essay exercises for beginners

100 Writing Practice Lessons & Exercises

by Joe Bunting | 50 comments

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Want to become a better writer? How much time do you spend on your writing practice? Perhaps you want to write novels, or maybe you just want to get better grades in your essay writing assignments , or maybe you'd like to start a popular blog .

If you want to write better, you need practice. But what does a writing practice actually look like? In this post, I'm going to give you everything you need to kick off your writing practice and become a better writer faster.

What Is Writing Practice?

Writing practice is a method of becoming a better writer that usually involves reading lessons about the writing process, using writing prompts, doing creative writing exercises , or finishing writing pieces, like essays, short stories , novels , or books . The best writing practice is deliberate, timed, and involves feedback.

How Do You Practice Writing?

This was the question I had when I first started The Write Practice in 2011. I knew how to practice a sport and how to practice playing an instrument. But for some reason, even after studying it in college, I wasn't sure how to practice writing.

I set out to create the best writing practice I could. The Write Practice is the result.

I found that the best writing practice has three aspects:

Deliberate . Writing whatever you feel like may be cathartic, but it's not an effective way to become a better writer or build your writing skills. You'll get better faster by practicing a specific technique or aspect of the writing process each time you sit down to write.

This is why we have a new lesson about the writing process each day on The Write Practice, followed by a practice prompt at the end so you can put what you learned to use immediately.

Timed . It's no secret writers struggle with focus. There are just too many interesting distractions—Facebook, email, Kim Kardashian's Instagram feed (just kidding about that last one, sort of)—and writing is just too hard sometimes.

Setting a timer, even for just fifteen minutes, is an easy and effective way to stay focused on what's important.

This is why in our writing practice prompt at the end of each post we have a time limit, usually with a link to an online tool egg timer , so you can focus on deliberate practice without getting distracted.

Feedback . Getting feedback is one of the requirements to deliberately practice writing or any other craft. Feedback can look like listening to the reactions of your readers or asking for constructive criticism from editors and other writers.

This is why we ask you to post your writing practice after each lesson, so that you can get feedback from other writers in The Write Practice community. It's also why we set up The Write Practice Pro community , to provide critique groups for writers to get feedback on each finished piece of writing.

Our 100+ Best Creative Writing Practice Exercises and Lessons

Now that you know how we practice writing at The Write Practice, here are our best writing practice lessons to jumpstart your writing skills with some daily writing exercises, for beginner writers to even the most expert writers:

All-Time, Top 10 Writing Lessons and Exercises

These ten posts are our most viewed articles to boost your writing practice:

1. What is Plot? The 6 Elements of Plot and How to Use Them . Great stories use similar elements in wildly different ways to build page-turning stories. Click here to read what they are and learn how to start using them !

2. Top 100 Short Story Ideas . Here are over a hundred writing prompts in a variety of genres. If you need ideas for your next story, check this out!

3. How To Use Neither, Nor, Or, and Nor Correctly . Even good writers struggle figuring out when to use neither/nor and either/or. In this post, our copy-queen Liz Bureman settles the confusion once and for all. Click to continue to the writing exercise

4. Ten Secrets To Write Better Stories . How does Pixar manage to create such great stories, year after year? And how do you write a good story? In this post, I distill everything I've learned about how to write a good story into ten tips. Click to continue to the writing exercise

5. 35 Questions To Ask Your Characters From Marcel Proust . To get to know my characters better, I use a list of questions known as the Proust Questionnaire, made famous by French author, Marcel Proust. Click to continue to the writing exercise

6. How a Scene List Can Change Your Novel-Writing Life . Creating a scene list changed my novel-writing life, and doing the same will change yours too. Includes examples of the scene lists from famous authors. Click to continue to the writing exercise

7. Why You Need to be Using the Oxford Comma . Most people I've met have no idea what the Oxford comma is, but it's probably something that you have used frequently in your writing. Click to continue to the writing exercise

8. Six Surprising Ways to Write Better Interview Questions.  The interview is the most-used tool in a journalist's bag. But that doesn't mean novelists, bloggers, and even students can't and don't interview people. Here's how to conduct a great interview. Click to continue to the writing exercise

9. Why You Should Try Writing in Second Person . You've probably used first person and third person point-of-view already. But what about second person? This post explains three reasons why you should try writing from this point-of-view. Click to continue to the writing exercise

10. The Secret to Show, Don't Tell . You've heard the classic writing rule, “Show. Don't Tell.” Every writing blog ever has talked about it, and for good reason. Showing, for some reason, is really difficult. Click to continue to the writing exercise.

12 Exercises and Lessons To Become a Better Writer

How do you become a better writer? These posts share our best advice:

• Want to Be a Better Writer? Cut These 7 Words
• What I Mean When I Say I Am A Writer
• How to Become a Writer: 3 Simple Steps
• 72% of Writers Struggle With THIS
• 7 Lies About Becoming a Writer That You Probably Believe
• 10 Questions to Find Your Unique Writing Voice
• The Best Writing Book I’ve Ever Read
• The Best Way to Become a Better Writer
• The Creative Writer’s Toolkit: 6 Tools You Can’t Write Without
• Should You Write More or Write Better: Quantity vs Quality
• How to Become a Better Writer in One, Simple Step
• 11 Writing Tips That Will Change Your Life

6 Lessons and Exercises from Great Writers

If you want to be a writer, learn from the great writers who have gone before you:

• 23 Essential Quotes from Ernest Hemingway About Writing
• 29 Quotes that Explain How to Become a Better Writer
• 10 Lessons Dr. Seuss Can Teach Writers
• 10 Writing Tips from Ursula Le Guin
• Once Upon a Time: Pixar Prompt
• All the Pretty Words: Writing In the Style of Cormac McCarthy

12 Genre and Format Specific Writing Lessons and Exercises

Here are our best writing lessons for specific types of writing, including essays, screenplays, memoir, short stories, children's books, and humor writing:

• Writing an Essay? Here Are 10 Effective Tips
• How To Write a Screenplay: The 5 Step Process
• How to Write a Great Memoir: a Complete Guide
• How to Write a Short Story from Start to Finish
• How to Write a Thriller Novel
• How to Write a Children's Book
• How to Write a Love Story
• How to Write a Coming of Age Story or Book
• How to Write an Adventure Book
• 5 Key Elements for Successful Short Stories
• 4 Tips to Write a Novel That Will Be Adapted Into a Movie
• Humor Writing for People Who Aren’t Funny

14 Characterization Lessons and Exercises

Good characters are the foundation of good fiction. Here are our best lessons to create better characters:

• Character Development: How to Create Characters Audiences Will Love
• Writing Villains: 9 Evil Examples of the Villain Archetype
• How NOT to Introduce a New Character
• The Strongest Form of Characterization
• The Most Important Character Archetype
• How Do You Build A Strong Character In Your Writing?
• 75+ Antihero Examples and How to Use Them
• How to Explore Your Characters’ Motivations
• 8 Tips for Naming Characters
• The Protagonist: How to Center Your Story
• Heroes vs. Anti-Heroes: Which Is Right For Your Story?
• The Weakest Form of Characterization
• How to Write With an Accent
• How To Create a Character Sketch Using Scrivener

15 Grammar Lessons and Exercises

I talk to so many writers, some of whom are published authors, who struggle with grammar. Here are our best writing lessons on grammar:

• Is It Okay To End A Sentence With A Preposition?
• Contractions List: When To Use and When To Avoid
• Good vs. Well
• Connotation vs. Denotation
• Per Se vs. Per Say
• When You SHOULD Use Passive Voice
• When Do You Use “Quotation Marks”
• Polysyndeton and Asyndeton: Definition and Examples
• The Case Against Twilight
• Affect Versus Effect
• Stop Saying “Literally”
• What Is a Comma Splice? And Why Do Editors Hate Them?
• Intra vs. Inter: Why No One Plays Intermural Sports
• Alright and Alot: Words That Are Not Words
• The Poor, Misunderstood Semicolon

5 Journalism Lessons and Exercises

Want to be a journalist? Or even use techniques from journalism to improve your novel, essay, or screenplay? Here are our best writing lessons on journalism:

• Six Ways to Ask Better Questions In Interviews
• How to Conduct an Author Interview
• Interview In Person or Via Email?  
• What If They Don’t Want to Talk to You?
• Eleven Habits of a Highly Effective Interviewers

16 Plot and Structure Lessons and Exercises

Want to write a good story? Our top plot and structure lessons will help:

• The Nine Types of Story and How to Master Them
• Points of a Story: 6 Plot Points Every Story Needs
• How to Shape a Story: The 6 Arcs
• 7 Keys To Write the Perfect First Line of a Novel
• The Secret to Creating Conflict
• 4 Tips to Avoid Having Your Short Story Rejected by a Literary Magazine
• 7 Steps to Creating Suspense
• 5 Elements of Storytelling
• 3 Important Rules for Writing Endings
• A Writer’s Cheatsheet to Plot and Structure
• Overcoming the Monster
• How to Satisfy Your Reader With a Great Ending
• Pow! Boom! Ka-Pow! 5 Tips to Write Fight Scenes
• The Dramatic Question and Suspense in Fiction
• How to Write a Memorable Beginning and Ending
• How to Write the Perfect First Page

6 Lessons and Exercises to Beat Writer's Block

Writer's block is real, and it can completely derail your writing. Here are six lessons to get writing again:

• How To Write Whether You Feel Like it Or Not
• This Fun Creative Writing Exercise Will Change Your Life
• When You Should Be Writing But Can't…
• What to do When Your Word Count is Too Low
• 7 Tricks to Write More with Less Willpower
• When You Don’t Know What to Write, Write About Your Insecurities

