Training using your own body weight can deliver significant results. Bodyweight exercises are considered “more functional” because they engage multiple joints and muscles at once, mimicking everyday movements. We consulted an expert who provided five daily bodyweight exercises designed to help you stay young, fit, and strong after 40.

Remember that “nothing changes without tension,” according to Joy Puleo, M.A., NCPT, director of education at Balanced Body. “To induce change and build muscle, you must challenge the body by introducing overload or tension to the structure; it is this tension that results in the desired adaptations, such as muscle strength and endurance.”

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These daily moves are effective because the way you position your body in relation to gravity promotes total-body toning and strengthening.

“Take pushups, for instance—when the body is almost parallel to the ground,” Puleo clarifies. “As you lower your body towards the floor, maintaining a plank position becomes more demanding as ground forces travel from your upper body through your core to your legs, creating full body tension and overload. The closer you get to the ground, the harder it is to push back up, requiring your body to exert more force, which in turn builds more strength and endurance.”

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Plank Hold

“This is an isometric exercise—a static hold,” Puleo points out. “Studies are showing that isometric exercises build strength and endurance relatively quickly … Your posture is important here—your head, your ribcage, your pelvis through the legs to the heels should create a long, straight line. Maintaining this line is important to how the forces transfer from the upper body, through the core, to the legs.”

1. Place your hands under your shoulders.
2. Press into the pads of your fingers and hug your inner arm toward your armpit.
3. Walk your feet out to hip-width.
4. Engage your abs, squeeze your buttocks, and pull upward through your quads.
5. Hold the position anywhere from 30 seconds to 2 minutes.

Pushups

“Dynamic exercises like planks change the body’s relationship to gravity while also moving multiple joints, such as the shoulders, elbows, and shoulder blades,” Puleo notes. “This increases muscle strength around moving joints, changes the way forces are put into and need to be responded to and teaches the nervous system how to coordinate movement relative to gravity.”

1. Start in a high plank with hands under your shoulders and your body straight from head to heels.
2. Bend your elbows and lower your chest toward the floor.
3. Maintain a long, straight body as you lower.
4. Press back up, straightening your arms.

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Side Planks

The side plank is similar to a classic plank, but because you’re balancing on one arm and facing the side, your obliques and side body muscles require strength, endurance, and stability.

1. Sit side facing, placing one hand on the floor under your shoulder.
2. Extend your legs and stack your feet.
3. Lift your hips off the floor and activate your core.

Squats

Squats are one of the most practical and powerful bodyweight moves. “They build strength, endurance and neuromuscular coordination of the lower body while integrating the legs with the core,” Puleo says.

1. Stand tall, feet shoulder-width apart on the floor.
2. Extend your arms ahead of you or place your hands on your hips.
3. Bend at the knees and hips as you lower into a squat.
4. Descend until your thighs are parallel to the floor.
5. Press through your heels to rise back up to standing.

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Lunges

“The lunge is directly related to walking and functional reciprocal leg motion,” Puleo tells us.

1. Stand tall, feet parallel, hip-distance apart.
2. Step one foot forward.
3. Bring your hands to your hips.
4. Engage your core as you bend your knees, lowering to form 90-degree bends in both legs.
5. Keep your upper body straight.
6. Press through your front heel and the ball of your back foot to rise back up.

Looking for more easy ways to lose fat? Here’s How Long Your Walking Workout Should Be To Shrink Belly Fat.

Alexa Mellardo