While working out from home, have you ever thought of using a chair for working out?
The good news is that you can do easy chair workouts for almost your entire body.
In fact, chair exercise is safer than other workout variations if you know how to use them correctly.
What are the easy and effective chair workouts at home you can do?
Keep on reading.
Are The Chair Workouts Really Effective?
Sure they are.
Are we aware of the hidden health benefits of this low-impact exercise?
Like any other form of exercise, if you do it correctly, chair workouts can certainly help you to:
* burn calories,
* increase blood circulation,
* strengthen and build muscle mass,
* improving your posture and alignment,
* enhancing balance and preventing falls,
* potentially support and boost memory.
There are many different forms of exercise you can do with a chair, at home, or from your workstation which we will lay out more here.
How Can You Burn Calories While Sitting?
Do you know that sitting can also help to burn calories?
Yes, you heard it right. The human body is incredible. Even if you don’t move and just sit, your body can be burning calories through the metabolism process.
How? Follow these few ways to see if it works for you or not.
1. Always maintaining a good posture when sitting helps to relax your shoulder and neck by pulling them back. A good posture also helps to strengthen the abs and straighten the back. This eventually gets the muscles involved to be more engaged to increase energy(1) to burn calories.
2. Laughing. Haha, I’m laughing (genuinely) now at my desk! A study in 2007(2) reviewed that genuine laughter even for 10 minutes contributes to burning more calories.
This works by increasing your energy expenditure and heart rate between 10 – 20% more than when you are at rest. Try watching comedy series or movies on TV and get ready to burn some extra calories at home.
3. Keep your body hydrated all the time. Drink more water daily as research has shown extra water intake helps the body to burn more calories through increased metabolic rate by a process called thermogenesis (3).
4. Enjoy your food slowly. Don’t rush when having your routine meal, chew them thoroughly and slowly instead. Another study(4) published in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition suggested chewing your food properly helps to burn about 10 more calories for every 300-calorie meal.
5. Try to take spicy food containing hot chili peppers if you can handle them. Research (5) has shown that all types of chili peppers contain an extract called capsaicin helping your body to generate more heat, thus burning more calories and enhancing fat oxidation at the same time.
6. How about having green tea instead of your usual cup of coffee or latte at your sit? The fact that green tea contains antioxidant catechin(6) extract acts as your metabolism booster in burning more calories.
Not only that, but drinking green tea also makes your mind more alert and calm, thanks to its theanine extract.
Easy Effective Chair Workouts At Home
There are many variations of chair workouts you can at home.
Try doing these few simple chair workouts. Complete 3 sets with 10 – 12 repetitions each set.
1. Feet elevated/ Decline push-ups. You will begin in a plank position with your feet resting on the chair and your hands just under the shoulders. Bend your elbows slowly until your chest almost touches the ground, pause, and push back to the starting position. Ensure your triceps are close to your body with your back straight.
Targeting arms, pecs, core, and shoulder muscles. Watch out for this Youtube video from Scott Herman.
2. Incline push-ups. In a plank position, keep your palm hands on the seat, while ensuring your body is in a straight line. Slowly lower your body towards the seat by bending your elbows, pausing, and then pushing up to the starting position.
Targeting arms, abs, back, and core. Check out this short video tutorial.
3. Plank knee-cross. In a plank position by placing your forearms on the seat and your both feet step back. You will be training on both knees. Start by bringing your left knee up to the inside of your right arm, pause, and return to the original position. Repeat the same for the right knee.
Targeting glutes, hips, abs, and back. Watch this short video from Leap Fitness. The steps are the same, the only difference here is your upper body is elevated on the seat of a chair.
4. Chair dips. Begin by sitting at the end of the chair with your palms on each side of your hips. Using your palms, lift your butt forward and off the seat. With the knees bent, steadily lower your upper body by bending on your elbows, pause, and return to the starting position.
Your elbows when bent should be forming a 90-degrees angle with the arms. Targeting your arms (triceps). Look at this short video tutorial with Wahoo Fitness.
5. Anchored straight leg raises. With your back lying flat on the floor and chair (with stacks of weights for balancing) in front, hold the front legs’ chair firmly. Steadily lift your legs up into a straight position, pause, and then slowly lower them back to the starting point.
Targeting your abs and core. This short video tutorial will explain this further. Notice the trainer is using other weights for balancing, but a chair stacked with extra weights is just fine.
6. Bulgarian split squat. Start by standing with your back facing the chair and your legs a few feet away from the chair. Place one leg with the foot resting on top of the seat.
Keep your chest up, and slowly bend the front knee ensuring the thigh is almost parallel to the floor. Pause for 2 seconds and slowly straighten the front leg. Repeat with the recommended reps before switching to the other leg.
Targeting hamstrings, quads, and glutes. Get into this quick video tutorial from Dr. Abelson.
Can You Squat With A Chair?
Yes, you certainly can.
See how you can imagine sitting in a ‘chair’ position. Not easy as you think if you are a newbie. Aim for 3 sets with 10 – 12 repetitions per set when doing chair squats.