7 Literary Technique Lessons and Exercises

These writing and storytelling techniques will teach you a few tricks of the trade you may not have discovered before:

• 3 Tips to “Show, Don’t Tell” Emotions and Moods
• 3 Reasons to Write Stream of Consciousness Narrative
• 16 Observations About Real Dialogue
• Intertextuality As A Literary Device
• Why You Should Use Symbolism In Your Writing
• 6 Ways to Evoke Emotion in Poetry and Prose
• 3 Tips To Write Modern Allegorical Novels
• Symbol vs. Motif: What’s the Difference

3 Inspirational Writing Lessons and Exercises

Need some inspiration? Here are three of our most inspiring posts:

• Why We Write: Four Reasons
• You Must Remember Every Scar
• 17 Reasons to Write Something NOW

3 Publishing Blogging Lessons and Exercises

If you want to get published, these three lessons will help:

• The Secret to Writing On Your Blog Every Day
• How to Publish Your Book and Sell Your First 1,000 Copies
• How to Submit a Short Story for Publication

11 Writing Prompts

Need inspiration or just a kick in the pants to write. Try one of our top writing prompts :

• Grandfathers [writing prompt]
• Out of Place [writing prompt]
• Sleepless [writing prompt]
• Longing [writing prompt]
• Write About Yourself [writing prompt]
• 3 Reasons You Should Write Ghost Stories
• Road Trip [writing prompt]
• Morning [writing prompt]
• The Beach [writing prompt]
• Fall Writing Prompts
• How to Use Six-Word Stories As Writing Prompts

Is It Time To Begin Your Writing Practice?

It's clear that if you want to become a writer, you need to practice writing. We've created a proven process to practice your writing at The Write Practice, but even if you don't join our community, I hope you'll start practicing in some way today.

Personally, I waited  far  too long to start practicing and it set my writing back years.

How about you? Do you think practicing writing is important?  Let me know in the comments section .

Choose one of the writing practice posts above. Then, read the lesson and participate in the writing exercise, posting your work in the Pro Practice Workshop . And if you post, please give feedback to your fellow writers who also posted their practices.

Have fun and happy practicing!

Joe Bunting

Joe Bunting is an author and the leader of The Write Practice community. He is also the author of the new book Crowdsourcing Paris , a real life adventure story set in France. It was a #1 New Release on Amazon. Follow him on Instagram (@jhbunting).

Want best-seller coaching? Book Joe here.

Work with Joe Bunting?

WSJ Bestselling author, founder of The Write Practice, and book coach with 14+ years experience. Joe Bunting specializes in working with Action, Adventure, Fantasy, Historical Fiction, How To, Literary Fiction, Memoir, Mystery, Nonfiction, Science Fiction, and Self Help books. Sound like a good fit for you?

50 Comments

You have THE BEST content for writing on this blog!!

Thank you, Kristen. This made my morning. 🙂

Thanks Mitch. 🙂

I can’t remember when I started following this website. I have to look in my notebooks because that’s where I did these practices. I didn’t have access to a computer when I did them, so I wrote them out, setting the time limit. But even when I do get to a computer, I have my reservations about putting my practices on the page. even though it’s practice, I want them to be the best, almost perfect. But I know it won’t be. I’ve gotten feedback before that says so. It still gets to me that I didn’t put something together that not everyone liked. I need to get over it. After all, that is what these practices are about: to learn and improve on our craft.

I don’t know either, George, but it’s been several years. Perfectionism is something so many of us face, and it’s made worse when you don’t have a critique community as warm and encouraging as ours is. I hope you and everyone here are always willing to try something new, even if it comes out a little messed up, because you know we’ll support you and try to make you better.

What a great share! Thanks so much!

You’re so welcome, Elizabeth. Thank you for commenting.

when I ran writing classes I wrote. when I am “a member of writing classes” the teacher/leader/facilitator is NOT MY AUDIENCE and so I don’t write as well/as much. I don’t get the feedback I need from fellow students because most of them have never run their own writing projects/workshops. So many people expect you to write their story for them. I’ve actually got quite a few stories of me own. I have finally decided I like owning them. 😉

It sounds like you need a new critique group, Patience! Hope you can find a place where you get the feedback you need.

Wow! Terrific round-up of resources. 🙂

Thanks Stephanie. 🙂

Practice is necessary, period. It doesn’t matter what you want to learn. If you want to improve, practice is vital.

It’s odd. I’ve known and applied that principle for years on a variety of things. Painting. Drawing. Blogging. Gardening. Laundry.

But never writing.

Like you, I had the notion that just writing every day was all it took to improve. Why not the same level of dedication to writing?

Perhaps it’s time to change that!

I can relate, Carrie. It’s easy to confuse the craft of writing with journaling, thinking that you can just write whatever you feel like and you’ll get better, write something worth reading. The truth is that writing interesting things to read is a skill, but the good news is that you can get better at it with practice. Thanks for practicing with us! 🙂

I love these suggestions , and have set Writing Practice as my homepage so the first 15 minutes of my day is spent writing, whether its a practice or exercise here or another that is sprinkled through out this site, Thank you for all you do everyone here at The Write Practice

This is great Debra. I want to write the first 15 minutes of my day too!

I agree with Joe, Do it. Could be your to do list… ( that could lead to something else story wse later)

I love that, Debra. Such a good way to start your day.

Thanks Joe!

The best! Thank you so much for this.

You’re very welcome!

I simply LOVE all the tips and suggestions given on this blog. They are super helpful!

THANK you. We love sharing them with you. 🙂

Hi! You forgot the link to How to Write a Story a Week: A Day-by-Day Guide.

Thanks a lot for your work! This post is amazing.

It’s a great post Thiago. Definitely one of our most shared. Thanks for mentioning it! BTW here’s the link:

https://thewritepractice.com/a-story-a-week/

Wow!! There are so many exercises…. I just love it..! I am gonna really enjoy it..!

Awesome! Thank you for reading and practicing with us. 🙂

I only read halfway , My tootie is jumping all over me, and typing this is a struggle when a 3yr old wants his Toy Story movie on Youtube in this computer. Thank you for this article, will come back later to finish reading.

I know the feeling! Good luck!

Can’t wait to get stuck in with this! 🙂

Very helpful! Thank you!

I’ve just bookmarked this page. Thanks for this wonderful list.

This is awesome! So many helpful tips. I will be coming back to this often. Thanks for posting this!

Wow, so many goodies! Thank you for always providing such amazing content!!

I have enjoyed all these articles. Thank you for the help an inspiration to get my writing on its way. My creativity is boosting with confidence. Tootle loo.

Amazing contents for beginners like me Joe. I am highly inspired by your commitment. Thank you.

Hey, thanks!

Although I have only read half of thisc article, the practice exercises are excellent. Some of them are exactly what a beginning writer like myself needs. I am committing to at least try ALL of them. Thanks Joe!!

very helpful! thank you..

Amazing articles! Thanks so much for sharing!

My god this article made me love this site . You know it’s kinda hard for a beginner writer, who don’t know where to start and fixing goals, even samll ones give us a direction . A place to go , an aim for our creativity so thanks you , this community and this site. Love you all . At your pens ! 😉

Wow. This is great. I find all your posts informative, but this one is the best for me to use as a guide to get my self starting to write….Thank you.

I’m an old lady who wants to publish one more book before I die — have published several, all non-fiction, and done two under contract to a major publisher (reference books). So help me, the BIGGEST problem I have all along, is keeping track of the damned paper work and research that goes into a book!!! Yet I never ever see articles on something as simple as “How to file” — Oh I know, there’s wonderful software these days so probably I will never find a way to get paper organized — everybody will use software and do it on the computer. I’m too old for that — just one look at the learning curve for software, even putting the damned stuff into computer files is even MORE frustrating than paper!! Oh well, somehow I managed in the past to get books published, I may be able to do it one more time.

you enjoy writing more than anything else and you do indeed care to help others write. I love writing but translation from Arabic into English and English into Arabic is taking all of my time from the early hours of the morning till the evening. I will soon get all of your books in order to read them as soon as possible. One thing I am sure of. You know what you are doing very well. Hamzah

Excellent! Many useful tips. Many thanks!

Liz and Joe, I have only looked at a few exercises. Already, I am convinced that your site is one of the best sites out there. Thank your for sharing your wisdom.

Wow, these are the best lessons and exercises for writing. Actually i’m participating in a compitition this wendsday. so, i’m quite nervous and exited. this helped me a lot

Magnificent post ever I have read. This article will help me a lot to write a right way. Thank you.

i need your help to improve to become a better writer please. i think i usually commit moist of these errors and i don;t pay attention to many advices too.

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Writing practice worksheets terms of use, finish the story writing worksheets.

