My journey to a fitter and healthy lifestyle started within commercial gyms. This is where my anxiety or fear of looking foolish always kicked in. Below I have outlined a few home exercises for beginners which I have always found boost fitness levels and strength quickly. These exercises also allow for those first days in the public eye to feel less daunting.
As with any new exercise routine – please for your own safety and peace of mind consult a medical professional prior to starting.
The benefits of home workouts are you can start as slowly as you require. Ramp up the intensity when you are able too. Slow progression is better than no progression and starting too intense can cause injuries, that will slow long term progress.
Tomorrows YOU can be fitter than today’s YOU
Walking
The ultimate complete anywhere exercise
The most basic and most underrated exercise is simply walking, During my years I have always allowed room for walking in my routines.
- From a Run / Walk intervals
- Cooling down
- Simply getting from A to B
Walking may seem dull to most people and is taken for granted by many but the term “walk before you can run” always rings true.
A low impact exercise that can be scaled to suit most people – Include an incline and/or add a weighted vest and the intensity increased very quickly.
Some may comment, This is not an actual home exercise. However, I am fond of walking the stairs and a quick walk around the neighborhood will always clear my mind. A great way to prepare you for the day ahead.
Skipping
Id suggest the purchase or making of a jump rope- but this is not always required
I have used what I’ve heard called the “penguin method” during trips away _ Simply jump and tap your sides with both hands during every jump, This mimics the rope spin and ensures you concentrate upon each jump and is transferable to actual skipping.
Once to get used to basic skipping the variations are almost endless.
Intensity can be increased in many ways -Why not give the below suggestions a go when you are ready?
- Heavy rope?
- Speed ropes?
- Double unders or even triple unders?
Kettlebells
One of my favorite exercises and truly scalable.
The Kettlebell is essentially a weight with a top handle. Kettlebells range in weight from typically 4 to 24kg (8 – 53lb) but can be purchase as low as 2kg (4.4lb) and I’ve seen them in weights of up too 92kg (202lb)
However, id suggests starting weights for women to be 8 – 12kg (17.6 – 26.5lb) and men 12 – 20kg (26.5 – 44lb) dependent upon your starting points.
Home exercises for beginners should not be without Kettlebell exercises and you should start with Swings and Holds for maximum benefits.
These two alone will prep your body like few other exercises
Swings
These can be completed initially using two hands
Room required is enough room to swing a cat but please ensure you do not face any objects that you are fond of ( accidents can occur)
- Place the bell on the floor slightly in front of your legs
- Slightly bend your knees and pick the bell up – your legs will be shoulder-width apart
- Pull the bell between your legs and let it swing behind you then drive it in a smooth motion forwards to around your chest height
You must resist the urge to use your arms to pull the bell up – instead, the bell is driven using your hips
Once the bell reaches its required height allow is to smoothly return to between your legs. Slightly bending your knees in the process to absorb the swing and in preparation for the next swing.
Id suggests a great beginner workout is every minute complete 10 swings. Rest for the remainder of the minute then perform a second set. Complete this for 10 minutes for a super burn – Once this becomes easy to increase the number of swings or reduce the rest period.
Holds
Sounds simple enough but these are a total body work out and should not be disregarded
I complete the below routine for 10 minutes per side. Initially, I found 30 second holds at each position difficult. Record your duration and attempt to increase the times at each stage during each workout.
Hold a bell above your head with one arm – Straight arm – elbows locked out.
Always have your fists pointing toward the sky, the bell should sit against the outside gently on your wrist.
Once this becomes difficult to move the bell slowly and under control to being held at shoulder height.
and repeat until difficult and lower the bell to being held like a suitcase hold for a minute and repeat for your other side.
These two exercises will become intense very quickly but are totally worth it.
HIIT – High intensity
HIIT or High-Intensity interval training is the main principle to many of the routines that I find work very well. You may hear that HIIT does not fit into the section home exercises for beginners but the intensity level is unique to you. Go as hard as your body allows.
Its principle is to ensure you are working at near maximum effort for the duration of the exercise session.
This can be very difficult and can become a battle with your mind but as documented studies show – this is a very powerful way to exercise.
