We exercise to improve our bodies and increase our chances of losing weight. However, the fast-paced, heart-pumping exercise many perform isn’t always the best way. Instead, low-impact exercise will effectively burn the fat you want to get rid of. If you want great fat-burning, low-impact exercises, read on for some recommendations.

What Is Low-Impact Exercise?

Low-impact exercise is a form of exercise that involves having both feet or your hands and feet on the ground. The majority of low-impact exercise involves steady movements that aren’t extremely strenuous and give you the freedom to move at a slower pace while gaining muscle. People often perform low-impact exercises in their daily lives without realizing it, such as taking a long walk or lifting objects off the ground to transfer them to another location. Low-impact exercises are acceptable for a wide range of ages and physical capabilities and offer numerous health benefits.

The Benefits

You should perform low-impact exercises to benefit your mental and physical health. The reduced stress compared to high-impact exercise makes low-impact workouts helpful for improving mood and providing stress relief. You’ll be doing enough physical activity to lose weight, but the exercise won’t create tension in your system that leads to stress. You also won’t need to rest as long between workouts.

Low-impact exercise is great for gradually strengthening the body. Your muscles will have time to adjust to the stress they receive from the workout, and you’ll burn fat while toning your body.

The Best Low-Impact Workouts

Low-impact workouts burn fat, as the body has more oxygen for the metabolic process, which uses fat for energy. Plus, you’ll have an easier time breathing when you perform low-impact workouts compared to high-impact exercises. You can do numerous low-impact exercises that will benefit the mind with stress relief and the body with weight loss.

Wall Squats

A wall squat is a simple exercise that works your quads, hamstrings, glutes, and core. All you need to do the exercise is a wall, making it a convenient low-impact exercise for any place. Keep your back flat against the wall and both feet a step away so your legs are in front of you at a 45-degree angle. As you squat, make sure your glutes don’t move past the level of your knees to ensure you don’t squat too low.

The wall squat will burn fat in your legs as you propel yourself up and maintain the controlled position of the squat. Squats are an effective low-impact exercise that burns fat and calories and strengthens the lower body, which will also help you improve at other exercises.

Push-Ups

For numerous people, push-ups are a reliable low-impact exercise that strengthens the triceps and chest. The best way to perform a push-up is to keep your body and legs straight, only moving your arms.

As a form of calisthenics, push-ups rely on the weight of your body to put stress on the arms and the chest as you push up. The effort you put in will help you burn fat efficiently, and the exercise won’t leave you extremely out of breath when done at a moderate pace. You’ll use all the targeted muscles in each rep as you take your time going up and down.

Hammer Curls

If you enjoy lifting weights and want a low-impact exercise to burn fat, hammer curls will provide you with the workout you want. Normal bicep curls efficiently burn fat and strengthen your biceps and forearm. But hammer curls create less stress and won’t cause your heart to pump as hard as normal bicep curls, thanks to the shifted gravitational pull of the dumbbell.

Strength training is an optimal low-impact exercise that helps you burn fat. Increasing muscle helps your metabolism increase to keep up with the energy you use. Lifting dumbells and performing other exercises that use weight to work out the body will help you burn fat faster as you continue to do them.

Cycling

Stationary bikes are popular among the US population, and numerous people have them in their homes for convenient exercise. You should use a home exercise bike for the best results in burning fat. Exercise bikes have various settings and controls that you may use to configure your cycling speed or pedaling resistance.

Pedaling will stress your leg muscles and strengthen your thighs and glutes as you continue the exercise. Cycling for longer periods will push your body to adjust to the longer activity time and create a habit within your system to metabolize the fat for energy and endurance.

There are numerous exercise bikes to try with different perks that will improve how you work out. Upright bikes by True and recumbent bikes by Lemond offer technology that displays calories burned and miles cycled to give you an idea of how hard you’ve worked. Bikes with this feature are great tools for calculating fat burned. The Precor Chrono Spin Bike offers dual action capabilities and a built-in strain power sensor to give resistance depending on how hard you pedal. This adds a layer of difficulty necessary for weight loss.

Elliptical Workouts

The elliptical is a favorite low-impact exercise for many people. When you use the elliptical, you’ll benefit from working out the arms and legs as you alternate between your left and right limbs.

Working out on the elliptical takes enough effort that you burn fat and gain muscle. At the same time, you’re performing enough cardio that the oxygen in the body still allows your metabolism to take effect. An elliptical such as the Octane Cross Circuit helps you get a great workout when you use resistance bands to perform bicep curls as you move your legs. This option offers a multifaceted low-impact exercise to burn fat efficiently.

Kettlebell Swing

You can use a kettlebell for various exercises, but a great low-impact exercise is the kettlebell swing. The kettlebell swing will improve your glutes, quads, hamstrings, erectors, and rhomboids.

As you swing the kettlebell between your legs, slightly bend your knees on the inward swing and extend them on the upswing. The movement and weight of the kettlebell won’t put much stress on the body. But the consistent movement will give you a rhythm to your body that will affect how it burns the fat and calories you use.

Treadmill Walking

The classic treadmill is a staple of exercise equipment in people’s homes. Combining a treadmill with the low-impact exercise of walking will give you a long-distance workout. Walking works well for burning fat, and its low-intensity and low-impact exercise style makes it a good workout for younger and older adults. A quality treadmill by Spirit will have a large platform to walk on and give you workout results as you move.

Burning fat is an important part of your health; low-impact exercise will help you achieve your desired weight loss. For the best results and quality equipment for these workouts, browse American Home Fitness’s website for great exercise machines to lose weight sooner than later.