We all want to be in good physical health. But unfortunately, due to costly gym memberships, that may be unattainable to a lot of people.  It doesn’t have to be though. In fact, there are many beneficial exercises you can do from home all for FREE. Here are 5 of them.

Push-ups

Push-ups are a simple and effective way of building strength. Doing push-ups can provide us with a host of benefits. Such as:

An increase in your testosterone

Although our testosterone levels drop as we age, exhibiting extraordinarily low levels can be harmful to us. In fact, having low testosterone levels have been linked to lower levels of energy, depression, and even an increased risk of osteoporosis.

Is Low Testosterone Dangerous to Your Health? (healthline.com)

Fortunately, certain exercises can help boost our testosterone levels.  Resistance exercises in particular. This means that by doing push-ups, we can naturally increase our testosterone levels within as little as 30 seconds.

Push-Ups’ Effect on Testosterone (livestrong.com)

Improved cardiovascular health

It turns out, that our risk of cardiovascular disease may be related to the ease with which we can perform push-ups.  A study showed that those who were able to complete 40 or more push-ups had a 96% lower risk of cardiovascular disease than those who could only do 10 or fewer.

How Doing Pushups Can Improve Your Heart Health (healthline.com)

Planks

Planks are a great way to strengthen your core in a very time-efficient manner. I personally do them for up to 1 minute at a time.

If you need an incentive to get into it, don’t worry. Planks also have many potential benefits they can provide

Such as:

Planks can help improve your flexibility

Depending on what variation of planks you are doing, you can help improve the flexibility of a variety of different muscle groups.

For instance, side planks work out your hip, side, and shoulder muscles.

Side Plank How-to, Benefits, Variations, Safety Tips (healthline.com)

Planking exercises can reduce your risk of back injury

Poor core endurance means an increased risk of injury. Therefore, because planks help in strengthening your core, it’s a great idea to do them to avoid such a problem.

Add jumping jacks to your list of daily exercises

Jumping jacks are another free and easy form of exercise.  They take very little time to do and can be very beneficial to us.

Jumping jacks work out nearly every single major muscle in our entire bodies. We can use them to strengthen both our legs, hips, abs and more.

12 Benefits of Jumping Jacks to Boost Your Fitness | The Manual

Walking

As I have mentioned multiple times, walking is VERY important for us. In fact, it comes so naturally to us, that it is one of the only activities on this list that we will not need to think to do. We just do it.

We walk in our homes, at work, in the park, and in the store. If we have a destination, we NEED to walk to at least some extent. Even if it is to the vehicle which drives us to that location.

A couple of examples of the benefits walking can provide are:

Walking can help you maintain a healthy weight

If you want to remain in your desired weight range, speed-walking is a great idea.  Doing this on a consistent basis is even better, as speed-walking regularly can increase our metabolism and help us lose excess calories.

12 Full-Body Walking Benefits, According to Doctors and Trainers (prevention.com)

Walking can strengthen your heart

Studies have shown that walking a minimum of 30 minutes per day 3 times a week has been shown to drop a person’s risk of developing heart disease.

Secret Side Effects of Walking Just 30 Minutes Per Day, Says Science — Eat This Not That

Conclusion

As you can see, there are plenty of ways to get in shape without having to spend money on a gym membership. These exercises offer numerous benefits to us at no cost at all.  The only thing we need to spare is our time and energy.