Workouts Library

Balance training exercises are incredibly important for everyone from the elderly to professional athletes. It is one of the pillars of true fitness, and it just as important as cardiovascular health, strength, and flexibility. What this workout does This routine is excellent for both building balance and toning your body. That’s right, while you are building up your coordination and dexterity, you will also be toning your glutes, thighs, core, and upper body. You’re also going to burn a fair number of calories. You will need… An exercise mat and a physioball. How this routine is structured In this video, we have hand selected 8 different exercises for balance improvement. Our video will show you a demonstration of each exercise before you will begin; this will serve to prep you for the next move, as well as to give you a very short (10 second) breather before we jump into the next movement. There is only 1 round and the workout is 15 minutes total. Calories burned in this workout In the short 15 minutes of this video, a person will burn between 75 and 110 calories. How often to do these exercises for balance These are all relatively low impact moves. Whether used for toning or coordination improvement, you could do this 3-6 times a week. Exercises in this Fitness Health Track workout video Ice Skaters – These are fantastic for toning the glutes and thighs. They also build stability and engage the core muscles. Hold onto a chair if you feel wobbly. Single Leg Dead Lifts – You will feel this in your glutes, hamstrings, and lower back. Modify this move to make it harder by doing the dead lifts with both feet on the ground. Make it harder by doing it on one leg and holding onto a weight as you lower to the ground. Single Leg Overhead Crossovers – While you make the passing motion, upper body muscles have to work in a full range of motion and your lower body must keep you steady and upright. Single Leg Head Nods – To do these, imagine that you are using your nose to write a capital “H”, with the head turn being the connective bar of the H and the nods on each side being the “legs” of the H. This is deceptively difficult, but if you find that you are cruising along without feeling challenged, try closing your eyes while doing the motion. If you can do this exercise without feeling challenged, you should consider moving onto our advanced version (see video library). Kneeling Superman – This is a low impact total body exercise that improves your balance, largely by increasing your core strength. If you need to make this exercise easier, you can modify the move by only lifting one limb at a time, which gives you a more solid platform to do the extensions from. Physioball Full Superman – Make sure that you don’t have anything that you can run into while you do these! You might feel a little silly while doing this one but they work to improve overall agility and control over one’s body. You will feel this one predominately in your lower back muscles. Alternating Rotational Lunges – The rotation while in the lunge position challenges equilibrium. Hold onto a weighted object while you do these to make them more difficult. These are excellent for your butt, thighs, and obliques. Agility Dots (both feet) – You can make agility dotes harder by doing them on only one foot (instead of the more stable option of two feet). This Balance Workout for beginners is not necessarily completely easy, particularly if you have not trained for this particular aspect of fitness. If you need to make any of the moves easier, you can always stand close to a wall or chair in order to have extra support readily available should you start to feel as though you are losing your stability. If you complete this routine and feel as though it was too easy or did not challenge you enough, be sure and check out our Advanced Balance Workout.