In a standing position with your back facing the front of a chair, slowly bend your knees into a squat position until your butt touches the seat. Back it up and steadily returns to the standing position.
Check out this quick video tutorial.
How can you work out your legs while sitting?
Try these few simple and easy exercises while sitting and you don’t even have to move your butt away.
It is suggested to complete 3 sets with 15 – 20 repetitions per set, depending on your physical strength. Adjust the reps if you like.
1. Ankles rotation exercise while sitting helps to improve flexibility, release stress and tension, and open up your ankle joints. The movement involves focusing the circle movement (to the left, and then right) using your foot and ankle, not the entire leg.
2. Seated leg extension is a very simple chair exercise for your quadriceps. All you need is to sit straight on the edge of the chair with your feet flat.
Steadily extend your right knee to lift up your right leg and return to the starting position. Repeat the same for the other leg. You do not necessarily need a weight, to begin with. Just with your own body weight is ideal.
3. Seated knee lift is also another simple exercise while seated. Simply sit with your back straight, start by lifting your right knee up towards your chest, and slowly lower it down.
Repeat the same for the left knee. To make it more challenging, once the knee is lifted, pause for 3 – 5 seconds and then lower it down.
4. Seated jumping jacks are great inner and outer thigh exercises. You can do it slowly or fast. Begin by seating slightly forward on a chair, and start extending your arms and legs simultaneously or alternatively. This chair workout is kind of similar to stand jumping jacks.
5. Sitting crunches works on your abdominal muscles, and strengthen your core, lower back, and hips too. Begin with sitting on the edge of the chair, and feet on the floor. Place your hands behind your head. Slowly lean your torso towards the chair, pause, and then move back up.
6. Abdominal twist, if done regularly, is excellent in improving your spine mobility, core strength, and posture control, and relieving stiffness and lower back pain. You will sit straight and cross your arms at chest level. Inhale as you rotate your upper body towards farther left and then right.
How To Lose Inner Thigh Fat By Sitting?
In general, probably due to genetics, you cannot target or choose a specific area of your body to lose weight or burn calories.
You have to leave it to the natural rules to decide, not us. Try to combine multiple exercises routine and a healthy diet to see the overall result with all your muscle groups.
Get involved with cardio workouts which help for stronger thighs, giving a slimmer appearance, but may not be burning fat in this area. Cardio training such as side lunge, sumo squat, curtsy lunge, skaters, or glute bridge is the type you can try at home.
The golden rules in any exercise to achieve your fitness goals are:
* watch out for your diet.
* get into cardio training.
* always practice ‘rest and recover’.
* increase your reps or weights as you progress.
* be consistent throughout.
What Will Happen To Your Body When Sitting Too Much?
If you are sitting too much every day due to workloads at your desk, there may be chances that your body will expose to some health effects:
1. Back or neck pain. Unless you are sitting in a correct posture, your spine can compress in your lower back leading to back pain problems. Having poor posture when sitting for long hours can also lead to neck pain issues.
2. Risk of developing heart problems, diabetes, and, obesity. Do you know when you are sitting for too long time every day, the hormone insulin is less productive in getting rid of glucose sugar from the blood? This may decrease the metabolism process and can lead to abnormal cholesterol levels.
3. Higher risk of blood clots or blood flowing slower in your legs. Sitting too much on daily basis also risks the blood clots flowing to the lungs due to the low levels of the proteins preventing the clots.
4. Colon or endometrial cancer. A report from the Oxford Academic published in the Journal of the National Cancer Institute(1) reviewed the higher risk of developing colon or endometrial cancer for individuals who spent 50 – 60% of their daily activities in sedentary behaviors such as sitting.
5. Weaker bones or possible developing risk of osteoporosis. How can this happen? When you are engaged with sedentary behaviors too often every day, your body is less active in sending signals to the cells to replace old bone tissues with new ones.
This explains why we must always exercise to enable our body actively signal our body cells to work efficiently on the bone tissues.
6. According to an article published by the American Journal of Psychiatry (2) suggested the risk of mental health issues such as stress, anxiety or depression is decreasing when a person is moving a lot more than just sitting all day.
My thought here is don’t just use the chair to sit, use it for varieties of home workouts too.
My Final Conclusion on Easy Effective Chair Workouts At Home For Beginners
What are you waiting for now?
Reap the benefits of using a chair for your next workout routine. In fact, everyone can do it at home.
There are in fact tons of workouts you can do with a chair. If you do it correctly, you can achieve in working out almost your entire body muscles perfectly.
If you notice, a lot of these chair workouts are similar to other workouts, for example, the plank or push-up. They are still as effective in working out your upper body or the core.
Chair workouts suit every age level and allow you to progress to different fitness levels.
That’s the beauty of it!
Do you agree?
Leave me a comment below if you have and I’ll speed back within 24 hours.
To another awesome home workout!
***This post may contain affiliate links or advertisements. I receive a small commission when you make a purchase using the links. Prices are the same for you if your purchase is through an affiliate link or a non-affiliate link. You will not pay more by clicking through the link. Please see my Affiliate Disclaimer for more details.