• Beginning Finish the Story - The Snow Day
• Beginning Finish the Story - The Fair
• Beginning Finish the Story - Summer Camp
• Beginning Finish the Story - The Birthday Party
• Beginning Finish the Story - The Halloween Costume
• Beginning Finish the Story - The 4th of July
• Intermediate Finish the Story - The Beach Trip
• Intermediate Finish the Story - The Great Find
• Intermediate Finish the Story - Which Way?
• Intermediate Finish the Story - Finding Muffin
• Intermediate Finish the Story - The Zoo
• Advanced Finish the Story - The Troublemaker

Question Response Writing Worksheets

• Beginning Question Response - Your Favorite Color
• Beginning Question Response - Your Favorite Day
• Beginning Question Response - Your Favorite Number
• Beginning Question Response - In Your Family
• Beginning Question Response - Your Favorite Sport
• Beginning Question Response - Your Favorite Clothes
• Beginning Question Response - Your Favorite Music
• Beginning Question Response - How You Relax
• Beginning Question Response - Lunch Time
• Beginning Question Response - With Your Friends
• Beginning Question Response - Collecting Stamps
• Beginning Question Response - Your Birthplace
• Beginning Question Response - Starting Your Day
• Intermediate Question Response - Your Favorite Food
• Intermediate Question Response - Your Favorite Movie
• Intermediate Question Response - Your Favorite Song
• Intermediate Question Response - TV Programs
• Intermediate Question Response - Your Favorite Time
• Intermediate Question Response - Which Country?
• Intermediate Question Response - The Wisest Person
• Intermediate Question Response - Someone You Admire
• Advanced Question Response - A Great Accomplishment
• Advanced Question Response - The Most Exciting Thing
• Advanced Question Response - Oldest Memory
• Advanced Question Response - The Most Productive Day of the Week
• Advanced Question Response - An Interesting Person
• Advanced Question Response - What Have You Built?
• Advanced Question Response - What You Like to Read

Practical Writing Worksheets

• Beginning Practical - Grocery List
• Beginning Practical - TO Do List
• Beginning Practical - At the Beach
• Beginning Practical - The Newspaper
• Intermediate Practical - Absent From Work
• Intermediate Practical - Your Invitation
• Intermediate Practical - Paycheck
• Intermediate Practical - The New House
• Advanced Practical - Soccer Game Meeting
• Advanced Practical - Note About Dinner
• Advanced Practical - A Problem
• Advanced Practical - A Letter to Your Landlord
• Advanced Practical - A Product

Argumentative Writing Worksheets

• Intermediate Argumentative - Cat, Star, or Book?
• Intermediate Argumentative - Soccer or Basketball?
• Intermediate Argumentative - Giving and Receiving
• Intermediate Argumentative - Does Practice Make Perfect?
• Advanced Argumentative - Five Dollars or a Lottery Ticket?
• Advanced Argumentative - The Most Important Word
• Advanced Argumentative - An Apple
• Advanced Argumentative - Too Many Cooks

Writing Worksheets

• Beginning Writing Worksheet
• Intermediate Writing Worksheet
• Advanced Writing Worksheet

Using Precise Language

• Using Precise Language - An Introduction
• Using Precise Language Practice Quiz

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The best writing exercises bring out our latent creativity. Especially if you ever feel stuck or blocked, making creative writing exercises part of your daily writing practice can be a great way to both hone your skills and explore new frontiers in your writing. Whether you’re a poet, essayist, storyteller, or genre-bending author, these free writing exercises will jumpstart your creative juices and improve your writing abilities.

24 of the Best Free Writing Exercises to Try Out Today

The best creative writing exercises will push you out of your comfort zone and get you to experiment with words. Language is your sandbox, so let’s build some sand castles with these exercises and writing prompts.

Write With Limitations

The English language is huge, complicated, and — quite frankly — chaotic. Writing with self-imposed limitations can help you create novel and inventive pieces.

What does “limitations” mean in this context? Basically, force yourself not to use certain words, descriptions, or figures of speech. Some writing exercises using limitations include the following:

• Write without using adverbs or adjectives.
• Write without using the passive voice – no “being verbs” whatsoever. (Also called “E-Prime” writing.)
• Write a story without using a common letter –  just like Ernest Vincent Wright did .
• Write a poem where each line has six words.
• Write without using any pronouns.

Among exercises to improve writing skills, writing with limitations has the clearest benefits. This practice challenges your brain to think about language productively. Additionally, these limitations force you to use unconventional language – which, in turn, makes you write with lucidity, avidity, and invention.

Freewriting & Stream of Consciousness

What do you do when the words just don’t come out? How can you write better if you can’t seem to write at all? One of the best poetry exercises, as well as writing exercises in general, is to start your day by freewriting.

Freewriting, also known as “stream of consciousness writing,” involves writing your thoughts down the moment they come. There’s no filtering what you write, and no controlling what you think: topicality, style, and continuity are wholly unnecessary in the freewriting process. While the idea of freewriting seems easy, it’s much harder than you think – examining your thoughts without controlling them takes a while to master, and the impulse to control what you write isn’t easy to tame. Try these exercises to master the skill:

• Do a timed freewrite. Start with five minutes.
• Freewrite until you fill up the entirety of something – an envelope, a receipt, a postcard, etc.
• Freewrite after meditating.
• Freewrite off of the first word of today’s newspaper.

Among daily writing exercises, freewriting is one of the best writing exercises. Poets can use freewritten material as inspiration for their poetry. Prose writers can also find inspiration for future stories from the depths of their consciousnesses. Start your writing day with freewriting, and watch your creativity blossom.

Copy What You Read

Plagiarism is still off the table; however, you can learn a lot by paying attention to how other people write. This is what we call “reading like a writer.”

Reading like a writer means paying attention to the craft elements that make an excellent piece of literature work. Good writing requires different writing styles, figurative language, story structures, and/or poetry forms, as well as key word choice.

When you notice these craft elements, you can go ahead and emulate them in your own work. As a fiction writer , you might be drawn to the way Haruki Murakami weaves folklore into his stories, and decide to write a story like that yourself. Or, as a poet, you might be inspired by Terrance Hayes’ Golden Shovel form — enough so that you write a Golden Shovel yourself.

• Read a favorite poem, and write your own poem in the same poetic form.
• Blackout poetry: take another poem, cross out words you don’t want to use, circle words you do, and write a poem based on the circled words.
• Copy a single sentence from a favorite novel, and write a short-short story with it.

Among free writing exercises, this is a great way to learn from the best. The best kinds of exercises to improve writing skills involve building upon the current canon of works — as Isaac Newton said, you achieve something great by “standing on the shoulders of giants.”

Write From Different Perspectives

The conventional advice given to writers is to “write what you know.” We couldn’t disagree with that statement more. The best creative works force both the writer and the reader to consider new perspectives and learn something new; writing from a new point-of-view makes for a great exercise in expanding your creative limits.

Try these ideas as daily writing exercises:

• Write a story with the same plot, but with two or more perspectives. For example, you could write a lover’s quarrel from two different view points.
• Write from the point-of-view of a famous historical figure.
• Write a story or poem from the perspective of an object: a statue, a doll, a roomba, etc.
• Write from the perspective of a person you dislike.

While playing with perspective makes for a great fiction writing exercise , poets and essayists can do this too. Patricia Smith’s poem “Skinhead,” for example, is a persona piece written from the perspective of a white nationalist, but the poem clearly condemns the speaker’s beliefs.

Thus, perspective writing also works as a poetry exercise and an essay writing practice exercise . If you’re stuck in your own head, try writing in someone else’s!

Write Metaphor Lists

All creative writers need figurative language. While metaphors, similes, and synecdoches are more prominent in poetry , prose writers need the power of metaphor to truly engross their reader. Among both exercises to improve writing skills and fun writing exercises for adults, writing metaphor lists is one of the best writing exercises out there.

A metaphor list is simple. On a notebook, create two columns. In one column, write down only concrete nouns. Things like a pillow, a tree, a cat, a cloud, and anything that can be perceived with one of the five senses.

In the other list, write down only abstract ideas. Things like love, hate, war, peace, justice, closure, and reconciliation — anything that is conceptual and cannot be directly perceived.

Now, choose a random noun and a random concept, and create a metaphor or simile with them. Delve into the metaphor and explain the comparison. For example, you might say “Love is like a pillow — it can comfort, or it can smother.”

Once you’ve mastered the metaphor list, you can try the following ideas to challenge yourself:

• Create a coherent poem out of your metaphor list.
• Turn your metaphor list into a short story.
• Try making lists with a different figurative language device, such as personification, pathetic fallacy, or metonymy.

Any free creative writing exercise that focuses on figurative language can aid your writing immensely, as it helps writers add insight and emotionality to their work. This is an especially great creative writing exercise for beginners as they learn the elements of style and language.

Daily Journaling

Of course, the best way to improve your creative writing skills is simply to write every day. Keeping a daily journal is a great way to exercise your writing mind. By sitting down with your personal observations and writing without an agenda or audience, a daily writing practice  remains one of the best writing exercises , regardless of your genre or level of expertise.

Consider these ideas for your daily journal:

• Track your mood and emotions throughout the day. Write those emotions in metaphor — avoid commonplace adjectives and nouns.
• Write about your day from the second- or third-person.
• Journal your day in verse. Use stanzas, line breaks, and figurative language.
• Write about your day backwards.
• Write about your day using Freytag’s pyramid . Build up to a meaningful climax, even if nothing significant seemed to happen today.

Learn more about keeping a journal here:

How to Start Journaling: Practical Advice on How to Journal Daily

Writing Exercises: Have Fun with Them!

Many of these writing exercises might feel challenging at first—and that’s a good thing! You will unlock new ideas and writing strengths by struggling through these creative challenges. The main point is to have fun with them and use them to explore within your writing, without indulging too many monologues from your inner critic.

Are you looking for more exercises to improve your writing skills? Our instructors can offer prompts, illuminating lectures, one-to-one feedback, and more to help you improve your craft. Check out our upcoming creative writing courses , and let’s put these skills to practice.

Sean Glatch

Thank you for this. I’ve been stuck for months—more than that, actually, and you’d think that a pandemic stay-at-home would be the perfect time to do some writing. But no. I’m as stuck as ever. In fact, the only time I seem able to write consistently and well is when I’m taking one of your classes! I’m still saving my pennies, but these exercises will hopefully get me writing in the meantime. Thanks again!

