Skip to main content

7 Low Impact Exercises for a Fitter You

Yoga’s health benefits seem endless, making it a great low impact exercise to keep you healthy and lean. Not only does practicing yoga help you drop pounds and build muscles, it can also reduce pain, boost mood, lower blood pressure and encourage sleep.

What makes yoga so effective and simple is the fact that it’s a low impact exercise, manageable for people of all ages and body types—those with different ailments, aches and pains, as well as varying levels of stress or motivation.

Anyone can perform basic yoga poses, even if it requires making minor adjustments. If you are just starting out, don’t push yourself too hard to go deep into your stretches to start. You can work your way there. Yoga should be soothing and nurturing to your body. It definitely shouldn’t hurt.

On the Nutrisystem program, we recommend 30 minutes of physical activity each day. Consider adapting a yoga practice to shed some pounds, take care of your body and create some peace in your life. We know once you give it a try, you will become a believer just like us! There are so many options when it comes to yoga for beginners. It’s as simple as breaking out the yoga mat and running through these yoga videos on The Leaf. Every move has step-by-step instructions on how to execute the low impact exercise.

Seven yoga moves you should try for your low-impact exercise:

1. Butterfly Pose >


For the ultimate hip stretch in a soothing and peaceful move, look no further than the Butterfly Pose. This is a great pose for deep stretching in the hips, thighs, groin and knees. Sink into this simple stretch with feet pressed together and knees pointing out to the sides, creating butterfly wings with your legs. Make it a go-to pose for hitting those areas of your hips that are often overlooked, nurturing fatigued muscles, relieving stress and even potentially reducing pain associated with PMS and menopause! Try it here >

2. Cobra Pose >

Snake into this low-impact exercise to strengthen the shoulders, abdominals and glutes. It can even open and stretch the chest and back. Cobra Pose may help sufferers of asthma and sciatica, provide comfort for overworked and stressed muscles and improve flexibility. Breathe through the elongating and soothing stretch, with care not to overextend your back, which can lead to injury. Try it here >

3. Downward Facing Dog >

This is a classic pose that even non-yogis know and love. It’s a great standby to slip into for a quick midday stretch at the office, an unwinding routine after a long day or post-workout relief. Targeting the back, shoulders, arms, hamstrings and calves, this simple and blissful pose is a finger to toe stretch that has the power to help relax your entire body, calm anxiety, increase energy, soothe digestions, improve your mood and more! Try it here >

4. Cat and Cow Poses >

The cat and cow pose combination is a fabulous stretch to soothe and strengthen the chest, back and neck, while helping to reduce stress and aid in the flow of the digestive system. Performing these poses together is also associated with improved posture over time and lengthening of the spine. Once you get your groove of smoothly transitioning from one pose to the next, you’ll slip into back, neck and chest soothing heaven. Try it here >

5. Chair Pose >

Spending all day in the car… or at a desk? You need a low impact exercise that will undo this burden on your body. Add Chair Pose to the routine. This yoga for beginners move will reactivate those leg muscles without any rapid movements or heavy weights. Just squat and rise to your toes. You’ll better your balance over time, so don’t feel silly if it takes awhile to ace the pose. Try it here >

6. Warrior II >

Welcome a low impact exercise that actually has an impact, because this pose might have you feeling a bit like a warrior. Warrior II is a fantastic way to ignite and stretch all of the muscles in your body. Legs to arms, you’ll definitely feel it. Extend one leg back and bend the other forward, as if performing a lunge. Just remember to keep your knee at a right angle to the floor to avoid straining your joints. Stretch out your arms, and keep your gaze forward. Try it here >

7. Modified Side Plank >

Want to tone your tummy? Modified Side Plank it is! Yoga for beginners is turned on its side with a low impact exercise that targets your belly regions. As the name implies, Modified Side Plank is a pose that requires raising off of the floor and balancing on one side. Our quick video demonstrates it all in less than a minute, but you’ll feel yourself hitting muscles you’ve forgotten you even have. Even if you do crunches all day (a massive strain on your neck by the way), you’re not getting that laser focus on your sides. If you’re targeting a whole muffin top region, you’ll want to get it all! Try it here >*Always consult a doctor before beginning any exercise routine.

The post 7 Low Impact Exercises for a Fitter You appeared first on The Leaf.



Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

The Best Source of Vitamin D

If one is going to make an evolutionary argument for what a “natural” vitamin D level may be, how about getting vitamin D in the way nature intended—that is, from the sun instead of supplements? I run through the pros and cons in my video The Best Way to Get Vitamin D: Sun, Supplements, or Salons? . Though supplements may only cost about 10 dollars a year, sunlight is free. We never have to worry about getting too much vitamin D from sunlight, since our body has a way to regulate production in the skin, so if we get our D from the sun, we don’t have to trust poorly regulated supplement companies not to mislabel their products. Indeed, only about half the supplement brands that researchers tested came within 10 percent of their labeled amount. Sunlight may also have benefits beyond vitamin D, such as how our body may use the sun’s near-infra-red rays that penetrate our skin to activate chlorophyll by-products in our bloodstream to make Co-Q10. (See my video How to Regenerate Coenz...
Post a Comment
Read more

Monday Motivation: 10 Workday Habits of Healthy People

Spending a good chunk of your day inside an office, plopped and stressed in front of a computer, can take a toll on your health, frame of mind and diet. You’re likely not moving your body enough and perhaps sticking your hand in the communal candy bowl a little too much. Making a few small changes to your workday routine or office space can help you stick to your diet plan, shed unwanted pounds and even sneak in a little exercise and added weight loss motivation! 9 Sneaky Fat Traps at the Office You Need to Avoid Read More Here are 10 simple strategies to help you stay healthy at work: 1. Fill up before work. Eating a nutritious breakfast not only helps provide the fuel you need to begin your workday but can also help you lose weight and keep it off. A survey from The National Weight Control Registry showed that the majority of people who maintained a 30-pound weight loss for one year or more ate a breakfast. Plus, according to Colorado Women’s Chamber of Commerce, studies ...
Post a Comment
Read more

5 Full Body Dumbbell Exercises for Your At-Home Fitness Routine

Overwhelming evidence from numerous studies supports the importance of strength training . It can help you slim down and even support overall better health, including healthy aging. A study funded by the National Institutes of Health found that resistance training may have more impact on bone density than aerobic exercise—which his important to avoid frailty in older age. 1 But for a lot of people, adding strength training to your at-home fitness routine can be intimidating. If you fall into that category, you might be feeling like you don’t even know where to begin. Fortunately, it doesn’t have to be complicated and you can see great success with minimal equipment for your home workouts. Dumbbell (also called “free weight”) exercises are a great place to start for full body exercises. If you’re a true beginner, use light weight to prevent injury or strain and work your way up to more poundage. As you get started with a dumbbell routine, here are five exercises to try. 10 Ten-Mi...
Post a Comment
Read more