How Incorporating 11 Exercises Can Improve Your Daily Routine

But if you want to be ready to tackle all the tasks you perform outside your workouts, it helps to perform exercises that resemble those same movements.

That’s why football linemen smash tackling dummies and prizefighters punch heavy bags: You get better at the things you practice. Trainers call this the “SAID” principle, or Specific Adaptation to Imposed Demands.

Not an elite athlete? Doesn’t matter. Everyone relies on strength, mobility, and muscle — so even if you climb stairs instead of mountains, chase toddlers instead of tennis balls, or lift grocery bags instead of Olympic bars, you can take advantage of the specificity principle.

Below are 11 exercises that mimic movements you do in everyday life. As it turns out, many of them are exceptional strength and fitness-builders as well — proving that being functional is being fit.

How squats make your day easier:

“It doesn’t get more foundational than the squat,” says David Otey, CSCS, author of Men’s Health 90 Day Transformation. “From gaining your first steps as a baby to picking your child up as a parent, squatting is a necessary and often-used pattern for our everyday lives.”

Doing squats regularly with good form (and extra resistance, if you can) helps make the sitting-to-standing transition easier. And that may inspire you to to get up out of your office chair more often to give your body and mind a much-needed break.

Squats may also help you leave the “get-up grunt” behind — that patented sound most people over a certain age make whenever they get up from a chair.

How to do it:

Stand tall with your hands by your sides, feet shoulder-width apart, and toes pointed forward or slightly outward.

Keeping your back flat and core braced, push your hips back, bend your knees, and lower your body until your thighs are parallel to the floor. You want to “sit” into the exercise, pushing your butt back like you’re lowering yourself onto a chair or bench.

Pause, and then push yourself back up to the starting position.

Too easy? Perform the move with a barbell across your shoulders.

How deadlifts make your day easier:

In addition to building the entire back of your body — from your hamstrings to your glutes to your lats, traps, and lower back — deadlifts improve strength and mobility that you’ll use when you need to move furniture, perform heavy gardening activities, or even pick up toys after your kid’s epic playdate.

But deadlifting isn’t only about lifting, Otey says: “The deadlift is a key exercise to develop your hip hinging pattern, which is a pivotal movement for optimal hip health.”

How to do it:

Stand behind a loaded barbell, a pair of heavy dumbbells, or a kettlebell.

Bend your knees and hips and take an overhand grip on the weight.

Keeping your back flat, your chest high, and your head in alignment with your spine, slowly stand, allowing the weight to hang directly down from your shoulders.

Pause in the fully-upright position and reverse the movement, keeping your spine aligned the entire time.

How push-ups make your day easier:

Push-ups not only build your chest, arms, shoulders, and abs, but they also make it exponentially easier to get up from the floor — an everyday challenge most of us don’t execute very gracefully. (Just ask anyone who’s ever tried to fish an errant shoe from beneath the bed.)

Push-ups are a winner for your orthopedic health as well. “This move teaches you the shoulder is more than just the ball and socket joint at the top of your arm, but your entire upper region including your shoulder blades,” Otey says.

Learn to move your arm and shoulder blades in tandem, he adds, and your joints will thank you.

How to do it:

Assume a high plank position on the floor with your wrists stacked underneath your shoulders, hands and balls of your feet on the floor, arms locked out, and body straight from your heels to the top of your head. (Keep your feet together for a more challenging push-up, or slightly apart for an easier push-up.)

Keeping your body straight and your head in a neutral position, simultaneously bend your arms and retract your shoulder blades until your chest is about three inches from the floor (or as low as you can go without losing form).