Hi Kathy, I’m glad to hear some of these tips might spark your creativity 🙂 I feel the same way, I was hoping the stay-at-home order might spark some creativity, but we shouldn’t push ourselves too hard – especially in the midst of a crisis.

The best part about writing: all you have to do is try, and you’ve already succeeded. Good luck on your writing endeavors!

Bravo….!What a great piece! Honestly I learnt a lot here!

I picked interest in poetry just a week ago after reading a beautiful piece which captivated my mind into the world of writing. I’d love to write great poems but I don’t know anything about poetry, I need a coach, a motivator and an inspiration to be able to do this. This piece really helped me but I will appreciate some more tips and help from you or anyone else willing to help, I am really fervid about this.

Hi Anthony,

Thanks for your comment! I’m so excited for you to start your journey with poetry. We have more advice for poetry writing at the articles under this link: https://writers.com/category/poetry

Additionally, you might be interested in two of our upcoming poetry courses: Poetry Workshop and How to Craft a Poem .

If you have any questions, please feel free to email us at [email protected] . Many thanks, and happy writing!

[…] 24 Best Writing Exercises to Become a Better Writer | writers.com  […]

Hi, kinsey there. Thanks for giving information. it is a very informative blog and i appreciate your effort to write a blog I am also a writer and i like these type of blogs everyone takes more knowledge to check out my essay writing website

As a writer, I often struggle to break free from the chains of writer’s block, but this blog has gifted me with a map of inspiration to navigate through those creative storms. It’s like being handed a box of enchanted writing exercises

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We have several free ESL writing lessons on this page, including sample essays, sentence patterns, writing assignments, and more! If you like these lessons, consider buying our ESL writing textbooks to get even more content just like this!

Beginner ESL Writing Lessons

The four units below are all taken from our book Write Right: 9 Beginner ESL Writing Lessons , available for instant download!

Sample Essay: “My Hobby” – Introductory sample essay that students can reference later when writing their own essays

Sentence Pattern: Start/stop verb+ing – Practice adding “ing” to verbs after “start/stop/quit/begin”

Grammar: Past Tense – Simple introduction to past tense verbs

Error Correction Worksheet – Correct the errors in this sample “My Hobby” essay

Assignment: “My Hobby” – Use the grammar and sentence patterns from Unit 1 to write an essay titled “My Hobby”

Sample Essay: “A Funny Story” – Introductory sample essay that students can reference later when writing their own essays

Past Tense Error Correction Worksheet – Review of past tense; rewrite the paragraph and correct the past tense errors

Indention and Quotations – Teaches students to indent new paragraphs and use quotation marks correctly

Indentions and Quotations: Error Correction Worksheet – Identify and correct the mistakes in the paragraph

ESL Writing Assignment: “A Funny Story” – Students use the grammar and sentence patterns from Unit 2 to write an essay titled “A Funny Story”

Sample Essay: “My Favorite Place” – Introductory sample essay that students can reference later when writing their own essays

Sentence Pattern: Although / Even though – Introduction to “although” and “even though”, with sample sentences and practice exercises

Sentence Pattern: not…at all – Introduction to the sentence pattern “(not)…at all”, with sample sentences and practice exercises

Error Correction Worksheet – Identify and correct the mistakes in the paragraph

ESL Writing Assignment: “My Favorite Place” – Students use the grammar and sentence patterns from Unit 3 to write an essay titled “My Favorite Place”

UNIT 4: “Letter to a Relative”

Sample Essay: “Letter to a Relative” – Introductory sample letter that students can reference later when writing their own essays

Writing Lesson: The Elements of a Letter – Introduction to the elements of a letter (greeting, body, conclusion)

Writing Lesson: Conjunctions – Introduction to the conjunctions and/but/or/so, with an explanation of how to punctuate them correctly

Error Correction: Conjunctions – Identify and correct the mistakes in the letter

ESL Writing Assignment: “Letter to a Relative” – Students use the grammar and sentence patterns from Unit 4 to write an letter to one of their relatives

Intermediate/Advanced Writing Lessons

The writing lessons and worksheets below are taken from our book Write Right: Transitions , available for instant download!

Writing a Formal Paragraph

Topic Sentences (Introduction) – Introduction to topic sentences and their function in a formal paragraph

Introduction to Similes and Metaphors – Using similes and metaphors to write interesting topic sentences

Similes and Metaphors Review – Practice describing people and things using similes and metaphors

Topic Sentences (Review) – Practice writing topic sentences

The Body of a Paragraph (Introduction) – Introduction to the body of a paragraph and the information that should be contained therein

The Body of a Paragraph (Review) – Practice thinking of information to use in the body of a paragraph

Concluding Sentences (Introduction) – Introduction to concluding sentences and their function in a paragraph

Concluding Sentences (Review) – Practice writing concluding sentences

Punctuation and Conjunctions

Sentence Fragments and Complete Sentences – Introduction to sentence fragments and a review exercise to practice identifying them

Run-on Sentences – Worksheet to practice correcting run-on sentences

Comma Splices and Conjunctions – Worksheet to practice using conjunctions correctly to fix comma splices

Commas and Conjunctions (“and”) – Explanation of how to correctly use commas with the conjunction “and”

Semi-colons – Introduction to this often baffling piece of punctuation, with a review exercise

Transitions and Connectors

Listing Things in Order – Practice listing items or events in order using words like “First”, “Next”, “After that”, “Finally”, etc.

In addition / Additionally / Moreover / Furthermore / Plus / …as well – Introduction to these commonly used transitions, with several sample sentences

In addition / Additionally / Moreover / Furthermore / Plus / …as well – Review worksheet to practice writing sentences with these transitions

However / Nevertheless / Still / Despite that / Nonetheless / Even so – Introduction to these commonly used transitions, with several sample sentences

However / Nevertheless / Still / Despite that / Nonetheless / Even so – Review worksheet to practice writing sentences with these transitions

Therefore / Consequently / As a result / Thus / For this Reason – Introduction to these commonly used transitions, with several sample sentences

Therefore / Consequently / As a result / Thus / For this Reason – Review worksheet to practice writing sentences with these transitions

Review of these Transitions and Connectors – Review worksheet to practice using all of the transition words above

More Transitions and Connectors

Although / Even though – Introduction to these commonly used transitions, with several sample sentences and review exercises

Though – Introduction to “though” and it’s various uses in a sentence

Despite / In spite of – Introduction to these commonly used transitions, with sample sentences

Despite / In spite of – Review worksheet to practice writing sentences with these words

Despite vs. Although – Explanation of how to use these similar transition words, with several sample sentences

Despite vs. Although – Review worksheet to practice using “despite” and “although” correctly

Because vs. Because of – Explanation of how to use these similar transition words correctly, with several sample sentences

Because vs. Although – Explanation of the difference between these two words, with several examples and a review exercise

Because of vs. Despite – Worksheet to practice using these transitions, which have nearly opposite meanings

Regardless of – Introduction to this commonly used transition, with several sample sentences

Regardless of / No matter – Review worksheet to practice using these transitions correctly, including an explanation of “embedded questions”.

Review of Transitions and Connectors

Transitions and Punctuation – Explanation of how to correctly punctuate transitions using commas, periods, and semi-colons. Also includes a review worksheet.

Transitions and Punctuation (2) – Students rewrite a short essay, adding punctuation around transition words as needed.

Review of Above Transitions and Connectors – Fill in the blanks with an appropriate transition word to complete the essay

Additional Review of Transitions and Connectors – Review of several transition words/phrases (For this reason / Despite the fact that / No matter / Due to / Consequently / As a result / In spite of / Regardless of / Owing to)

Additional FREE ESL Writing Worksheets, Activities, and Ideas:

Useful phrases and sentence patterns.

Instead of / Rather than – Handout explaining how to use these phrases, with sample sentences

Instead of / Rather than – Review – Worksheet to practice using “instead of” and “rather than” correctly

Instead – Worksheet reviewing different ways to use the word “instead” in a sentence

Would rather – Handout explaining how to use “would rather”, with sample sentences

Would rather – Review – Worksheet to practice using “would rather” correctly

Prefer – Worksheet to practice using “prefer” correctly

Regardless / Regardless of / No matter – Examples and practice sentences

Gradually / Eventually / Sooner or later / At some point / In the end / …end up… – Examples and practice sentences

More sentence patterns and phrases (in no particular order):

vary / varies from __ to __

that which / those who

Just because [A] doesn’t mean that [B]

If it weren’t for [A], then I never would have [B]

If I hadn’t [A] then I wouldn’t have [B]

I wish I had / I should have

Found myself

(Currently) in the process of

ESL Writing Activities

Putting pen to paper doesn’t always have to be boring. Here are some activities and game-like things to make writing a bit more enjoyable.

Interactive Stories – Students collaborate to write each others’ stories.

The Lying Game – Guess which statements are true and which statements are lies!

Idiom Worksheets – Give advice using idioms. Less a “game” than an “assignment,” though the idioms tend to make things a little more interesting.

Explain the Idiom – Try to guess what the idioms mean, and use them in a dialogue.

Writing Scenarios

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Essay Writing Worksheets and Printables

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The Beginner's Guide to Writing an Essay | Steps & Examples

An academic essay is a focused piece of writing that develops an idea or argument using evidence, analysis, and interpretation.

There are many types of essays you might write as a student. The content and length of an essay depends on your level, subject of study, and course requirements. However, most essays at university level are argumentative — they aim to persuade the reader of a particular position or perspective on a topic.

The essay writing process consists of three main stages:

• Preparation: Decide on your topic, do your research, and create an essay outline.
• Writing : Set out your argument in the introduction, develop it with evidence in the main body, and wrap it up with a conclusion.
• Revision:  Check your essay on the content, organization, grammar, spelling, and formatting of your essay.

