With these tried and proven home-friendly exercises, you will be able to work out from the comfort of your home and the results will speak for themselves when you step out into the outside world.

The Plank

See it in action, and learn to do the ‘perfect‘ plank by watching this video.

Works all abdominal muscles, lower back, shoulders, glutes

Begin by kneeling on the floor. Proceed to bend elbows and place forearms on the ground, clasping hands and forming a small triangle with hands and elbows. Straighten legs and balance on forearms and toes, feet six inches apart.

Once balanced, make sure your butt is level with the rest of body, the goal is to form a straight line from the top of your head to your heels.

Keep your abs engaged to prevent your back from sagging. Hold for six counts, building up to 30 counts (counts sound like “1-1000, 2-1000, 3-1000”). If this is too challenging, keep your knees on the ground and shift forward so you’re balancing your weight just above your knees.

What you’ll need: A Good Yoga Mat

CrissCross

Works abs, obliques, quads

Laying on your back, clasp your hands behind head and slightly lift the tops of your shoulder blades off the floor. Straighten and lift your left leg a foot off the ground as you twist at the waist, bringing your right knee slowly in toward left shoulder (as you’ll see in the video below).

Be careful, however, not to round your back or pull on your head or neck. Hold for two counts (counts sound like “1-1000, 2-1000, 3-1000″), then twist to the other side for one rep. A good goal to have is 8 to 12 reps.

See it in action by watching this how-to video and strengthen your core muscles with the CrissCross.

Standing Chop

Works waist, obliques, lower back, glutes, legs

Stand up straight with feet hip-width apart. Extend left arm overhead, with your right hand resting at the hip.

Keeping core engaged for balance and left knee soft, bring right knee up and pull left arm down in a controlled chopping motion, aiming for the outside of the knee with your elbow, for one count. Return to start for two counts (counts sound like “1-1000, 2-1000, 3-1000”); a good goal to have is 8 to 12 reps on each side.

For an extra challenge, hold a two-pound weight in the hand you’re bringing down, or the “chopping” hand. Note: If you can’t reach your elbow all the way to your knee, simply go as far as feels comfortable.

The Axe

Works obliques, lower and mid back, shoulders

Standing with feet slightly wider than hip-distance apart and holding a low weight medicine ball in your hands, bring both hands over left shoulder. Exhale as you chop down with a slow, controlled twisting motion toward right leg, keeping both feet planted on floor.

Slowly, using your abs, not momentum, to control speed, return to your starting position. Aim to do 8 to 12 reps on each side. Women with back problems should be especially careful not to over-rotate when doing this at-home workout routine.

The Swim

See it in action and learn to ‘swim‘ with this video by Krista Schultz.

Works core, lower back, shoulders, glutes, quads

Start by laying face-down on your stomach, with your arms extended overhead, palms facing downwards. Lift your head slightly off the floor, tilting chin down to form a straight line with neck.

Tighten your abs to create a space between your belly button and the floor. Raise right arm and left leg one inch off the floor (as you can see in the video demonstration below).

Do not attempt to go higher. Hold for one count (counts sound like “1-1000, 2-1000, 3-1000″), then lower. Repeat on other side, aiming for 8 to 12 reps on each side.

Beginners can rest between sides, lowering head, arms, and legs to the floor; as you progress, you may remain slightly elevated the entire time, as if swimming.

Jump Rope

Check out just how awesome benefits from jumping rope are as illustrated in the video below.

Works calves, quadriceps, hamstrings, glutes, abdominals, forearms, and deltoids

This will leave you burning fat, and tons of calories, about 13 every minute! No need to go much farther than your front door and it’s fun. Former Sports Illustrated Swimsuit cover girl Bar Rafaelis swears by this slimming secret.

The jump rope is undervalued in the world of fitness and more and more personal trainers are starting to re-emphasize it’s amazing benefits to their clients.

Stability Ball Exercises

Works abs, transverse abdominus, external and internal obliques, spinal erectors, butt

The stability ball workouts can be challenging and can leave your core, arms, and legs fit and fantastic.

You can do a variety of moves right in your living room while having fun. As far as crunches, a stability ball can improve the effectiveness of your crunches about 38%. It’s wonderful for toning and even stretching.

Check out these 9 awesome stability ball exercises in this awesome beginner workout video.

Wall Squats

Works abs, hamstrings, and adductors

Standing with your back against a wall, and placing your feet shoulder width apart simply squat down and hold. This exercise is a classic, but valuable, and you can do 12 reps in under 5 minutes!

You’ll quickly notice tighter glutes, hamstrings, and quads without having to leave the comfort of your living room. Try doing one to two sets during television commercial breaks and you won’t even have to break your evening relaxation stride.

If you’re watching Netflix remind yourself to stop at every 10-15 minutes of your show.

Learn how to do a proper wall squat by watching this helpful how-to do a wall sit video.

Yoga

Works pectoralis major, deltoids, triceps brachii, serratus anterior (wings), abdominal muscles, coracobrachialis

An at-home Yoga workout can help you look, and feel better. Not only does it help relieve stress, burn calories and tone specific body areas, it also is an extremely easy exercise to do at home.

Whether you are a beginner, intermediate or a Yogi, performing at-home Yoga exercises will benefit you all the same. Watch the video below to help get you started.

Push-Ups

Works triceps, biceps, chest, shoulders, arms

Perhaps the most popular home exercise on the list. Get super-powered arms, and shoulders with just ten reps of these a day. Not much for burning calories, but perfect for toning the upper body including chest, shoulders, biceps and triceps this exercise is proven to show results.

Check out the video below on how to properly do a push-up if you’ve never tried them before.

Putting Together a Good At Home Workout Routine

Once you’ve set your mind on the fact that you want to start working out at home, the next step is to materialize your vision. This involves hunting down the best at home workout equipment, setting it all up (maybe with the help of some at home workout videos), then giving yourself some goals and tracking your progress along the way.

Buying the Equipment

Investing in the best home gym equipment is crucial in your long term success. But you don’t have to buy it all at once, you can slowly build your home gym emporium over time.

Not sure where to start? Lucky for you we’ve taken care of this step on your behalf. To familiarize yourself with equipment terminology take a look at our post Gym Equipment Guide For Beginners – Names and Pictures.

Setting it all Up

Once you’ve read through and you feel pretty confident you know which machine does what, you can then head on over to our other informative post How to Build the Best Home Gym On A Budget – Everything You Should Know, which will guide you through everything you need to get set up.

Setting up your home gym involves making smart use of the space you have and planning for the long term.

Setting Attainable Fitness Goals

The big keyword here is “attainable.” It is of the utmost importance to set realistic goals for yourself. Not to say that you can’t have one grand long term goal, but break it up into many smaller attainable short term goals to help you stay consistently successful.

Setting unrealistic and improbable goals just for the sake of dreaming big can turn around and work against you. Unrealistic goals can discourage you and make you feel as if it was your own fault for being unable to achieve them, and even worse, they can trick you into quitting your at home workout routine.

Tracking Your Progress

A great motivator to keep you going on your journey is progress tracking. Even the tiniest amount of progress is enough to make us feel accomplished and ready to go on. If you find yourself struggling and asking yourself if what you’re doing is even working, start tracking your progress and you’ll have a concrete benchmark to reference.