I love high-intensity workouts for the simple reason that they are specific to each and every person completing the session
As long as you are comfortable you could give no more effort at the end of the workout you can stop – if not complete another round
Each day will feel different with so many factors influencing how you feel.
Stress, lack of sleep, lack of recovery, or even injuries can affect the quality of your workout. Therefore, some days they WILL feel very hard and you may have to scale back , But you have to be honest with your self for maximum benefits.
PUSH the intensity if you are able – Scale back if you need to.
In short, HIIT is explained as picking an exercise. Pick an interval of work ( from 10 seconds to many minutes), Then pick a time of recovery ( you should not be 100% recovered before starting the next round), and repeat for a selected duration.
I will explain my favorite HIIT workouts in other posts but as a beginner starting a fitness journey is the first and main hurdle.
The journey does not stop here
The above is a small sample of those Home exercises for beginners I return too still today and I will explain them in greater depth within other posts.
All offer an easy route into exercise for beginners and I will go through others I enjoy within other posts, you will find one you enjoy also and I hope I can aid you in your own journey.
I have found practicing/training at home a great way to ensure I commit to longer-term fitness goals.
Please note the below cautionary note!
Practice makes perfect
But PERFECT PRACTICE – will have long term health benefits and allow for fewer injuries.
If you require any guidance or further information please drop me a message.
Brian
Short-and-intense.com
Owner and author at shortandintense.com , 25 years as a quality and health and safety professional with an in-depth knowledge of functional and corrective exercises. IHoS registered,lead auditor, personal trainer and human movement specialist.
Hi, I read your whole article about home exercises. You have discussed many important issues here. There is a piece of good news for many who are unable to spend time exercising. The beginner can do the work of sitting in the house only because of this. there are so many useful materials which are very important. Thanks, Short and Intense for doing wonderful job. I am going to share it with my family members.
Thank you for your comments – I hope these exercises are useful for your family members
Thanks for writing out this lovely article and I must say its a must for everyone to read and digest.this article is very resourceful about home exercise for beginners. Skipping and walking should be applied firstas to prepare for other exercises. During this exercise, you burn some excessive body fat and you becomes fit.this article is very resourceful. Thanks for the information
Thankyou and yes you have to prepare your body first and build a platform for future success – if you start too intense you may get injured
This article is really valuable and useful to me. Because, health is the key to all happiness and proper exercise good for health. Although I’m not a basketball player, the tips mentioned here will be very helpful for me. Walking is undoubtedly good for our body. Skipping and Swings advice are also effective. I heard this about Kettlebells first. It seems this is a good exercise for muscles. Anyway, thank you so much for reminding that daily exercise is needed. Hope to read this kind of useful article in the coming days.Regards,Ranao.
Thanks for dropping by Ranao
Yes Kettlebells are great for muscles and I will attempt to explain this in other posts- Thanks again
Brian
This was a great and simple to follow guide on home exercises for beginners. You laid it all out clearly and showed series of examples that helped emphasize your various points. This guide will be very useful for my team
This is the type of information some so-called professional bloggers will love to hide from public knowledge. I’m so happy I found your blog
I have bookmarked the article so I can show it to my bodybuilding team. This will be a subject for professional development exercises we have regularly, and the article will be useful for discussion. Thanks for your effort putting this together, you did well with the subject matter.kudos
Thankyou Ola for your comments – I hope this article is useful for your body building team
Brian
Hi Brian,
This is a fantastic informative article about those home exercises tips. Only I have walking and skipping exercise experience from all of those strategies. I am very curious about Kettlebells and other exercise tips. Those are really very helpful but I have little bit concern about those steps’ picture guideline or video instruction. It will be more helpful through video instruction or picture instruction. I am going to save your article for later use. Thanks for sharing.
Thanks for your comment – As I state I love kettlebells and will try to explain further exercises that build on the basics in other posts . I hope you can join me for those
Brian
Hi and thanks,
I found your post very interesting since I am particularly interested in home exercises. I gained close to 15 pounds in the last 18 months. I am not sure if it is due to menopause or a change in my work schedule but I intend to do something about it. I walk already and I hope to incorporate your other suggested exercises.
Thanks again.
Olufemi
Hi Olufemi
Thankyou for the comment – I can understand how a work schedule can allow you to gain a few pounds – this happened to me also – I do hope these exercises help you in your journey
Brian