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Table of contents

Essay writing process, preparation for writing an essay, writing the introduction, writing the main body, writing the conclusion, essay checklist, lecture slides, frequently asked questions about writing an essay.

The writing process of preparation, writing, and revisions applies to every essay or paper, but the time and effort spent on each stage depends on the type of essay .

For example, if you’ve been assigned a five-paragraph expository essay for a high school class, you’ll probably spend the most time on the writing stage; for a college-level argumentative essay , on the other hand, you’ll need to spend more time researching your topic and developing an original argument before you start writing.

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Before you start writing, you should make sure you have a clear idea of what you want to say and how you’re going to say it. There are a few key steps you can follow to make sure you’re prepared:

• Understand your assignment: What is the goal of this essay? What is the length and deadline of the assignment? Is there anything you need to clarify with your teacher or professor?
• Define a topic: If you’re allowed to choose your own topic , try to pick something that you already know a bit about and that will hold your interest.
• Do your research: Read  primary and secondary sources and take notes to help you work out your position and angle on the topic. You’ll use these as evidence for your points.
• Come up with a thesis:  The thesis is the central point or argument that you want to make. A clear thesis is essential for a focused essay—you should keep referring back to it as you write.
• Create an outline: Map out the rough structure of your essay in an outline . This makes it easier to start writing and keeps you on track as you go.

Once you’ve got a clear idea of what you want to discuss, in what order, and what evidence you’ll use, you’re ready to start writing.

The introduction sets the tone for your essay. It should grab the reader’s interest and inform them of what to expect. The introduction generally comprises 10–20% of the text.

1. Hook your reader

The first sentence of the introduction should pique your reader’s interest and curiosity. This sentence is sometimes called the hook. It might be an intriguing question, a surprising fact, or a bold statement emphasizing the relevance of the topic.

Let’s say we’re writing an essay about the development of Braille (the raised-dot reading and writing system used by visually impaired people). Our hook can make a strong statement about the topic:

The invention of Braille was a major turning point in the history of disability.

2. Provide background on your topic

Next, it’s important to give context that will help your reader understand your argument. This might involve providing background information, giving an overview of important academic work or debates on the topic, and explaining difficult terms. Don’t provide too much detail in the introduction—you can elaborate in the body of your essay.

3. Present the thesis statement

Next, you should formulate your thesis statement— the central argument you’re going to make. The thesis statement provides focus and signals your position on the topic. It is usually one or two sentences long. The thesis statement for our essay on Braille could look like this:

As the first writing system designed for blind people’s needs, Braille was a groundbreaking new accessibility tool. It not only provided practical benefits, but also helped change the cultural status of blindness.

4. Map the structure

In longer essays, you can end the introduction by briefly describing what will be covered in each part of the essay. This guides the reader through your structure and gives a preview of how your argument will develop.

The invention of Braille marked a major turning point in the history of disability. The writing system of raised dots used by blind and visually impaired people was developed by Louis Braille in nineteenth-century France. In a society that did not value disabled people in general, blindness was particularly stigmatized, and lack of access to reading and writing was a significant barrier to social participation. The idea of tactile reading was not entirely new, but existing methods based on sighted systems were difficult to learn and use. As the first writing system designed for blind people’s needs, Braille was a groundbreaking new accessibility tool. It not only provided practical benefits, but also helped change the cultural status of blindness. This essay begins by discussing the situation of blind people in nineteenth-century Europe. It then describes the invention of Braille and the gradual process of its acceptance within blind education. Subsequently, it explores the wide-ranging effects of this invention on blind people’s social and cultural lives.

Write your essay introduction

The body of your essay is where you make arguments supporting your thesis, provide evidence, and develop your ideas. Its purpose is to present, interpret, and analyze the information and sources you have gathered to support your argument.

Length of the body text

The length of the body depends on the type of essay. On average, the body comprises 60–80% of your essay. For a high school essay, this could be just three paragraphs, but for a graduate school essay of 6,000 words, the body could take up 8–10 pages.

Paragraph structure

To give your essay a clear structure , it is important to organize it into paragraphs . Each paragraph should be centered around one main point or idea.

That idea is introduced in a  topic sentence . The topic sentence should generally lead on from the previous paragraph and introduce the point to be made in this paragraph. Transition words can be used to create clear connections between sentences.

After the topic sentence, present evidence such as data, examples, or quotes from relevant sources. Be sure to interpret and explain the evidence, and show how it helps develop your overall argument.

Lack of access to reading and writing put blind people at a serious disadvantage in nineteenth-century society. Text was one of the primary methods through which people engaged with culture, communicated with others, and accessed information; without a well-developed reading system that did not rely on sight, blind people were excluded from social participation (Weygand, 2009). While disabled people in general suffered from discrimination, blindness was widely viewed as the worst disability, and it was commonly believed that blind people were incapable of pursuing a profession or improving themselves through culture (Weygand, 2009). This demonstrates the importance of reading and writing to social status at the time: without access to text, it was considered impossible to fully participate in society. Blind people were excluded from the sighted world, but also entirely dependent on sighted people for information and education.

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The conclusion is the final paragraph of an essay. It should generally take up no more than 10–15% of the text . A strong essay conclusion :

• Returns to your thesis
• Ties together your main points
• Shows why your argument matters

A great conclusion should finish with a memorable or impactful sentence that leaves the reader with a strong final impression.

What not to include in a conclusion

To make your essay’s conclusion as strong as possible, there are a few things you should avoid. The most common mistakes are:

• Including new arguments or evidence
• Undermining your arguments (e.g. “This is just one approach of many”)
• Using concluding phrases like “To sum up…” or “In conclusion…”

Braille paved the way for dramatic cultural changes in the way blind people were treated and the opportunities available to them. Louis Braille’s innovation was to reimagine existing reading systems from a blind perspective, and the success of this invention required sighted teachers to adapt to their students’ reality instead of the other way around. In this sense, Braille helped drive broader social changes in the status of blindness. New accessibility tools provide practical advantages to those who need them, but they can also change the perspectives and attitudes of those who do not.

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Checklist: Essay

My essay follows the requirements of the assignment (topic and length ).

My introduction sparks the reader’s interest and provides any necessary background information on the topic.

My introduction contains a thesis statement that states the focus and position of the essay.

I use paragraphs to structure the essay.

I use topic sentences to introduce each paragraph.

Each paragraph has a single focus and a clear connection to the thesis statement.

I make clear transitions between paragraphs and ideas.

My conclusion doesn’t just repeat my points, but draws connections between arguments.

I don’t introduce new arguments or evidence in the conclusion.

I have given an in-text citation for every quote or piece of information I got from another source.

I have included a reference page at the end of my essay, listing full details of all my sources.

My citations and references are correctly formatted according to the required citation style .

My essay has an interesting and informative title.

I have followed all formatting guidelines (e.g. font, page numbers, line spacing).

Your essay meets all the most important requirements. Our editors can give it a final check to help you submit with confidence.

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An essay is a focused piece of writing that explains, argues, describes, or narrates.

In high school, you may have to write many different types of essays to develop your writing skills.

Academic essays at college level are usually argumentative : you develop a clear thesis about your topic and make a case for your position using evidence, analysis and interpretation.

The structure of an essay is divided into an introduction that presents your topic and thesis statement , a body containing your in-depth analysis and arguments, and a conclusion wrapping up your ideas.

The structure of the body is flexible, but you should always spend some time thinking about how you can organize your essay to best serve your ideas.

Your essay introduction should include three main things, in this order:

• An opening hook to catch the reader’s attention.
• Relevant background information that the reader needs to know.
• A thesis statement that presents your main point or argument.

The length of each part depends on the length and complexity of your essay .

A thesis statement is a sentence that sums up the central point of your paper or essay . Everything else you write should relate to this key idea.

The thesis statement is essential in any academic essay or research paper for two main reasons:

• It gives your writing direction and focus.
• It gives the reader a concise summary of your main point.

Without a clear thesis statement, an essay can end up rambling and unfocused, leaving your reader unsure of exactly what you want to say.

A topic sentence is a sentence that expresses the main point of a paragraph . Everything else in the paragraph should relate to the topic sentence.

At college level, you must properly cite your sources in all essays , research papers , and other academic texts (except exams and in-class exercises).

Add a citation whenever you quote , paraphrase , or summarize information or ideas from a source. You should also give full source details in a bibliography or reference list at the end of your text.

The exact format of your citations depends on which citation style you are instructed to use. The most common styles are APA , MLA , and Chicago .

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Improve Your Writing Skills: A Beginner's Guide

Article 26 Aug 2024 374 0

Writing is an essential skill, whether for academic, professional, or personal purposes. For beginners, the journey to mastering writing can feel overwhelming. However, with the right approach, anyone can improve their writing skills and develop the ability to communicate effectively and creatively. This guide will provide you with practical tips, writing exercises, and essential techniques to enhance your writing skills, ensuring that you build a strong foundation for your writing journey.

Understanding Writing Fundamentals

Before diving into the intricacies of writing, it's crucial to grasp the basics. Writing fundamentals are the building blocks of effective communication, and mastering them will make the rest of the writing process much easier.

Grammar and Sentence Structure

Grammar is the set of rules that govern how sentences are constructed. Understanding grammar helps you avoid common mistakes and ensures that your writing is clear and coherent. Focus on the following areas:

• Subject-Verb Agreement: Ensure that the subject and verb in a sentence agree in number (singular or plural). For example, "The cat runs" is correct, while "The cat run" is not.
• Tense Consistency: Stick to one tense within a sentence or paragraph to maintain clarity. If you start in the past tense, continue in the past tense unless there’s a reason to switch.
• Sentence Structure: Use a mix of simple, compound, and complex sentences to make your writing more engaging. Avoid run-on sentences and fragments.

