This column originally appeared in the Looped In NYC newsletter. Sign up here.

Every year when Labor Day passes and America’s favorite season blows in, this Scorpio starts stressing about one thing: I’m another trip around the sun closer to being unable to comfortably bend down and pick stuff up.

I’m OK for now. But if “muscle mass peaks in our 20s or 30s,” as NPR says, now is the time — I’m turning 37 — to actually get serious about strength training for the first time.

A recent Gothamist story about the pull-up bars in Tompkins Square Park gave me an added jolt of inspiration. This city is full of playground fitness set-ups (including a newly renovated one in my neighborhood) where I could work out without paying for a gym membership or even worrying about how to use weights or whatever other machinery they have in gyms.

For some guidance, I asked calisthenics expert Danny Kavadlo — a trainer, author, “non-influencer” and Brooklyn native — to meet me at the Chelsea Park calisthenics playground to guide me through a bodyweight workout routine.

I told him I wasn’t looking to become a subway “Showtime” dancer, just a middle-aged New Yorker who wants to age confidently. And I was immediately reassured by the first thing he said: I’d just need to focus on three exercises.

Watch our calisthenics strength training video here.

1. PUSH UPS

Anyone who’s done a presidential fitness test has a good idea what a push-up looks like — and how hard it is.

But the challenge is the point. Rather than isolating one muscle like you do on a heavy machine in a gym, you’re working your arms, chest, abs and glutes in each rep. Calisthenics strength exercises are like little value meals for your muscles.

“ If you’re taking time out of your busy day, you’ve got a job, you’ve got a kid, you’ve got things you’re doing, and you’re coming down to work out, and you’re doing 10 reps, I want you to get the most out of those 10 reps,” said Kavadlo.

Going into this, my biggest hangup about a playground workout was that I’m a lanky guy with bad posture, so “proper form” doesn’t come easy to me. And without mirrors everywhere like they have in gyms, I was afraid I’d inadvertently hurt myself by doing everything wrong.

“ I like to stay away from right and wrong,” Kavadlo reassured me. “There’s different ways of doing things, and we can get a different yield from doing them.  That’s what’s great about calisthenics … the chance of injuring yourself is pretty low when you’re not hoisting a heavy weight over your head.”

2. SQUATS

My second-biggest hangup about calisthenics was an unfair impression that it wouldn’t do much for my lower half.

”One of the reputations that follows calisthenics practitioners is that we got no legs,” Kavadlo said, graciously. “ But you can train your legs without any external resistance.”

The squat, like the push-up, doesn’t require one “perfect” form or range of motion, Kavadlo said. Feet close together or feet wider apart; arms straight out for balance or hands behind the head; squatting low for 40 straight reps or squatting onto a platform so you’re literally taking short sit-down breaks in each rep.

These variations aren’t right or wrong. They simply tweak the way you’re targeting your muscles and, crucially, allow you to still do the exercise if the standard way is too hard.

A quick note on the Chelsea Park workout scene: We witnessed a true rainbow coalition of bodyweight training enthusiasts. A truck driver on his lunch break. Some seniors. A yuppie couple who came through for about 90 seconds. A 13-year-old who said he learned by copying other people at the park. These playgrounds are for everyone.

3. PULL-UPS

Before you do a single rep of this mack daddy of calisthenics strength exercises, the first step is to get comfortable hanging from the bar.

“ These days, with the internet being such a bastion of hatred and the cesspool that it is, there’s a lot of fearmongering regarding the safety of pull-ups,” Kavadlo said. “But pull-ups are very, very safe as long as we’re engaging our lats, keeping the body engaged.”

After hanging for a bit — which is a workout in itself — I managed to do two chin-ups. (That’s the version where your palms are facing you; it’s slightly easier.)

But like the other exercises, this one also has a lower-barrier-to-entry cousin: the Australian pull-up.

In this variation, you find a waist-high bar, crab walk under it so you’re hanging, and then pull your chest up into the bar.

“By keeping our feet on the ground, we’re keeping a lot more of our body weight in the feet and a lot less in our upper body,” Kavadlo explained.

Gregory Cowan, the delivery driver on his work break, told me between sets of pull-ups that he recently felt inspired by his kids to start working out.

“I am 35 now, be 36 in a few weeks,” he said. “I got four children, they’re in sports. My oldest is 14, and he’s just about as tall as me now. So when I see that, it just reminds me, there’s still more to go, you know?”

His advice to a fellow 30-something dad: “ If it’s two pull-ups you could do, do the two.”

4. In conclusion…

That’s it: Pull-ups, push-ups, squats. Do those strength exercises two to three times a week, Kavadlo said, and I’ll be on my way to building the strength I need without having to step foot in a gym.

His bonus advice: “ Make sure you walk. Make sure you go upstairs. Barring injury or disability, there’s no reason we shouldn’t be all out walking every day, especially in a walking town like New York City. Try to get sleep at night. Drink water. Go out in the sun. Stay away from jerks.”