What Are the Best Qigong Exercises for Beginners?

Qigong has thousands of movements, and choosing where to start is the hard part. These are the four I would keep if I could only keep four: drawing the bow, golden rooster stands on one leg, cloud hands and heel raises. Here is how to do each, what Chinese medicine says it is for, and what researchers have measured.

What are the best qigong exercises for beginners?

The ones you will do every day. That rules out long forms you have to memorize and leaves single movements you can repeat.

Two of my four come out of Baduanjin, the Eight Pieces of Brocade, a set of eight movements that dates to the Song dynasty, roughly eight hundred years ago. Drawing the bow is its second movement. Heel raises are a close cousin of its eighth, in which you rise onto the balls of the feet and drop back onto the heels. Golden rooster and cloud hands are tai chi postures that are also practiced on their own.

Baduanjin is heavily researched. A 2020 review counted 810 clinical publications on it in twenty years, 614 of them randomized controlled trials, with no serious adverse events tied to the practice.^[1]

In Chinese medicine each of these movements is aimed at an organ system and the emotion that travels with it: the Lungs and grief, the Liver and anger, the Kidneys and the steadiness that should come with age. Change how the body moves and you change the conditions those systems work in. It is the same idea behind Yoga as Therapy, and it is the work we do together inside Gut Brain Synchrony.

Does qigong count as exercise?

Yes. Slow is not the same as easy.

Researchers have measured it directly. Twenty people with chronic heart failure performed one nine-minute round of Baduanjin. They worked at 44 percent of the oxygen uptake and 67 percent of the heart rate they had reached on a maximal exercise test. That is moderate-intensity exercise.^[2]

It builds strength as well. A 2025 meta-analysis of 17 randomized trials in 1,029 older adults with sarcopenia, the loss of muscle that comes with age, found that qigong sets including Baduanjin improved grip strength, walking speed and the time it took to stand up from a chair.^[3]

What does drawing the bow do for your lungs and upper back?

It opens the chest and gives the lungs room. Stand with your feet wide and sink into a horse stance. Push one arm straight out to the side as if holding a bow, and pull the other elbow back as if drawing the string. Return to center and switch sides.

The ribs spread, the shoulder blades squeeze together and the upper back has to extend. Doing this 30 times a day will strengthen your lungs, open your chest and improve mobility in your upper back.

The research is on the full Baduanjin set. In a 2024 meta-analysis of 16 randomized trials in 1,184 people with stable COPD, Baduanjin improved FEV1, the volume of air you can force out in one second, and added about 45 meters to the distance patients could walk in six minutes.^[4] In a meta-analysis of 13 trials in 840 middle-aged and older adults with neck pain, pain scores were 1.15 points lower in the Baduanjin groups than in the control groups.^[5]

Why the Lungs hold grief

In Chinese medicine the Lungs govern qi, and grief is the emotion that belongs to them. Grief closes the chest. The shoulders roll forward and the breath gets shallow. Drawing the bow is the opposite shape. Practiced daily, it makes you more emotionally resilient, able to embrace love and release grief.

One small trial fits that picture. Bereaved adults with a chronic-fatigue-like illness were randomly assigned to five weeks of qigong classes or a control group. Three months later the qigong group’s mental and physical fatigue had dropped twice as far, and their scores for spiritual well-being and psychological quality of life had risen.^[6]

What are the benefits of golden rooster stands on one leg?

Balance, ankle strength and body awareness. Stand tall, shift your weight onto one leg, and raise the other knee to hip height with the foot hanging relaxed. If you can hold that for 30 seconds on each side, you are in good shape.

