Example Home Exercises
Small daily habits that build strength, balance, and confidence.
Weaving simple movements into your daily routine — brushing your teeth on one foot, standing up from a chair without using your arms — builds strength and balance while also increasing mindfulness about posture, gait, and potential fall hazards. Practice safely: always keep support handy, and if something is painful, stop, reduce intensity, or reduce repetitions.
The exercises below are examples only. Your coach will personalize a plan for you and change it up over time to keep the work challenging and fun.
Single-Leg Stand + Mental Task (Dual-Task Training)
How to perform
Stand near a wall, countertop, or chair for support. Lift one foot off the floor and hold for 20–30 seconds while keeping your hip, knee, and ankle steady. Repeat on the other side. While balancing, add a mental task — counting backward by 3s or 7s, naming states in alphabetical order, or saying the months of the year in reverse. This combination challenges body and mind together, improving proprioception (awareness of body position in space) and executive function (managing multiple tasks at once). To progress, try closing your eyes, turning your head, standing on a towel or an uneven surface, going barefoot, or combining these. Work up to 30 seconds with your eyes closed. Always keep support within reach.
Effectiveness & research
Activates over 200 muscles and improves coordination and divided attention. A Tohoku University study found that closing the eyes during balance training increased muscle activation by 58%. Practicing barefoot engages roughly 200,000 nerve endings and 33 joints in the foot. A British Journal of Sports Medicine study found that adults unable to stand on one leg for 10 seconds had a threefold increase in serious fall risk. A German study found that single-leg training reduced fall risk by 43% in adults over 75. Multiple studies show that dual-task training — making the mind and body work together — improves balance and gait more than physical exercise alone.
Chair Squats
How to perform
Practice standing up from chairs, sofas, or the toilet without heavily relying on armrests or grab bars. From a sitting position, lean forward slightly, shift your weight over your feet, and push through your heels to stand fully upright. Slowly lower yourself back down with control. Start with two sets of 10 repetitions, adding two per day until you reach 30. Make arms-free standing a habit everywhere you go.
Effectiveness & research
Strengthens the quadriceps and glute muscles used in daily movement. After age 75, muscle mass declines by roughly 3% per year — a process called sarcopenia that accelerates significantly in the 70s and 80s. A Kyoto University study found that after 8 weeks of daily practice, participants increased quadricep strength by 89%, hamstring strength by 76%, and balance by 71%. A well-known European Journal of Preventive Cardiology study found that the ability to sit down and stand up without assistance was directly correlated with longevity.
Standing Hip Circles
How to perform
Stand next to a sturdy chair or wall with one hand lightly touching it for balance. Lift your knee toward your chest and slowly rotate your knee to draw as large a circle as you can without pain. Complete 8–10 circles in one direction, then switch legs. Over time, work up to 2–3 sets per side.
Effectiveness & research
Improves hip mobility, strengthens the stabilizer muscles around the hip joint, boosts circulation, reduces lower back pain, and stimulates production of synovial fluid that lubricates the joint. Stabilizer muscles help your body recover from trips and stumbles. The University of Maryland found that weakness in the hip abductor muscle was one of the strongest predictors of falls in adults over 70.
Leg Swings
How to perform
Front-to-back swings: supported, stand tall and swing one leg in a straight line, keeping the rest of your body controlled so the motion comes from the hip — not from compensating twists of the torso.
Lateral (side-to-side) swings: face a wall for support and swing one leg across your midline and then out to the side. Start with a set of ten per side and work up to 2 or 3 sets per side.
Effectiveness & research
Targets the hip joints and inner-thigh muscles while improving circulation. Also engages the core, which supports better balance and posture. The NIH identifies hip weakness as a leading cause of instability and falls: hip muscles stabilize the pelvis while standing, and when they weaken they can produce a "hip drop" or unsteady gait that raises the risk of tripping.
Consistency creates confidence.
Small daily habits can significantly improve balance, strength, mobility, and independence while reducing fall risk.