There are plenty of places to find singing exercises. In fact, we have quite a few here on Interkultur’s website: six exercises to increase your range, seven daily exercises, and even five to improve your head voice.

But what about physical exercises at home or in the gym that improve your singing voice? These aren’t trilling your lips or breathing through a straw. Instead, these are exercises you do during your normal exercise routine that can help you when you take the risers with your choir.

In this article, we’ll cover exactly that. These are exercises you can do in the gym or during your home workout routine that improve your singing voice.

1. Plank

The plank is one of the all-around best exercises you can do to increase overall fitness. If you include it as a regular part of your exercise regimen, you’ll be able to increase your time and greatly improve your core strength.

• How to Perform It: Start in a lying position on the floor. Then, place your elbows under your shoulders and your forearms parallel with your hands flat or in a fist. Raise your body by pressing your toes into the mat and raising your chest up while keeping your shoulders over your elbows. Maintain a straight body, using your abs to stay in the position without sagging or swaying.
  
  Time yourself in the position, working over sessions to increase the amount of time you can hold a plank.
   
• How It Helps Your Singing: By building up core endurance and posture stabilization, this exercise exercises the muscles you’ll rely on to get big, bold sound through an entire choral performance.

2. Cardio

Okay, so this one is extremely broad. After all, cardiovascular workouts include hundreds, maybe thousands of specific activities. How do you know which one to pick? The easiest answer is one that you enjoy. Biking, pickleball, trail running—whatever gets you excited and motivated.

• How to Perform It: For singers, no matter what cardio exercises you choose, do most of it while maintaining nasal breathing. That means you are best served at a slower pace to stay in what’s called Zone 2 cardio. At this level, your heart rate and breathing are elevated, but you can still carry on a conversation. This should be paired with brief moments of intensity.
   
• How It Helps Your Singing: Aerobic exercise helps you in two ways. One, it builds your body’s ability to store and efficiently use oxygen—and that helps your voice in many, many ways. It gives your lungs the capacity and power to sing. But it also gives your body the ability to handle stress. That means during the big performance or off the back of a missed note, your body will be able to manage the increased heart rate that nerves and adrenaline create.

3. Yoga

Like cardio, yoga is a pretty vague term, but these exercises all have something in common—they align your body’s movement with your breath. Focusing on this connection changes how you move and breathe outside the yoga studio, leading to much better overall physical performance, especially for singing.

• How to Perform It: Even a 15-minute yoga routine that stretches you and gets you limber is what you are looking for. A few days per week, you can try much longer routines to really sink into the alignment of movement and breath. 
   
• How It Helps Your Singing: As an overall wellness activity, yoga serves your singing in multiple ways. As we’ve covered, it greatly increases your awareness of breath. Many movements also strengthen your core and improve posture—both of which are key to a great choral performance. Yoga also relaxes the body and keeps it limber, counteracting the stiffness and rigidity that can come due to stress during big performances.

Staying Fit for Singing

On top of these exercises that specifically benefit singing, a healthy lifestyle supports your voice. That includes things like a balanced diet, hydration, good sleep, and overall fitness.

As we’ve covered before, singing itself brings many physical and mental health benefits. So further supporting it with clean eating and an active lifestyle creates a virtuous circle of wellness.

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