What are five simple exercises to do at home?
The deeper idea is:
When exercise has an “address,” you don’t have to decide each day whether to do it; the routine itself tells you when it happens.
Every Exercise Needs an Address
Ask for five simple exercises to do at home and the internet will hand you five hundred. The lists are not the problem. Most of us already know how to stretch, breathe, and do a push-up. What we lack is not instruction but a place in the day. An exercise without a fixed time is only a good intention, and good intentions are the easiest things in the world to postpone.
So here are my five, each with the excuse it answers and the address where it can live.
1. Five minutes of freehand stretching, for “I have no time”
Neck rolls, shoulder circles, a gentle twist, a forward bend, and a set of calf raises to finish. Nothing heroic. Five minutes is small enough to survive a tired morning, and that is the point. A short routine done daily outlasts an elaborate programme abandoned in the second week. Give it an address: the minutes spent waiting for the kettle to boil.
2. Ten minutes of yoga, centred on the pelvis but reaching the whole body, for “I have no gym”
A mat and a floor are enough. Hip openers, the bridge, the cat-cow stretch, and a deep squat work the region where much of our movement begins, and the rest of the body follows. Patanjali’s Yoga Sutras, the classical Indian text on yoga, define posture in three Sanskrit words: sthira sukham asanam. A posture should be steady and easy. Not strained, not punishing. Easy. Give it an address: straight after the morning bath, on a mat that stays unrolled. A mat rolled up in a cupboard is an argument you will lose.
3. Ten minutes of breathing, for “I have no energy”
This is the exercise that looks like doing nothing, which is why it is so often skipped. Sit upright, slow the breath, lengthen the exhale, or try alternate-nostril breathing. The Tamil sage Thirumoolar admits in the Thirumanthiram [1] that he once thought the body a defect, until he found something precious within it. In a neighbouring verse he writes: “Udambai valarthen, uyir valarthene.” I nurtured the body, and so I nurtured life. Give it an address: before the phone is picked up in the morning.
4. Five minutes of dumbbells and push-ups, for “I have no equipment”
A pair of light dumbbells and a floor. Curls, presses, rows, and as many push-ups as come honestly; wall push-ups are a respectable start. Nearly two thousand years ago, the Stoic philosopher Seneca advised his friend Lucilius to prefer short, simple exercises such as running, lifting hand-weights, and jumping. They tire the body quickly and leave time for the mind. The advice has aged well. Give it an address: the five minutes before the evening news.
5. The walks and the cycling, for “I have no routine”
This is my fifth exercise, and the proof of everything above. A fifteen-minute walk half an hour after lunch. Fifteen minutes of cycling in the evening. Another fifteen minutes of walking before bed. These happen without fail, and not because I am unusually disciplined. They happen because lunch, evening, and bedtime never fail to arrive, and the movement simply rides along with them. “At home,” I have come to think, means within the rhythm of the household day, not only within four walls.
Other traditions knew this long before habit science did. In Japan, Radio Taiso has been broadcast every morning since 1928. It is a few minutes of simple calisthenics at the same hour each day, and it became a national habit through a fixed time, not a hard routine. In Islam, the five daily prayers, with their standing, bowing, and prostration, give movement an appointed place in every day. The lesson is the same: an appointed hour keeps what willpower alone cannot.
Add it up and the day holds about seventy-five minutes of movement, yet no single block runs longer than fifteen. Nothing is intense. It is simply distributed.
A fair objection
Is this too easy? Perhaps. Simple is not the same as sufficient forever. Over time the dumbbells can grow a little heavier and the push-ups a little more numerous. And anyone with back, pelvic, heart, or joint conditions should consult a doctor before starting yoga or strength work. But for most of us, the danger is not doing too little. It is planning too much and doing nothing.
So, five simple exercises to do at home? Any five will do, as long as each one has an address. The best exercise is not the hardest one. It is the one that knows what time it is.
[1] The Thirumanthiram is a Tamil work of about three thousand verses by Thirumoolar, a Siddhar (mystic-sage), and it is foundational to the Shaiva Siddhanta tradition of South India. Scholars date it variously, but it is generally held to be well over a thousand years old. The lines referred to are verses 724 and 725 in the standard numbering.
John Britto Kurusumuthu
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In response to the WordPress Daily Writing Prompt — 30 September 2026
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