Starting a new workout regimen is never easy but starting a workout regimen when you have never worked out before or have taken years off can be downright scary. It takes a delicate balance of keeping your motivation up due to teetering between not making enough headway and working out too hard too soon. So what is the right way to start up an exercise program? “Slow and steady wins the race”. The key is to start easy and try to challenge yourself a little bit more with every workout. As you get closer to your own limits you will start getting sore on the day or two after a routine. If you get uncomfortably sore then you know you have pushed just a little too far. When you hit that mark you need to slow down the pace at which you are increasing the difficulty of your workouts and start looking at other variables to add in such as flexibility, muscle building, and diet modification to help you continue on your path to the body and fitness level that you want. With that approach in mind, this beginner cardio routine was built for those brand new to exercise and those coming back after a long break. Built to be easy enough for even the most out of shape person, this workout is also designed to be easily modified to become harder as you progress in strength and endurance through your first month or two before having to switch to a more challenging routine. This will help you get through those crucial first weeks of habit building without having to worry about looking for new exercises. The following is a more detailed look at each low impact cardio exercise and the different ways to modify each motion from its easiest form to it’s most difficult. 1. Jog in Place Jacks: In its easiest form this is a very slow and light walking in place with a slow jumping jack like motion with your arms. But as you need to progress, change your walking motion to marching, jogging, high knees or full blown jumping jacks, increasing your arm movement speed as you increase the difficulty of the leg movement. 2. Windmill Steps: The beginning level of this exercise is just a simple side step, letting your trailing leg come behind you with a slight tap, as well as adding the large circular arm swing. As you want this to be harder you can drop your hips lower to the ground, adding a squatting position. Increase the step width and speed until you substitute the motion with a lateral jump rather than a step. 3. Static Squat + Punches: Starting with a very shallow squat and a punching motion without any extra weight, only hold your squat for a few seconds before coming up continuing your punches. As you progress stay down longer (until the maximum time), squat lower, and start using dumbbells with your punching motion. Do not, however, speed up your punches, especially if using extra weight. 4. Static Lunge + Curls: Start with a shallow lunge with your feet relatively close together and either very light dumbbells or possibly only arm weight for your bicep curls. As you progress, lunge deeper and with your feet further apart and increase the amount of weight you use with your curl. Do not increase the speed of your curl. 5. Static Lunge + Tricep Extension: With this lunge position only the front leg is bent and the rear leg is extended straight. Start with a shallow lunge and little to no weight in your hands. When you want more of a challenge, increase the depth of the lunge and the distance between your feet as well as the amount of weight you are using for your tricep extension. Do not increase the speed of your tricep extensions. 6. Fingertip to Toe Jacks: Start with a slow leg lift reaching to your toes each time then increase the height of the leg lift as well as the speed of the leg until you are actually hopping back and forth from leg to leg with only one foot on the ground at a time and moments when both feet are off the ground. At this pace you will need to alternate one hand going up while the other is coming down. 7. Stutter Step: The easiest version of this exercise is still hard but start with all of your weight in one leg with only a slight bend (or even keep it straight), placing the opposite leg back only a few inches behind you and driving the knee up in front of you slowly as you bring your hands down. Increase the depth of your squat on the supporting leg while extending the moving leg further and further behind you. At the same time, start increasing the speed of which you move your arms and leg. This low impact cardio workout is an ideal starting point for beginners. This is also a great workout for obese people, or for those who are otherwise overweight. It has been specifically designed to have an emphasis on low impact exercises that raise the heart rate while causing minimal stress to the joints.

Overview Unlock new strength and agility with this dynamic mobility workout! Boost range of motion, break plateaus, and enhance performance using our flexibility and mobility flows — no equipment needed.

Overview Test your heart, muscles, and brain in this remix of Brian’s first workout video, the ever-popular and efficient Quick Dumbbell and Cardio Circuits!

Overview This total body workout combines lower and upper body exercises with focused core work, using dumbbells to build both cardio and strength.

Overview Mobilize your hip and glute region while simultaneously utilizing muscle engagement to gain strength!

Overview Target your glutes and thighs while improving the alignment of your back, hips, and knees with this low impact Pilates workout.

Overview Test your total body coordination, engage with your glute strength, and improve core stability all while staying on the mat. Use this as an express workout or repeat it a second time for an extra burn!

Overview Get ready to sweat with no jumping and no equipment! This creative routine gets your heart rate pumping with all-standing, low-impact exercises and will take you less than 25 minutes.

Overview Have fun strengthening your lower body, upper body, and core throughout each circuit of this total body routine (which also comes with a bonus plank finisher).

Overview These upper body stretches provide the perfect solution for maintaining healthy movement. Improve your posture and reduce stiffness in just a few minutes a day!

Overview Boost flexibility and reduce stiffness with a targeted mobility workout! Improve your range of motion, support joint health, and enhance functional strength in just under 30 minutes a day.