Basic Exercises That You Can Do At Home Every Day

UPDATED, December 29, 2021

More households are ditching their gym memberships and finding efficient ways to get a great workout at home. And we’re here to make that endeavor a little easier with our exercise equipment and iFIT personal trainers.

Daily Exercise Can Help Improve Your Lifestyle

Daily movement is a great way to help improve your overall physical and mental health. Exercise, or any movement for that matter, comes in many forms. Running, walking, dancing, swimming, hiking, cycling, lifting weights, and yoga all count towards living a more active lifestyle.

Benefits of incorporating basic exercises into your daily routine include:

Healthy Fat Loss Support – Studies have shown that regular exercise can maintain lower body fat in women (1).
Strengthened Muscular, Skeletal, Skin, and Cardiovascular Systems – Exercise leads to muscle growth, the strengthening of bones, modulate skin diseases, and increased cardiovascular health (2, 3, 4).
Increased Happy Feelings – Exercise has been shown to reduce anxiety and depressive moods (5, 6)
Reduced the Risks of Chronic Illnesses – Living a sedentary lifestyle is proven to increase your risk of chronic diseases (7).
Memory Improvement – Older adults can see improvement in brain health when they engage in regular exercise (8).
Quality of Sleep Enhanced – Daily movement can improve quality of sleep (9).
Increased Libido – Multiple studies support this claim. Increased physical activity can see improvement in sexual function (10).

7 Basic Exercises That You Can Do At Home Every Day

Exercise beginners to extreme athletes can benefit from the basic exercises listed below, which can all be performed with just your bodyweight or added weights for more intensity. However, these exercises are incredibly beneficial to beginners as they build foundational elements of the body for better strength and performance.

These basic exercises are tried-and-true classics that have the potential to deliver benefits to any home fitness routine, subject of course to factors that include performing the exercises properly and regularly and in connection with a workout game plan, and eating healthily. Here we have iFIT trainer, John Peel, to share 7 basic exercises that can be done each day within your home.

1. Squats

Performing a squat is the best exercise for beginners, building a good foundation for your physical strength. This simple movement helps to strengthen the backside of your body (legs and glutes). These two large muscle groups, once strengthened, can increase your ability to perform more exercises and burn more calories during your workout (11).

2. Burpees

Burpees, though strenuous, are also great for beginners. This movement burns a lot of calories, 160 calories for every 17 minutes of performing burpees to be exact according to Baton Rouge General (12). Every piece of your body is involved in a burpee, making it time efficient and oh-so-effective for building strength and endurance.

Calorie burn is dependent on many factors, including sex, basal metabolism, ambient temperature, weight, height, proper workout form, etc. Calorie amounts burned listed above are estimates only.

3. Plank

Beginners to extreme athletes can all benefit from planking. The major difference will boil down to time. Beginners can aim for a 30-second plank hold while more active athletes can push to longer times, 2+ minutes. Planking targets your core, helping you to develop more stability. But during a plank, you’ll also challenge your butt, legs, and arms all at once.

– Side Plank

To challenge you further and mix up your positioning, yet still receive similar benefits is the side plank.

4. Bent Over Row

This exercise is great for shoulder stabilization and back strength. Bent over rows utilize a lot of different muscle groups including the lats, mid/low traps, rhomboids, forearms, biceps, hamstrings, glutes, and spinal erectors. This simple movement has a lot of impact. Beginners can see a lot of gains performing bent over upright rows that translate to better performance across the board.

– Upright Row

Another form of row is the upright row, giving you the opportunity to dig deeper into those muscles for a good burn.

5. Lunge

This exercise is another great tool for building a strong backside. As you build your butt muscles, you’ll also strengthen your core, altogether improving balance. Lunges also help to improve hip flexibility.

– Side Lunge

This is another variation of lunge that will target your glute muscles more precisely while strengthening your leg muscles.

6. Push-Ups

Your arms, core, and chest benefit from performing push-ups. In turn, your posture improves. And because push-ups utilize so many different muscle groups, you’ll burn more calories at once.

7. Shoulder Press

Shoulder, triceps, and trapezius muscles get a lot of attention when doing a shoulder press. But you’ll also benefit the core – obliques, transverse abdominal muscles, lower back, and spinal stabilizers.

Conclusion

While you can perform any of these basic exercises without equipment, a solid exercise machine is another great addition to a home fitness plan. Our treadmills, ellipticals, bikes, and HIIT trainers give you another way to intensify your workouts.

With access to iFIT, you’ll never run out of new ways to use your equipment. Eliminate boredom and head-scratching as you follow personal trainers like John Peel through engaging fitness videos from the comfort of your own home. Try iFIT for 30 days and take advantage of all the workouts and fitness advice that is available.

There are so many benefits to daily exercise, it’s a no-brainer. But it takes time to get into the habit. If you stick it out and choose to move every day, as well as eat healthily, you should see improvements gradually as you strive to improve your health. Ditch sedentary habits and replace them with movement to try and reap the benefits of daily exercise. NordicTrack is here to help!