Punctuation

Punctuation marks, such as commas, periods, and question marks, are crucial for conveying the intended meaning of your sentences. Incorrect punctuation can lead to confusion or alter the meaning of your writing.

• Commas: Use commas to separate items in a list, after introductory elements, or to set off non-essential information. For example, "Before leaving, she checked the weather."
• Periods: Periods signal the end of a sentence. Use them to complete your thoughts and give your reader a natural pause.
• Apostrophes: Apostrophes indicate possession or form contractions (e.g., "John's book" or "it's" for "it is").

Mastering these fundamentals is the first step toward becoming a proficient writer. Once you feel comfortable with the basics, you can move on to more advanced writing techniques.

Daily Writing Exercises for Beginners

Practice is the key to improvement in any skill, and writing is no exception. By engaging in daily writing exercises, you can gradually enhance your writing fluency, develop your unique style, and overcome common challenges.

Writing Prompts

Writing prompts are a great way to get started, especially when you're unsure of what to write about. Here are a few prompts to kickstart your practice:

• Describe Your Morning Routine: Write a detailed account of how you start your day, focusing on sensory details like sounds, smells, and sights.
• Create a Dialogue: Imagine a conversation between two characters in a coffee shop. Focus on how their personalities influence their speech patterns.
• Write a Letter to Your Future Self: What advice would you give? What do you hope to achieve in the next five years?

Freewriting

Freewriting is a technique where you write continuously for a set period without worrying about grammar, punctuation, or even making sense. The goal is to let your thoughts flow freely, which can help you overcome writer's block and generate new ideas.

• Set a Timer: Start with 10 minutes of non-stop writing. Don’t edit or correct yourself; just write whatever comes to mind.
• Reflect: After your session, review what you’ve written. You may find ideas or phrases that you can develop further in your formal writing.

Revising and Editing

Writing is rewriting. The first draft is often rough and full of mistakes, but that's okay. The real magic happens during revision and editing.

• Take a Break: After completing a draft, step away from it for a while. Returning with fresh eyes will help you spot errors and areas for improvement more easily.
• Read Aloud: Reading your writing aloud helps you catch awkward phrases, unclear sentences, and punctuation errors that you might miss when reading silently.
• Focus on Clarity: Ensure that each sentence clearly conveys your intended meaning. Cut out unnecessary words and simplify complex sentences.

Common Writing Mistakes to Avoid

As a beginner, it's normal to make mistakes. However, being aware of common pitfalls can help you avoid them and improve your writing more quickly.

Run-on Sentences

A run-on sentence occurs when two or more independent clauses are joined without proper punctuation or conjunction. This can make your writing difficult to follow. To fix run-ons, split the sentence into smaller sentences or use a conjunction like "and," "but," or "so."

Example of a Run-on Sentence: "I went to the store I bought some bread." Corrected Sentence: "I went to the store, and I bought some bread."

Passive Voice

The passive voice can make your writing seem weak or indirect. In passive voice, the subject receives the action rather than performing it. Whenever possible, use active voice to make your writing more engaging.

Passive Voice Example: "The ball was thrown by John." Active Voice Example: "John threw the ball."

Overuse of Adverbs and Adjectives

While adverbs and adjectives can add detail to your writing, overusing them can make your sentences cumbersome. Focus on using strong verbs and nouns that convey meaning without the need for excessive modifiers.

Example of Overuse: "She quickly and quietly opened the old, creaky door." Simplified Version: "She eased the door open."

Valuable Writing Resources

To continue improving your writing skills, it's helpful to have access to resources that can guide you along the way. Here are some tools, books, and courses that you might find useful.

Online Tools

• Grammarly: This online tool checks your writing for grammar, punctuation, and style issues. It also offers suggestions for improving clarity and conciseness.
• Hemingway Editor: This app highlights complex sentences and passive voice, helping you simplify your writing.
• Thesaurus.com: Use this online thesaurus to find synonyms and expand your vocabulary.
• "The Elements of Style" by William Strunk Jr. and E.B. White: A classic guide to writing that covers the basics of grammar, style, and composition.
• "On Writing Well" by William Zinsser: This book offers practical advice on writing nonfiction, with a focus on clarity, simplicity, and avoiding jargon.
• "Bird by Bird" by Anne Lamott: A motivational book that offers insights into the writing process and tips for overcoming writer’s block.
• Coursera’s "Creative Writing Specialization": This series of courses covers the essentials of writing, including plot development, character creation, and style.
• edX’s "English Grammar and Style": Offered by the University of Queensland, this course helps you improve your grammar and sentence structure.
• Udemy’s "Writing with Confidence": This course teaches you how to write clear, concise, and compelling content for various purposes.

The Importance of Feedback

Feedback is one of the most valuable tools for improving your writing. Constructive criticism from others can help you identify areas where you need to improve and provide new perspectives on your work.

Seeking Feedback

• Join a Writing Group: Writing groups offer a supportive environment where you can share your work and receive feedback from other writers.
• Ask for Peer Reviews: Share your writing with friends, family, or colleagues who can provide honest feedback.
• Hire an Editor: For more formal or professional writing, consider hiring an editor who can provide detailed feedback on your work.

Learning from Feedback

• Stay Open-Minded: Feedback can be hard to hear, but it’s important to stay open-minded and view it as an opportunity to grow.
• Ask Questions: If you don’t understand a piece of feedback, ask for clarification. This will help you learn more and improve your skills.
• Apply the Feedback: Use the feedback you receive to make revisions and improve your writing. Over time, you’ll start to see noticeable improvements in your work.

Writing Consistency: The Key to Improvement

One of the most important aspects of developing strong writing skills is consistency. Writing regularly helps you build your skills, develop your voice, and gain confidence in your abilities.

Setting a Writing Schedule

• Daily Writing: Aim to write for at least 15-30 minutes each day. Consistent practice is more effective than occasional, longer writing sessions.
• Use Writing Prompts: If you’re struggling to find something to write about, use prompts to inspire you.
• Keep a Journal: Journaling is a great way to practice writing daily. It doesn’t have to be formal or polished—just write whatever comes to mind.

Tracking Your Progress

• Set Goals: Establish specific writing goals, such as completing a certain number of words each day or finishing a particular piece by a deadline.
• Review Your Work: Periodically review your past writing to see how you’ve improved over time. This can be a great motivator to keep practicing.
• Celebrate Milestones: Recognize and celebrate your progress, whether it’s completing your first essay or getting positive feedback from a reader.

Conclusion: 

Improving your writing skills as a beginner may seem daunting, but with the right approach, it’s entirely achievable. By understanding the fundamentals, practicing regularly, and seeking feedback, you can develop your writing skills and become a more confident and effective communicator.

Remember, writing is a journey, and every writer starts somewhere. Whether you're writing for academic purposes, professional growth, or personal fulfillment, the tips and techniques outlined in this guide will help you on your path to becoming a better writer. So grab your pen, open your laptop, and start writing today—your future self will thank you.

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These 6 Exercises Are Fundamental to How You Move

Practicing these movements can make everyday tasks — like carrying groceries and walking up stairs — easier.

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By Alyssa Ages

Videos by Theodore Tae

• Aug. 28, 2024

When you sit in a chair, lift a package off the floor or climb a flight of stairs, your body is doing some form of squatting, hinging or lunging. But just because you perform these movements every day doesn’t mean you’re doing them correctly. Whether you round your back while lifting or overload your knees when you stand up, repeatedly moving with poor form can lead to pain and injury.

Training these six fundamental movements — hinge, squat, lunge, push, pull and rotation — can help you accomplish daily tasks more easily and without pain as you age. Similar to a musician practicing their scales, mastering the basics can help you expand your range of motion, said Beth Lewis, a movement and exercise specialist based in New York City.

Through procedural memory , you learn and store movements to perform them without thinking about each step. That’s what allows you to hop on a bike and start pedaling, but it can also cause you to compromise your form hundreds of times a day without noticing.

There are a few versions of the fundamental movements framework, but the idea behind each one is the same: to build functional fitness by mimicking the motions you use for everyday tasks. Each of the exercises below, which you can easily train at home or in the gym, corresponds with a key movement pattern that you use in daily life.

Time: 12 minutes

Intensity: Low

What You’ll Need

Light or medium resistance band

A light dumbbell or kettlebell (choose a weight that feels challenging for the last 15 seconds of each exercise, but you should still be able to maintain your form)

If you don’t currently do any strength training, begin with three days per week and progress to daily over time. You can also complete one set of this routine as a warm-up for other forms of exercise.

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This HIIT for Beginners Guide Explains Why You Need the Challenge and How To Do It

Add high-intensity interval training to your routine with confidence, even if you’ve never done it before.

Benefits of HIIT for Beginners

What it means to do hiit workouts, 7 tips for making hiit work for beginners, how to add hiit workouts to your cycling schedule, beginner hiit workouts to try.

High-intensity interval training —HIIT for short—is an important part of many training programs , and for good reason. Making interval training a regular part of your fitness regimen provides a laundry list of benefits, including improving your fitness level, boosting mental strength, and fighting disease. The gains made with HIIT training will even make you a better cyclist .

But we know intervals can feel intense, especially as a beginner. And they should! The whole point of HIIT is to push your heart rate to levels that are beyond your current comfort zone. This may sound intimidating, but the benefits translate directly to your endurance on the bike making the intensity so, so worth it. Trust us.

