five exercises approach it from different directions on purpose. Crunches curl the upper body toward the hips and work the abs at the front. Sitting twists rotate the torso and bring in the muscles at the sides of your waist. Flutter kicks, leg raises and the hold all work from below - the legs move or hang while the lower abs hold the position, which is where most beginners discover they have lower abs at all. Notice the numbers drop for the last two exercises, down to 5 reps and a 5-count: that is not a printing slip, it is because those are the hardest items on the card and they arrive when you are already tired.

Crunches: lie on your back with knees bent and feet flat, hands beside your head rather than laced behind it, and curl your shoulders off the floor a few inches - your lower back stays down and your neck stays relaxed, so do not pull on your head. Sitting twists: sit with knees bent and both feet on the floor, lean back slightly, bring your hands together in front of your chest and rotate your torso from one side to the other. Flutter kicks: lying on your back with your head and shoulders slightly lifted, hold both legs straight and off the floor and alternate them up and down in small scissoring movements. Leg raises: from the same position, keep both legs straight and lift them together, then lower them slowly without letting your heels touch down. The 5-count hold finishes it - legs straight and held partway, somewhere in the middle of that range, arms by your sides, and the only instruction is do not move.

Your abs are not a decorative panel bolted to your front - today is the first time you have asked them to do the job they were actually built for.

Make it Harder: Stretch the 5-count hold to a 15-count on all three rounds and keep everything else exactly as written.

Make it Easier: Slide your hands palm-down under your hips for the flutter kicks, the leg raises and the hold - it supports your lower back and takes the strain straight out of it.

Day 4 is a stretching session, and its card looks nothing like the three you have already worked through. There are no sets, no reps and no rest instructions. There are six positions, numbered 1 to 6, and one line of guidance: count to 10 while holding each stretch, for each side. So you move through them in numerical order, hold each one while you count steadily to ten, and where a position has a left and a right version you do both before moving on. One pass through all six and the session is finished. It is genuinely that short - stretching is not a workout you have to survive, it is maintenance you give your body between the days that ask more of it.

Three days of work have gone into your legs, arms and middle, and this sequence is aimed squarely at what they left behind. Position 1 is a standing chest opener: arms straight and drawn back behind your body with the hands apart, which pulls the shoulders back and stretches the front of the chest. Position 2 is the same shape made deeper by clasping your hands together behind your back. Position 3 stands you on one leg and pulls the other knee up toward your chest with both hands, stretching the glute and the back of the hip. Position 4 is the second half of a good morning - hinged forward at the hips with the arms swept back behind you - and it lengthens the hamstrings down the back of your thighs while your back holds its position. Position 5 is a kneeling lunge with one arm reaching straight up overhead, which opens the front of the rear hip and travels up through the ribs. Position 6 is a side lunge: one knee deeply bent, the other leg stretched straight out to the side, which lands in the inner thigh - the one area none of the first three days went anywhere near.

The rule for all six is the same and it is important, especially if you have never stretched before: a stretch should feel like a long, steady pull, never like a sharp pinch. Ease into each position rather than bouncing into it, breathe normally instead of holding your breath, and stop moving deeper the moment it stops feeling pleasant. In the standing positions, keep your knees soft and your chin level. In the good morning hinge, bend from the hips with a flat back rather than rounding your spine over, and go only as far as your hamstrings allow. In the kneeling lunge, press the hips gently forward instead of arching your lower back to fake depth. In the side lunge, keep the straight leg's foot flat on the floor and sit back into the bent side. And expect one side of your body to feel tighter than the other - almost everybody's does.

Nothing to count past ten, nothing to finish out of breath, nothing at stake - today is the day the week gives something back.

Make it Harder: Harder is not a setting a stretch has - if you want more from today, count to 15 instead of 10 and let each position soften a little further while you do.

Make it Easier: Hold a wall or a chair for the standing positions and skip past anything that pinches - a shorter, comfortable stretch is worth more than a deep, unpleasant one.

Day 5 is strength again, but delivered the way Days 1 and 3 were: 3 sets in total, two minutes of rest between them, and four exercises you work through in order before starting the list again. That makes this a circuit, and putting strength exercises inside a circuit is a genuinely different experience from Day 2's straight sets - the muscles get less recovery between efforts and your heart rate stays higher throughout. Same goal, different delivery. Everything today happens lying down: 10 bridges on your back, 10 side leg raises on your side, then 10 reverse angels and 10 W-extensions face down. Remember that the side leg raises are a total, so that is five with each leg - do five on one side, roll over, do five on the other.

Every exercise on this card faces the back of your body, and that is the point. Bridges lift the hips and work the glutes, the largest muscles you own and the ones that sitting down all day switches off most thoroughly. Side leg raises take the outer hip, the muscles that keep your pelvis level every time you stand on one leg - which is to say every single step you take. Reverse angels and W-extensions then work the upper back and the muscles between your shoulder blades, and both are the direct antidote to hunching over a desk or a phone. Notice the bridges are drawn with the arms stretched out overhead along the floor rather than by your sides: that is deliberate, and it means you cannot press through your hands to help. The glutes have to lift you on their own.

