5 Effective Low Impact Workouts

Today, we’re featuring our favorite low impact workouts that still scorch calories! What’s a low impact workout you ask? It’s a workout that doesn’t cause stress to joints and muscles like most common exercises do. A low impact workout requires you to leave at least one foot on the ground throughout the exercise. It’s usually a more mild workout compared to, for example, sprinting or weight lifting—but these exercises can still scorch calories!

Check out our 5 Effective Low Impact Workouts below.

5. Exercise or Power Walking
First up, walking. Yep, it’s as basic as it sounds. Walking has extremely impactful health benefits associated with it. In fact, according to Harvard Medical School, walking is being touted as the ‘closest thing we have to a wonder drug.’ Walking not only helps you stay physically active, it also helps with mental health like anxiety and depression. To get a solid workout in, we encourage you to try ‘exercise or power walking’—a more purposeful form of walking compared to a casual stroll. Use your arms and push each step forward with energy. By adding a slight change to the way you typically move, you can scorch calories during your walks!

4. Indoor Swimming
Next up, indoor swimming! Swimming is great for you because it builds endurance, muscle strength and cardiovascular fitness while allowing you to escape the weight of gravity. It’s especially impactful for people who typically experience pain in weight-bearing exercises or who are overweight and find more typical cardio exercises, like running, difficult and uncomfortable. Swimming not only works out your entire body, it also helps strengthen your lung capacity. It’s a fantastic low impact workout! In just a 30 minute swim, you can scorch upwards of 250 calories. Pretty great right?

3. Indoor or Outdoor Stairs
Next up—the stair master! If you have a stair machine at your gym, give it a try on a low setting, like 5 mph, and try it for 10 minutes. After just a few minutes you’ll be sweating and your glutes will be burning! Stairs are a great cardiovascular and leg workout. When done at low speeds, stairs can be a great minimal impact workout on your joints. If you don’t have access to a stair machine, find a staircase outdoors and add a flight (or two!) to your daily walk to scorch even more calories.

2. Vinyasa Yoga
Ready to try a full body, low impact workout with stretching involved? Try Vinyasa Yoga! This type of yoga involves moving fluidly through different poses in rhythm with your breathing. It’s an incredible low impact workout. The health benefits of yoga have been proven time and time again; yoga works out your cardiovascular fitness and lung capacity, it increases flexibility and muscle tone, improves range of motion, enhances mental health and wellbeing, and so much more. It’s one of our favorite ways to get a full body workout that is also low impact and safe for your joints. It really is time to try yoga if you haven’t done it before!

1. Squats, Squats, Squats!
Last but not least, one of our favorite ways to scorch calories in a low impact way is to do squats—and a lot of them! Squats are low impact because you’re not jumping. Both feet stay firmly on the ground. However, the motion of a squat deeply engages your knees, glutes, abs, and calves, making it a full lower body workout that can quickly get you sweating. Try adding 25-50 squats to your daily workout and you’ll start seeing immediate results. We love this simple, easy, low impact exercise that you can do anywhere!

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