Best Workouts to Help with Digestion

Discover the best exercises to help with bloating, gas, and even constipation.

Feeling too bloated and backed up to exercise? It might sound counterintuitive, but when food makes you uncomfortable, exercise can be your best friend.

Moving your body can help things get moving in your digestive tract, which means relief could be just one workout away. Your digestive issues don’t have to hold you back. In fact, they can inspire you to keep moving toward your goals!

Here’s how working out can help with bloating, gas, and constipation, and how you can move your body to move your bowels.

How Exercise Helps Improve Your Digestion

Digestive issues come in many shapes and sizes, but they can all prevent you from feeling your best or working out.

Whether you have bloating and gas or a food baby that won’t budge, exercise can help you feel better in several ways:

• Exercise stimulates the intestinal muscles, which can help move stool through the digestive tract.
• It increases blood flow to the intestines, which can help your bowel function.
• It reduces stress, which is a common enemy in digestive issues like constipation.
• Exercise promotes regular bowel movements, reducing the likelihood of constipation.

Even if you feel too sluggish to exercise full force, a little movement is better than none! It doesn’t take much to feel the effects, plus you’ll be doing your whole body a favor.

Best Exercises to Help with Digestion

Knowing the best exercises for digestion, constipation, bloating, and gas can help you take action and feel better faster. If digestive issues have you down, pick yourself up again with these easy movements.

Walking

Walking is one of the best workouts to help with gas and bloating. Gentle rhythmic movements help to move stool through the intestines. It can also help reduce stress, which benefits your digestive health.

The best part about walking is you can go at your own pace. Ideally, you’ll walk at a brisk pace to get your heart rate up, which helps burn more calories and promotes a stronger heart. But walking at any pace can stimulate the abdominal muscles and promote bowel movements.

Running

If you can handle a higher-intensity workout, add running or jogging to your agenda. Running can jostle your insides and help get your digestive system moving again. It also increases blood flow, which can support the muscles in your digestive tract.
Cardio exercises like running are also an effective way to relieve stress. If you can, aim for about 30 minutes of cardio movements like running.

Swimming

Swimming is a great exercise to relieve physical stress on the body. It takes pressure off your digestive organs, which may allow for better bowel movements. Swimming also stimulates the abdominal muscles, but in a gentle way that doesn’t put intense strain on your joints.

As an added bonus, swimming gives you a full-body workout. You can make swimming your entire workout without feeling the need to lift weights or engage in other exercises.

Yoga

Yoga is one of the best exercises to relieve constipation. It’s gentle and relaxing, which can benefit your mental health just as much as your physical health. Yoga combines physical movement with breathing exercises, both of which can help with digestion.

Certain poses are best suited for constipation, gas, and bloating, including:

• Child’s Pose: Kneel and sit on your knees with shins parallel to the floor. Lean forward until your forehead rests on the ground, arms stretched above your head and palms on the floor.
• Bharadvaja’s Twist: Sit “criss-cross-applesauce” with one foot propped on the opposite thigh, then gently twist to the opposite side. Return to the center, switch feet, then switch the side you twist to.
• Cobra: Lie flat on the floor, then gently push the upper body upward while keeping the hips and legs on the floor.
• Wind-Relieving Pose: Lie on your back with your knees pulled toward the chest, with your hands on your shins gently pulling your legs. Hold for a few breaths, then release. (Alternative: You can do this pose one leg at a time or with both legs at the same time.)

Movements like these massage and compress the intestines, helping to stimulate these muscles and keep things moving.

Cycling

Cycling is another great cardio exercise to help with digestion. You can cycle at various intensities to accommodate your fitness level (and how you’re feeling on any given day).

The pedaling motion helps to stimulate and strengthen the ab muscles. It also helps the intestines contract and reduce stress on the body, both of which can help you poop better.

Leg Raises

Another simple movement, you can do this one while lying on your back. Lie down, then slowly raise one leg until it’s perpendicular to the floor. Lower it back down, then alternate legs.

This movement helps straighten the colon and rectum to help you poop.

Seated Twists

This yoga-like movement engages the abs and promotes movement in the intestines. You can do a seated twist in several ways. For example, sit flat on the floor with your legs criss-crossed and gently twist to one side. Or, place your legs in front of you with the knees bent and feet flat on the floor. You can alternate the bent knee and tuck your elbow against the knee to help you twist a little further.

Get Moving with PureGym!

Don’t let digestive issues slow down your progress. There are plenty of exercises to help with digestion that get you back on track—and feeling better fast.