To boost your confidence, we’ve compiled advice and tips from experts on how to incorporate HIIT for beginners into your routine—even if it’s completely new to you—along with the right way to fuel such intense efforts. And we’ve included a couple of beginner-friendly HIIT workouts for both on and off the bike that will get you started.

Still skeptical? Let’s review some of the research about how HIIT can positively affect a cyclist’s physical and mental health.

We’ll start with a benefit of HIIT that directly affects your riding: High-intensity intervals have been shown to increase VO2 max . VO2 max is essentially a measurement of your cardiovascular fitness; the higher your VO2 max, the easier your workouts become. A systematic review and meta-analysis published in 2019 in the Journal of Science and Medicine in Sport found that HIIT, even done as short intervals at low volume, could improve VO2 max in just four weeks (and increasing the intervals and duration was even better).

In a meta-analysis published in The Journal of Strength and Conditioning Research in 2023, researchers also found that HIIT increases both anaerobic fitness (which comes into play during sprints ) and aerobic fitness (necessary for more endurance-type work).

HIIT workouts clearly benefit your body, and not surprisingly, it also benefits your brain. A systemic review and meta-analysis published in the Journal of Psychosomatic Research in 2024 suggests that HIIT training improves depressive symptoms.

Additionally, doing HIIT might just help you live longer. In a study involving more than 70,000 adults in the U.K. and published in the European Heart Journal in 2022, researchers found that adding just 15 minutes per week of vigorous exercise was associated with a 16 to 18 percent reduction in cancer mortality. They also discovered a link between doing 20 minutes of high-intensity exercise per week and a 40 percent reduction in cardiovascular disease mortality.

A less obvious but no less important benefit of HIIT doesn’t actually have anything to do with your body and everything to do with your schedule. A critical factor that makes maintaining and improving fitness on the bike successful is consistency , but setting a workout and riding schedule and sticking to it can be harder than it sounds. With packed schedules, finding the time to prioritize regular workouts and rides can be tough, especially when you’re just starting out.

Because HIIT provides so much fitness bang for your proverbial buck during a relatively short amount of time , it can be easier to find the time to squeeze in a shorter session of interval training even when life gets busy. This, in turn, can help you in maintaining a consistent exercise schedule and continuing to make progress. After all, progress is the ultimate motivator!

To get you started, we compiled the vital info you need to begin adding high-intensity interval training to your life—and why you should.

The basic premise of HIIT is alternating between high-intensity efforts that push your heart rate to between 80 and 95 percent of your maximum (this means you’re breathing heavy and finding it hard to talk) and periods of recovery. During the periods of recovery the goal is to get your heart rate back down to between 40 percent and 50 percent of your max (when you are able to talk again).

High intensity “work” periods can range from five seconds to eight minutes. The length of the recovery period can be switched up, too.

Variations of HIIT workouts are seemingly endless, which is a big plus for maintaining motivation. Mixing up the selection of exercises, changing up the duration of the work and rest periods, and performing intervals both on and off the bike will keep your HIIT workouts from getting boring.

“There are lots of different formats, so it’s very adaptable and creative and can be really fun ,” Shannon Walsh, certified personal trainer and owner of Expansive Strength in Somerville, Massachusetts tells Bicycling .

1. Check With Your Doctor

Because HIIT involves exerting yourself hard enough to get your heart rate above 80 percent of your max and keeping it there for the specified interval duration, it can be a little intimidating to incorporate such intense efforts into your rides or workouts if pushing yourself that hard is new to you.

So, first things first: Make sure you can perform high-intensity intervals safely by getting the appropriate medical clearance first.

“If you’re concerned that a HIIT program might not be right for you, you need to talk to your doctor about it. You might make sure that your heart is healthy . If your doctor gives you the go ahead, great,” Walsh says.

2. Take Longer Rest Breaks to Start

Walsh suggests starting out slow if you’re doing HIIT for the first time in order to give your body the chance to become accustomed to it. One way to do that is by having a longer rest-to-work ratio as your cardiovascular system gets used to more intense efforts.

If you’re brand new to HIIT and trying intervals for the first time, a good starting point are intervals that are 20 to 30 seconds in length, alternating with 60 to 90 seconds of rest, and repeating this two to three times. You can do any exercise that will get your heart rate above 80 percent of your max, or a mix of different moves. Working at this intensity should leave you so out of breath that speaking more than a few words at a time is challenging.

Another way to approach recovery duration is to tailor the length of the rest period to your individual fitness level. When you’re starting out with HIIT training, start by tracking the amount of time it takes for your heart rate to come back down to the 40 to 50 percent range after a high-intensity effort. You’ll know when your back in this range when chatting conversationally becomes easy to do. Then, use that time as the duration of your recovery periods.

Over time, as your stamina and endurance improve, you’ll notice that the time it takes for your heart rate to recover is getting shorter and shorter, which is a sign that your cardiovascular stamina is improving. Seeing the quantifiable benefits of HIIT training can be hugely motivating and help you keep going when the going gets tough.

“Taking those longer rests to prove to yourself that you are okay before you get your heart rate up again could be really beneficial,” Walsh says. She stresses that the point of HIIT training isn’t to get your heart rate up and keep it up there. Alternating between higher and lower heart rates is the special sauce that makes HIIT so effective. “You want to get [your heart rate] up, recover, get up, recover,” Walsh says.

3. Start With Moves You Know

Another tip to make pushing yourself and your heart rate into zones 4 and 5 a little less intimidating is to start with exercises that are already familiar. This allows you to go into a HIIT session already having a sense for how your body responds to those particular efforts.

“If you’re a cyclist, you might start with cycling intervals . If you love kettlebells, you might start with kettlebells ,” Walsh says. “You might start with something that you know and that you’re comfortable with so that you can read your body a little bit more easily.”

If you’re brand new to training and HIIT, starting with bodyweight exercises can be an ideal way for you to build your fitness—and confidence.

4. Use a Heart Rate Monitor

Using a heart rate monitor during interval training takes the guesswork out of whether or not you’re getting your heart rate high enough and letting it recover, making it a great tool to have in your toolbox.

The profile of your heart rate in your heart rate monitor should look like peaks and valleys rather than one straight line of sustained elevated effort, meaning that your heart rate should be going up and down.

“Even if it’s hard, even if it hurts, you don’t just have to push through the pain. You touch the pain, then you move away. Maybe you touch it for a little longer the next time. You move away again. And you basically teach yourself that it’s safe for your body,” Walsh says.

5. Fuel Correctly for HIIT Workouts

Adding the right nutrition to the mix will help you not only get the most benefit from working at higher intensity levels, but it will also help you recover more efficiently after you’ve finished your HIIT workout. It comes down to providing your body with the right macronutrients to fuel it for high-intensity efforts.

“We have to recognize the fact that above lactate threshold at those higher intensity efforts for any kind of activity, our body’s primary source of fuel is going to be carbohydrate ,” Uriell Carlson , RDN, registered dietitian nutritionist and owner of Inner Wild Nutrition tells Bicycling . “[The body] has a really difficult time at those high intensities digesting any kind of fats and proteins because we need oxygen available in order to do that, and we don’t have oxygen available in order to be working at high intensity. So this is your time to consume mostly simple carbs , possibly with little bits of complex carbs.”

Eating carbs in the hours before a HIIT workout can help ensure you have the energy to make it to the end of the session.

Fueling after a HIIT workout is also just as important as eating for energy before you start moving. According to Carlson, the ideal window to fuel for recovery with carbohydrates and some protein is within 45 to 60 minutes immediately after the effort.

Carlson recommends consuming 1 to 1.5 grams of carbohydrates per kilogram of bodyweight (or 0.45 to 0.68 grams per pound) to ensure you’re giving your body the nutrition it needs to recover optimally after high-intensity efforts. As an example, the ideal amount of carbs a 150-pound person needs after hard effort is between 68 and 102 grams.

This might look like a bowl of oatmeal with blueberries and maple syrup or an almond butter and jelly sandwich on whole wheat bread.

6. Stay Hydrated

Hydration is part of fueling and during higher intensity work it’s just as important as eating enough of the right macros to support your efforts. “Hydration is huge, especially as we go into the summer,” Carlson says, noting that water alone often won’t cut it. ”My general rule is that anytime you’re sweating, you should be drinking electrolytes , not just water.”

The timing of your hydration can benefit not only your performance, but also how you feel during and after the effort.

“A really good thing to know is that you can preload with hydration and electrolytes,” Carlson says. “If you know you’re going into a very hot or very long effort, it’s a great opportunity to consume a serving of electrolytes in the morning as you’re getting ready to make sure that you’re topping off your hydration status before you start.”

7. Pace Yourself

Learning how to modulate your high-intensity efforts is one of the skills you’ll work to build when you start doing HIIT. After all, while pushing the limit is the whole point, you don’t want to go so hard in the first set of a workout that it’s impossible to make it to the last set. This means you want to start conservatively in the first interval round to see how it feels.

Getting your heart rate up to 80 to 95 percent of your max is how you’ll get the benefits of HIIT, but there’s no need to go over the 95 percent threshold. This will be easy to monitor and track if you’re using a heart rate monitor. If you don’t have one and are using your breath as a gauge, aim your effort at being intense enough so that getting a few words out is challenging, but not so hard that you can’t speak at all.

“If you’re a long-distance cyclist , you’re probably going to focus more on keeping the distance in your training, and I would suggest either adding [HIIT] on a separate training day, or adding it at the end [of your long-distance effort] so that you’re still getting in your distance work,” Walsh says.

Conversely, if your goals are to improve your speed on the bike, Walsh suggests adding HIIT at the beginning of a workout in order to build power .

