If you’ve ever been to physical therapy, the approach to restorative body healing uses repetitive movements, such as core, arm, leg, and butt exercises. Like yoga, physical therapy exercises are healthy and help to increase your flexibility, strength, and balance.
When you’re not healing from an injury, your body is malleable and wants YOU to work out.
That’s our natural way, like horses and greyhound dogs that are born to race. If they’re not galloping and running, they’ve lost the opportunity to do what they’re happily born to do. We as humans, similarly are naturally meant to think, be and do.
When we take the opportunity to get active and move, we gain energy and better our health, and that makes us feel better.
If your body could speak, it would say, “put me to work.”But your mind shares back, “I don’t feel like it,”…and then that puts an end to your physical activity. Your mind wins and you actually lose in that moment.
But if you could convince your mind that exercise is easy, effortless… oh, and fun! …whoaa, that could be a game-changer, and your mind, body and you could all be on the same page.
I’ve found (and maybe you agree), that if you find an easy, almost effortless, and rewarding routine, then you would continue doing (like your lifelong healthy eating diet plan)…
Well, on that mission, I discovered some arm, leg, and butt exercises (described below), that give our overall delicate bodies, better results with little effort, that never gets old, and help you stay young and ageless.
Not to mention, the benefit of exercising without a gym. You can do these exercises when you just need a break (instead of opening the fridge for a snack or when you want to watch a few minutes of television).
If you do get to the gym… we love our gyms! then be sure to make use of the expensive and well-maintained machines.
Arm, Leg, and Butt Exercises For Impact
Let’s start with your butt and leg muscles. Your largest muscles are in your gluteus maximus (butt) and quadriceps (lower thigh just above your knees). One of the best machines you can use is the leg press machine that stretches both, using weight.
If you have access to a gym, then take advantage of that. If you don’t have any specific leg or knee weaknesses (or injuries), start at 90-100 pounds. It’s doable even if you’re a 100-120 pound female (I’ve tested). It’s possible to increase the leg weight above your actual weight. That’s how powerful your leg and butt muscles are.
At first, I recommend trying this for 2-3 repetitions of 10 press exercises (20-30 total), but don’t get on this machine every day. Once or twice per week and giving yourself some rest is good for any muscle group.
If you’re unsure of the weight, you can always start with less weight such as 55-80 lbs, and gradually increase as you warmup.
Ideally, the next day from this butt and leg workout, you should feel something, or a slight tightness, but be able to fully move without pain or any inability. You want to test your experience, and gradually increase weight.
If you find you feel zero soreness the next day, don’t be too shy to add an extra 10 pounds for the leg press, as you want to challenge your muscles in a good way.
Lifting weights has different exercise goals than say yoga. Both have developing strength goals, but in yoga, you’re using your body weight so you can also focus on stretching, flexibility, and balance. In weight training, you want to be careful because you can hurt yourself (if you don’t stay focused on your deliberate and safe movements).
Without using weights in yoga, like say in Fish Pose where your head is hanging backward, you can still hurt yourself, as you’re holding up your 10-20 pound head. So you still want to test and check your body form in yoga.
At Home, Leg, Arm, and Butt Exercises
If you don’t have access to a gym (sometimes I didn’t) or it’s not convenient, you can discover great at-home exercises like I did.
You can do this for the leg press exercises I mentioned above, without a machine.
You can do these exercises against a wall. You would want to do more repetitions for the same or greater results than on the machine.
To start, my first tip is to invest in a set of dumbbell weights if you don’t already own a pair. It’s a vital tool for building strength. I use 10-pound weights that I recommend for your first set of weights. You can grow into them.
For lighter weights, you can get creative and use items like full water bottles.
Ten-pound weights come in handy also if you want to prop a door open and don’t have a stopper, or you need to flatten out a rolled-up poster or rug. …Just some additional multi-purpose ideas!
But back to the leg press exercise… you can stand against a closed door that I recommend so you don’t accidentally make scruff marks on the wall. (Doors are usually painted with a heavier duty, shinier gloss paint.)
So then up against the wall or door, bend your knees so that your legs and feet form a 90 degree right angle to the floor. It’s okay to be greater than 90 degrees like 110 degrees, but not less than 90 degrees to protect parts of your body. Aren’t you so glad you learned geometry in school (…remember the protractor tool?).
