Easy Low-Impact Exercises That Anyone Can do

High-impact exercises have its place in the world of fitness. However, if you’re looking to increase your fitness level and pounding pavement doesn’t appeal, here are a handful of low-impact exercise options that deliver results.

And it’s important that all of these won’t put extra stress on your joints.

Walking

You walk every day, but how do you turn this into an exercise worthy of breaking a sweat? Try increasing your speed, swinging your arms, holding weights, and/or adding intervals (short bursts of speed or a hill climb) to your regular walk to up the intensity. Walking up stairs is also a great way to raise your heart rate and blast more calories during your walking workout.

Hiking

Changing terrain requires a lot of work from your lower body and walking up a mountain involves your largest muscles—the glutes, hips, and thighs; just what you want from an intense cardio workout. You can burn even more calories by adding a backpack!

Swimming  

This is a low-impact exercise that delivers dramatic results. Swimming improves the condition of your cardiovascular system, but also increases muscle mass and flexibility without taxing your joints. In fact, swimming has even been shown to have beneficial effects on such conditions as arthritis. Most local YMCAs and many gyms have pools, so add laps to your routine to increase your stamina and shed pounds.

Rebounding

This lesser-known exercise provides a potent low-impact workout while making you feel like a kid again. Bouncing for up to 40 minutes a day, five days a week on a mini-trampoline has shown to increase heart health and provide amazing benefits to the immune system due to the vertical movement’s specific effect on de-stagnating lymph fluid. Be sure to invest in a high-quality rebounder for optimal results, like this one on Amazon. 

Biking  

A great workout for the entire body, you should try biking if you want to develop great muscle tone on your legs, glutes, and hips while trimming your waist and increasing your cardio capacity. Biking regularly can significantly decrease your risk for heart disease and can also reduce stress—even short rides daily make a noticeable difference in a short period of time. Best of all, you don’t need to start out buying fancy equipment, you just need an all-purpose bike to get outside and start riding.

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Leann Forst, MBA, CHC, CEOC — Holistic Health Practitioner

Leann is a Board Certified Holistic Health Practitioner and Certified Essential Oils Coach. She holds a Master’s degree from Drake University and a Bachelor of Science from Upper Iowa University. Accredited by the American Association of Drugless Practitioners, Leann is an award winning author of 2 books “How to Get Your Kids to Beg for Veggies” and “100 Ways to Lose Weight”.

Born and raised as an Iowa farm girl, she moved to Texas in 1998 where she lives with her husband and 2 kids.

As a wife of a brain cancer survivor, Leann has a special interest in anti-cancer nutrition and detoxification. She works with individuals and groups, and speaks regularly at hospitals, schools and organizations. Leann’s goal is to teach people how to attain optimal health by getting to the root cause of chronic and inflammatory conditions, while using healing modalities such as essential oils. Click here to get Leann’s free report, “37 Cancer Facts You Should Know…But Probably Don’t”

Resources

Find a swimming pool: http://www.swimmersguide.com/

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