Did you know that the discs used to move furniture can also give you a killer workout? Furniture slider exercises offer a unique challenge, because you are able to slide a foot or hand on the floor. This allows for unique positions that challenge your balance, range of motion and strength. Best of all, you can get a pack of furniture sliders for under $10.

Most often, furniture slider exercises target the core, but I’m going to show you other ways to use this piece of equipment.

RELATED: The Furniture Slider Workout

Upper Body

When it comes to training the upper body, incorporating a few activation drills can help you function at an optimal level. This is especially true for muscles that connect in and around the shoulder. How many athletes require shoulder mobility and stability for their sport? Nearly all, right?

Serratus Slides

A small but important muscle that works on upwardly rotating the shoulder blade, the serratus anterior can sometimes lie dormant due to the overpowering downward rotators. Getting this muscle firing can be crucial for shoulder health.

How To:

1. Place your forearms on the glide discs on a wall.
2. Place your body in an angled plank position.
3. Slide the discs up the wall while pushing your body away from the wall.

Do not lean in toward the wall (that’s a different exercise). Your body should maintain the same position throughout the drill.

RELATED: Build Core Strength With These 3 Slider Exercises

Lat Activation

The latissimus dorsi are one of the biggest muscle groups in the upper body. It’s important to make use of them for big movements like the Bench Press, Squat, Deadlift and Pull-Up, all of which have tremendous carryover into developing strength.

How To:

1. Assume the Child’s Pose position with your hands on the sliders.
2. Slide one hand/arm out as far as you can without changing the position of your body.
3. Slide your arm and disc straight back by pulling your shoulder blade toward your back pocket.

You should feel your lats and upper back fire up right away, and this will help you perform the big lifts mentioned before.

RELATED: 5 Best Shoulder Exercises You Can Do At Home

Reaching Push-Up

Push-Ups are one of the best upper-body exercises you can do, because they don’t require any equipment and you can do them anywhere. At some point, your body adapts and Push-Ups become easier to perform. That’s when you need to start including Push-Up variations in your program for an added challenge.

The Reaching Push-Up is almost a Single-Arm Push-Up in that you rely on one arm to do most of the work. There are two options. You can slide the disc out to the side or out in front. Both provide a unique challenges to your upper body and core.

How To:

1. Get in a push-up position with one hand on a disc.
2. As you lower yourself to the bottom of the Push-Up, slide the disc out to the side or out in front.
3. Push yourself back up to the starting position and slide the disc back in.

Lower Body

Lunges

You can do Lunges in multiple directions, but for the purpose of using slider discs, we will focus on Reverse Lunges, which are great for quad and glute strength and can cause quite a burn through the legs.

How To:

1. Stand with your feet together and one foot on the slider.
2. Slowly slide the leg back, while simultaneously bending both knees.
3. Lean slightly forward to stress your glutes a little more.
4. Stand back up to the starting position.

Hamstring Curls

We live in a quad-dominant world where the quadriceps take over everything and we’re left with weak hamstrings, among other things. This exercise is particularly challenging on the hamstrings, as it works both knee flexion and hip extension—the two movements for which the hamstrings are responsible.

How To:

1. Lie flat on your back with your heels on the furniture sliders.
2. Engage your core and glutes and press down into the discs with your heels.
3. Slide your heels towards your butt and simultaneously push your hips to the ceiling.
4. Return back to start under control.

Core

Drag Crawls

No article would be complete without some killer core exercises. Drag Crawls require you to drag yourself across the ground using only your arms. The key to this exercise is to keep your hips steady and your core engaged to prevent hip shifting. Your feet are placed on the discs, and you literally just drag your body across the floor. Sounds simple, sounds easy. But it’s definitely a challenge.

How To:

1. Get in a push-up position with your feet on the discs.
2. Keeping your core tight, take a step with one hand/arm, then repeat until you reach a set distance.
3. Turn around and go back, or go backwards for an added challenge

Wax On, Wax Off Planks

Also known as Plank Circles, this exercise challenges your core in almost the same way as Drag Crawls, but with the bonus of challenging your shoulders as well.

How To:

1. Get in a push-up position with your hands on the sliders.
2. In Karate Kid style, move one arm in a clockwise circle for a set amount of reps.
3. Once you finish clockwise circles, do counterclockwise circles.
4. Switch arms and repeat.

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