“It’s never wrong to put [HIIT] on a separate day, or on a strength day. If you’re working on endurance, I would put it at the end of a strength [training] day, so that you’ve already fatigued your system a bit. I would not put it on a rest day. Rest days are sacred,” Walsh adds.

The Importance of Recovery When Adding Intensity

The right number of HIIT sessions to incorporate into your training, and when you perform them in relation to your other workouts, will depend on your specific goals. However, two to three HIIT sessions per week will deliver the fitness benefits without the risk of overtraining.

Speaking of overtraining , prioritizing recovery days in your training schedule is crucial. According to Walsh, scheduling two rest days per week is ideal for the average person. And recovery days don’t have to be spent on the couch. Focusing on low-intensity movement practices adds cross-training to the mix and will only benefit your cycling, your body, and your mind.

“Rest might include doing a gentle yoga flow , or doing mobility work , or going for a walk, or a nice chill, flat bike ride. It doesn’t have to be ‘I do nothing with my body.’ It can be, but it doesn’t have to be,” Walsh says.

Ultimately, the best guide to how many rest days you need and what kind of movement will be the most restorative for you is your body, so pay attention to how fatigued or fresh you’re feeling.

Now that you know how beneficial HIIT workouts can be, it’s time to give it a try! We’ve put together two basic HIIT workouts below, and don’t forget that you can adjust the length of work and rest, as well as the exercise selection as needed.

Bodyweight HIIT Workout for Cyclists

How to use this list: Perform each exercise for 30 seconds, then recover for 60 to 90 seconds. As you get started, perform the sequence once, working your way up to repeating the sequence 2-3 times.

• Start with feet hip-width apart.
• Send hips down and back to lower into a squat. Keep chest up and core engaged.
• Drive through feet to stand back up, exploding off the floor.
• Land softly with bent knees.

Jumping Jack

• Start with feet hip-width apart with arms at sides.
• In one motion, jump feet out wide while raising the arms out to the sides and overhead.
• Jump feet back together, bringing arms back down to sides.

• Bend and raise the right knee to belly-button height while standing on the left leg.
• Quickly switch sides.
• Continue alternating.

• Stand with feet hip-width apart.
• Shift weight to left foot and push off it to jump to the right, landing softly on right foot, knee bent, sending hips back, and left foot reaching behind right leg.
• Then, push off right foot to jump to the left, landing softly on left foot, knee bent, sending hips back, right foot reaching behind left leg.

On-the-Bike Beginner HIIT Workout

Adding intervals to your rides is a great way to get in your HIIT training. A flat, straight stretch of road is one option for on-the-bike intervals, if the conditions allow you to safely go all-out. Adding hills will take your interval training to the next level by ramping up the intensity while strengthening your climbing skills at the same time.

If performing high-intensity intervals out on the road isn’t an option for safety or logistical reasons, an indoor trainer is the next best thing. In fact, many cyclists actually prefer doing all of their on-bike HIIT training on a stationary trainer.

Here’s one workout to try:

• Warm up by pedaling in an easy gear for 10 minutes.
• To perform the first interval, shift into a harder gear and go all out for 30 seconds. Heart rate should be over 80 percent of max by the end of the interval.
• Rest by pedaling in an easy gear for 60 seconds, or until heart rate drops to below 50 percent of max.
• Repeat 3 times.
• Cool down by pedaling in an easy gear for 5-10 minutes.

Natascha Grief is Bicycling’s Health & Fitness Editor. She started out as a bike mechanic,earning a couple pro-mechanic certifications and her USA Cycling Race Mechanics license. Then, she became obsessed with framebuilding and landed an apprenticeship with framebuilder Brent Steelman in her hometown of Redwood City, California. After that, she spent several years working for both large and not-so-large cycling brands before switching gears to become a NASM certified personal trainer, specializing in corrective exercise and body positive personal training. She honed her skills as a trainer and coach for over a decade before launching Inner Shift Fitness . During 2020, she began contributing regularly to Runner’s World and Bicycling as a freelance writer. She joined the editorial staff of Bicycling in 2022.

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5 Wall Pilates Exercises That Are Low-Impact and Perfect for Beginners

Build stronger muscles with these easy wall Pilates exercises.

If you’re looking to stay fit and live a healthy lifestyle but don’t know where to begin, fitness pros recommend trying wall Pilates exercises, which are easily incorporated into any at-home workout plan . Not only are these moves low-impact but they’re beginner-friendly and effective too.

Another bonus? There’s no equipment required to get started. However, if you’d like to enhance the workout, you can use various props like resistance bands , the Pilates magic circle, or an exercise ball , explains Nandini Basu, N.P.C.P ., lead instructor at Club Pilates.

Meet the expert: Nandini Basu, N.P.C.P ., lead instructor at Club Pilates; and Vanessa Johnson, N.P.C.P. , director of instructor training at Club Pilates

Below, find some of the best wall Pilates exercises in a beginner-friendly, 15-minute workout designed by Basu.

Looking for even more effective wall Pilates moves? Consider becoming a Prevention Premium member to download our 7-Day Wall Pilates Plan which includes additional exercises in a convenient step-by-step guide (plus other member-exclusive guides ).

15-minute wall Pilates workout

Before getting started, Basu recommends beginning with Pilates breathing by lying on your back with your feet up against the wall. “Pilates breath work aims to fill up the lungs, widening out from left to right and front to back in what we call 3D breathing,” Basu explains.

After a few rounds of breathwork, move on to the workout below. Note: “These classical Pilates movements don’t require high reps to be effective,” Basu explains. “Typically eight to 10 reps done in a controlled and mindful manner will be effective in creating a strong and balanced body.”

The crisscross aids in “oblique and hip flexor work,” Basu explains.

• To perform this move, begin lying down on the floor or yoga mat with your feet flat on the wall, knees bent at a 90-degree angle, and hands behind your head.
• Followed by a deep inhale, exhale and roll your shoulders off the mat, tucking your chin to your chest. Keep your elbows wide as you roll up.
• Twist your left elbow toward your right knee, fixing your gaze past your right elbow.
• Roll back down to the mat, completing one repetition.
• Continue for eight to 10 repetitions; repeat on the left side.

Leg circles

“This movement targets hip stability, abdominal control, and range of motion in the hip socket,” Basu explains.

• Begin lying down with your feet flat on the wall, knees bent at a 90-degree angle, and arms down by your sides.
• Inhale as you bend your right leg toward your chest, keeping your leg in line with your hip. Exhale, point your right foot, and extend it toward the ceiling.
• Bring your right leg toward your nose, then cross your right leg slightly to the left, holding for three seconds.
• Lower your leg toward the wall, holding for three seconds.
• Open your leg slightly to the right, holding for three seconds.
• Repeat steps two through five to make four more small clockwise circles. Reverse the motion and make five counterclockwise circles.
• Bend your right leg to your chest and place your foot back on the wall, completing one repetition.
• Continue for eight to 10 repetitions; repeat with your left leg.

“This move advances our abdominal work and pelvic stability, and activates the muscles in the lower back and hamstrings, the muscles all up and down the spine, and our deep core,” Basu says.

• Begin lying on the ground with your feet flat on the wall, your knees bent at a 90-degree angle, and your arms down by your side.
• Reach your arms over the top of your head. Inhale and lift your arms to the ceiling, followed by your head.
• Exhale and roll your shoulders up and off the mat while gazing toward your navel, keeping your chin tucked toward your chest.
• Lower your arms and reach them forward as you roll up, keeping your waist and lower back on the mat.
• Inhale through your nose and pulse your back by lifting your waist up and off the mat (like you’re doing a sit-up) then lowering back down.
• Continue pulsing for eight to 10 repetitions.

Spine twist

Next, “the spine twist also activates the obliques to create that rotation while working on your scapular stabilizers to not let those arms and shoulder shrug up into the ears,” Basu explains.

• Sit with the right side of your body next to the wall, knees bent toward your chest and legs together.
• Reach your arms forward with palms touching, keeping them at shoulder height. Your right shoulder should be touching the wall.
• Inhale and open your left arm to the side while turning your head to the left. Twist your torso to the left. Reach your hands away from each other to increase the stretch.
• Return to the center with palms touching to complete one repetition.
• Continue for eight to 10 repetitions; repeat on the other side.

Single-leg kickbacks

Lastly, work on your single-leg kickbacks, which target the back line of the body, according to Basu.

• After a deep inhale, exhale and tip your tailbone upward to lift your pelvis, waist, and ribs off the mat. Keep your shoulders flat on the mat and avoid putting weight onto your head and neck.
• Bend your right knee into your chest. Tap your right foot down to the mat, keeping it in line with your knee and sit bone, then return it to your chest, then to the wall.
• Roll your ribs, waist, and pelvis back down to the mat to complete one repetition.

What is wall Pilates?

Wall Pilates is a variation of traditional Pilates that uses a wall for support, as opposed to a mat or reformer machine. “Wall Pilates’ closest relative would be Mat Pilates practice,” explains Vanessa Johnson, N.P.C.P. , director of instructor training at Club Pilates. “The exercises performed in Mat Pilates can be done using a wall as well.”

Wall Pilates benefits

Wall Pilates is beneficial for anyone seeking a low-impact, effective workout. It’s especially great for those just starting out with Pilates workouts, too. “Using the wall allows beginners to gain extra support in case of low back or hip issues, thereby building strength in the body with low impact on the generally weaker body parts and muscles,” Johnson explains.

Like all types of Pilates, Basu explains that wall Pilates exercises help to activate the deep abdominal muscles and “stabilize and strengthen our core muscles.”

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