These simple habits will help improve your health and make you stronger by the day.
Photograph: Kind courtesy Jacqueline Fernandez/Instagram
You may be keen to lose some ounces of weight and look fit and fine.
Routine physical activity is central to life-long health and well-being.
Among other benefits, adequate physical activity improves muscular and cardio-respiratory fitness, enhances bone and functional health and helps prevent depression and promote mental health.
To jump-start your new fitness regimen, here are the five exercises you should do for a healthy lifestyle:
1. Walking
Try to walk at a brisk pace for at least 30 minutes on most days of the week.
If your schedule is tight, split up the walking into 10-minute breaks.
By doing this, our glute muscles get active, which become notoriously weak due to prolonged sitting.
Weak glute muscles can lead to back and hip pain.
Besides burning calories, walking also helps to improve heart health.
2. Bent-over rows
In our busy lives, most of us have our chest muscles in a tightened position throughout most of the day, be it driving, working in front of the computer or checking out your phone.
When the chest muscles are tight, the muscles at the back are weak.
To focus on stretching your chest muscles, try this exercise.
Here, your feet will be under your hips with your knees slightly bent.
Hinge forward from your hips, keeping your back flat and core braced.
Lift up your elbows and bring them high and wide. Stop the elbows at shoulder height before carefully lowering back down.
3. Squats
An another effective exercise, squat is one of the basic movements performed by us often in our daily lives.
Just think how many times we either stand or sit throughout the day.
To do this exercise, stand with feet hip-width or slightly wider, and toes slightly turned out.
Keep your chest lifted and inhale to lower and exhale to rise.
Do ensure that your knees are going towards your toes and not too far from them.
Lower your hips as low as your flexibility allows or bring your hips just above the knee level.
4. Upright rows
This exercise helps you to strengthen your shoulder muscles.
To perform this exercise, stand with legs shoulder-width apart and hold a pair of dumbbells down by your sides.
Then bend your arms at the elbows, lift your elbows out to the sides to shoulder height.
After that, lower back your arms down and repeat the same steps above.
5. Planks
Considered as a core exercise, our shoulders, glutes, triceps, calves and chest muscles all get active when our entire body is undergoing a rigorous physical activity.
An important thing is to make sure that you breathe and keep your stomach pulled in.
To perform this exercise, place your hands and feet on the floor in such a way that your hands and the pads of your toes are pressing into the floor.
Ensure that your body is in one straight line (from your head to feet).
If you are on your toes, press them back through your heels and keep your hips in line with your spine.
Tilt your chin away from your chest so that your neck stays long.
Also, take good deep breaths.
If you come down to your knees, make sure that your hips are in line with your body.
Lead image published only for representational purposes.
