With young children to take care of, fitting a workout into your daily schedule can be very tough. Thankfully, there are a huge range of functional exercises that you can perform from the comfort of your own home, and even from your own sofa!
Choose three to four exercises from the list below and add them to your daily fitness routine. Each exercise takes from one to five minutes to perform, allowing you to get a full workout in every day in as little as fifteen minutes.
• Home exercises for your core:
Exercising your stomach at home is simple. Rest sideways along your couch or use a thin yoga mat to support yourself on the floor. From here, you can perform crunches, a bodyweight resistance exercise that works the rectus abdominus muscles.
Alternatively, lift your legs above the ground and perform slow leg raises. Bring each of your legs up towards your chest then slowly extend them and bring them down to the ground. This exercise targets the lower section of your abdominals.
Finally, roll over onto your side and support yourself using your arm. Put your body in a fixed, straight-line shape and perform a side plank hold. This exercise firms your obliques – the muscles that prevent you from developing dreaded love handles.
• Home exercises for your arms:
You don’t need dumbbells to work your arms. Grip the edge of your sofa or use the back of a dining chair to perform dips. Extend your feet on another chair to increase the difficulty, or lower them to the ground to make the exercise easier.
Likewise, you can sit on the edge of your sofa and lower a small weight behind your head to perform an improvised triceps extension. Both of these exercises will firm up the muscles on the back of your arm, and prevent the dreaded ‘skinny fat’ look.
• Home exercises for your legs:
You can easily combine a leg workout with your favorite television shows. When the television cuts to an advertising break, stand up and do bodyweight squats in front of your sofa. Ten squats during every ad break are enough to keep your legs fit and firm.
Alternatively, you can perform sets of lunges in your living room. Use your sofa to support your rear leg, and then perform one-legged squats or lunges. Place your front foot close to your body to focus on your quadriceps, and further away to focus on your butt.
These simple exercises are all it takes to build a fit, firm, and healthy body in the comfort of your own home. Pick 3-4 exercises from the list above and try to work out every day. You’ll feel more confident, more energetic, and far healthier!
This article was written by AHF, one of the UK’s top suppliers of lounge and bedroom furniture. Visit their website using the link above to learn more. All images courtesy of Shutterstock.
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