Bridges: lie on your back with knees bent and feet flat, arms extended overhead along the floor, then squeeze your glutes and push your hips up until your body makes a straight line from knees to shoulders - no arching your lower back to gain extra height. Side leg raises: lie on your side with your body in one long line and lift the top leg using the hip rather than a swing, keeping the toes pointing forward instead of up. Reverse angels: lying face down with your arms stretched overhead, sweep both arms out and down along the floor toward your hips and back again, keeping your hands hovering just above the ground the whole way. W-extensions: from the same face-down position, lift your chest slightly and pull your elbows down and back until your arms form a W, squeezing your shoulder blades together at the end of every rep - that squeeze is the exercise, and the range is meant to be small.

Everything on this card works muscles you cannot see in a mirror - which is exactly why they were worth starting with.

Make it Harder: Keep your chest and arms off the floor for the entire set of reverse angels and W-extensions instead of resting between reps.

Make it Easier: Bend the bottom knee during the side leg raises for a wider, steadier base, and let your arms rest by your hips during the bridges if the overhead position pulls at your shoulders.

Day 6 is yoga, and the card is read the same way as Day 4's stretching session: six numbered poses, one line of instruction at the top, and no sets or reps anywhere. Count to 10 while you hold each pose, then move on to the next one. Single pass, six poses, finished. What separates this from a stretching sequence is that the poses are ordered as a flow - each one leads naturally into the next, and the spine travels through a complete range of shapes from beginning to end. You do not need any yoga experience, any special mat or any idea what the poses are called. You just need the floor and enough room to kneel.

Poses 1 and 2 are a matched pair done on all fours: the first rounds your back up toward the ceiling with your head dropped, the second reverses it, letting the belly sink while the chest and head lift. Together they take your spine through its two opposite curves, which is why they open almost every yoga session ever written. Pose 3 lies you flat on your front with your hips staying down and your arms straightening to lift your chest, extending the spine further and opening the front of the body. Pose 4 brings the hips back up over the knees while the chest lowers toward the floor with the arms stretched out ahead - it stretches the shoulders and the upper back at the same time. Pose 5 looks similar but is not: the hips settle all the way back onto the heels and the whole body folds down, which turns it from a shoulder stretch into a rest position for your lower back. Pose 6 sits you upright on your heels with both arms reaching straight overhead and your gaze following your hands, standing the spine back up and finishing where the sequence started, only taller.

Breathing is the part beginners forget, so make it the part you remember: breathe slowly and continuously through every pose, and never hold your breath to hold a shape. In the rounding and arching poses, keep your hands under your shoulders and your knees under your hips. In the chest-lifting pose, keep your hips and legs pressed to the floor and go only as high as feels comfortable - you do not need straight arms. In poses 4 and 5, let your forehead rest on the floor and your arms stay long. In the final kneeling pose, sit your weight back on your heels, reach up rather than lean back, and keep your ribs down. If kneeling is uncomfortable on bare floor, put something soft under your knees before you start rather than trying to tough it out.

Six shapes, sixty counts, one unhurried trip through your own spine - that is the entire session.

Make it Harder: Yoga measures itself in breath rather than effort, so if today felt too gentle, slow your counting right down and let each pose last twice as long as it did.

Make it Easier: Fold a towel or a cushion under your knees for every kneeling pose and come only as far into each shape as feels genuinely comfortable.

The last day of the program is a HIIT session, and it introduces the final card format you have not yet seen: time instead of reps. There are three exercises drawn, and beside each one it says 20sec rather than a number of repetitions. That means you work at that exercise continuously for twenty seconds, then move straight to the next - 20 seconds of step jacks, 20 seconds of punches, 20 seconds of butt kicks. All three together make one set. You then rest for 60 seconds and run all three again, three sets in total. From start to finish that is three minutes of work and two minutes of rest, and it is the shortest workout in the week.

HIIT stands for high intensity interval training, and the idea behind it is simple: short bursts of hard work separated by short rests get your heart and lungs adapting faster than the same time spent moving steadily. The intensity is the whole point, and the format leans on it - which is why the rest is only 60 seconds and the working periods are timed rather than counted. If you are wondering why these three exercises look familiar, they should: step jacks, punches and butt kicks all came from Day 1. That is deliberate. You already know how to do them, so today the only new thing to learn is the format itself - the same three movements you did ten times each in week's first session, now measured by a clock and done as hard as you can manage.

The mistake everyone makes on their first interval session is going flat out in the first five seconds and limping through the remaining fifteen. Aim instead for a pace you can hold steadily for the full twenty seconds and finish the set still moving. Step jacks: step out to the side and sweep both arms overhead, keeping the rhythm even. Punches: fists up by your chin, one arm straight out at shoulder height and back before the other goes, and keep the guard hand up even when you tire. Butt kicks: stay tall and flick the heels back toward your backside at whatever speed you can maintain. Use a timer or a clock rather than guessing, breathe rather than holding your breath, and if twenty seconds turns out to be too long, slow down instead of stopping - the interval is the thing you are keeping, not the speed.

Seven days, seven kinds of training, and the last session closes with the same three movements the first one opened with - measured differently and done better.

Make it Harder: Run a fourth complete round of all three exercises with the same 60 seconds of rest before it.

Make it Easier: Work hard for the first 10 seconds of each interval and march gently on the spot for the other 10 - the intervals stay the same length, the effort inside them does not.