Then re-check and be sure your back is completely flat to the door or wall so you have full support. And from there, also check to see if you can see your toes (you want to make sure they’re not behind your knees).
Then once you have the right form, move up and down against the door or wall, with your arms and hands naturally hanging down by your side (and looking straight ahead). When you first start off, just get used to the motion without weights, and then you can add a water bottle or a lightweight on each hand. Then gradually add more weight, like the 10-pound weights. If you want to make an impact on your body, you’ll want to add at least the 10-pound weights when you’re ready.
The other alternative to this at-home leg press exercise is to lay flat on your back. Get in a 90-degree angle with your back/butt to the floor and rest your feet on a wall or solid piece of furniture (about 1-2 feet off the ground). Then, push hard into the wall or solid surface. Do this repetitively.
(For greatest impact, I recommend the other two ways above, first).
Easy Arm Exercises (that will help you tone and strengthen):
Push-ups on your yoga mat or a towel are highly effective. You’ll get that nice toned upper arm that’s appealing. Since you’re using bodyweight only, you can do say 10 pushups every day in the beginning. You’ll see a nice definition in no time. And then you can do them less often to maintain.
The best push upstarts in the yoga Plank pose. Your head can just naturally rest downward or look forward. Then just go up and down. You’ll feel it in your arms. When your knees stay on the mat, they used to call these Girl Pushups. Those don’t really do much for your arms, so try to do the regular Plank pose (boy) pushups… you can do it!
Another arm exercise I do when I get a usual tight feeling in my upper right (because I write a lot), is the one I describe below that I do in the car… you’ll soon learn I’m mindful in the car:-)
In general, you want to stretch out any sore but uninjured muscles (e.g. yoga)…move sore body parts ever so slightly to get the kinks out. Does it feel better when you move in another direction? Then stretching more that way will help you restore.
If you develop a slight soreness in say, your knees, then doing knee motions will help, such as Hindu Squats (bending into yoga Chair pose and coming back up to a standing position in one fluid motion, repeating over and over again).
With back issues, yoga Downward Dog pose and bending forward and touching your toes stretches will help. Then stretch backward and sideways. We tend to lean forward too much in our daily lives.
What you’re doing in all these counteractive moves, is restoring back to equilibrium, and building strength and flexibility in your weaker areas.
For arms specifically, take each arm and stretch it out like an airplane wing and take your wing and put it back behind you as far as it will comfortably go. Then fold your wrists downward. Feel that nice stretch up and down your arms to your shoulders. That should work well for habitual typists.
Those are the type of exercises they would have you do in physical therapy. There are no magic exercises but some will do the trick for your pain. I discovered the winged arms one from my own discomfort. You can similarly make up your own.
I use this method to discover creative yoga poses that restore the body. As a test, I use the “how my body feels” test. If good, then I keep doing it. See how simple that is.
Another way I developed a helpful stretch, was when I was driving and fully stopped at a stoplight. Instead of doing any distractive moves… ah-hem texting, I used those mindful minutes to open up my shoulder and release arm pain.
I took my open right hand and pressed my palm against the back of the passenger headrest (using as resistance), as though I was trying to push the headrest forward.
If you do that, you feel a nice stretch in the back of your upper arm.
Overused Driving Right Leg Exercises
I discovered another driving exercise, to counteract the overuse of our right legs that get overused when driving, braking, and accelerating. Specifically an exercise to restore the muscle in the right hamstring and up to the right butt cheek. This is good for drivers of automatic transmissions and even more so, for a manual or stick shift car…
What you can do when you get home (not in your car), is lay down on your back. You can even do this on your bed. And lift your right leg and cross over your left thigh. Bend your left leg so it forms a right angle to the bed or floor. Then take your right arm and pull your right knee forward while you keep your right leg on your left thigh. So basically you’re creating your own resistance. This brings a nice stretch up your right leg to your butt.
You see how simple that is and you don’t need any equipment other than your body.
I hope I’ve inspired you with some good arm, leg, and butt exercises that can help you keep moving, and growing (being, doing, and thinking). Keeping active, feeling good, and living pain-free helps with happy living… the name of the game for lifelong impact.