How long you can stand on one leg says a lot. A study in Rio de Janeiro followed 1,702 people aged 51 to 75 for a median of seven years. One in five could not hold a one-legged stance for ten seconds. Of those, 17.5 percent died during follow-up, against 4.6 percent of the people who could. After adjusting for age, sex, body mass index and illness, failing the test still carried an 84 percent higher risk of death.^[7]

Balance is trainable. In a Japanese randomized trial, 527 older adults at high risk of falling were followed for six months. One group stood on each leg for one minute, three times a day. The 315 people in that group recorded 118 falls, leaving aside one person who fell repeatedly. The 212 people in the control group recorded 121.^[8]

I also say the rooster helps ward off neuropathy in the feet. A 2024 scoping review gathered 11 studies in 508 people who already had peripheral neuropathy. After tai chi training they stood longer on one leg and walked faster, and where sensation was tested, they felt vibration and touch better through the soles of their feet. Where tai chi was compared with other active exercise, the difference between groups was not significant, so the benefit may belong to balance practice in general.^[9]

Why this is a Kidney exercise

In Chinese medicine the Kidneys store essence, the reserve you are born with and spend over a lifetime. They govern the bones, the low back and the legs. Rooting your whole weight through one leg strengthens Kidney qi. The five-phase tradition gives the Kidneys the virtue of wisdom, which is why I say you will feel more wisdom as you age.

What are the benefits of cloud hands qigong?

Cloud hands releases tension from the waist, ribs and shoulders. The hands float across the body, one rising as the other sinks, while the waist turns slowly and the weight pours from one leg to the other. Practice it 20 times in each direction.

It has been studied as a stand-alone exercise. A 2023 meta-analysis of 12 randomized trials in 966 stroke survivors found that cloud hands practice improved balance by nearly five points on the Berg Balance Scale compared with control groups.^[10]

How it reaches the diaphragm and pelvic floor

Your diaphragm and your pelvic floor are the roof and the floor of the same container, and they move together. Real-time MRI of eight healthy women showed both descending on the inhale and rising on the exhale. The right side of the diaphragm travelled 15 millimeters in quiet breathing and 32 in deep breathing.^[11] Cloud hands pairs a slow, full breath with a turning waist. That is how I understand it strengthening both.

Stuck Liver qi and anger

In Chinese medicine the Liver keeps qi moving smoothly, and its channel runs through the ribs and flanks. When Liver qi is stuck you feel it as tight sides, frequent sighing, irritability and a short fuse. Turning the waist works exactly that territory and soothes stuck Liver qi. Keep at it and you learn to move gracefully through situations which cause anger.

Brain imaging offers a hint of why. In 100 healthy volunteers monitored with near-infrared sensors, performing cloud hands made the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex and the frontopolar area busier hubs in the brain’s network. The authors describe the result as enhanced regulatory capacity in those regions.^[12]

How many heel raises should I do a day?

A hundred. They do not have to be in one set.

Stand with your feet hip-width apart, rise onto the balls of your feet, pause, and lower with control. It activates the posterior chain, the line of muscle that runs from the calves up through the hamstrings, glutes and back.

For scale: when 566 healthy adults aged 20 to 81 did heel raises on one leg until they could not do another, the median was 24 for men and 21 for women.^[13] A hundred a day on two legs is within reach.

Your calves are also a pump. The veins of the legs have one-way valves, and every time the calf contracts it pushes blood up toward the heart. In a randomized trial of 31 people with chronic venous insufficiency, six months of calf-strengthening exercise brought measures of calf pump function back into the normal range, an improvement the control group did not show.^[14]

Lifting qi and low mood

In Chinese medicine, heaviness in the legs and heaviness in the mood are one pattern: qi that sinks when it should rise. Rising onto your toes lifts qi through the legs.

On mood, a 2024 analysis in the BMJ pooled 218 trials and 14,170 people with depression. Exercise reduced symptoms, tai chi and qigong included, and the effect grew with the intensity prescribed.^[15] This is a great way to wake up in the morning and meet the day.

How to practice the four qigong exercises every day

If a stiff neck or sore back brought you here, read Chronic Pain: Start Here next.

Qigong for beginners: common questions

How long should I do qigong a day?

These four take about ten minutes. In the clinical trials of Baduanjin, people practiced for an average of 35 minutes, once or twice a day, three to five days a week.^[1] Start with ten and let it grow.

Does qigong build muscle?

It builds strength and function. In older adults with sarcopenia, qigong improved grip strength, chair-stand time and peak muscle torque.^[3]

What is the difference between qigong and tai chi?

Tai chi is a martial art practiced as a long, linked sequence. Qigong is the wider family of breath-and-movement practices, usually single movements repeated. Golden rooster and cloud hands are tai chi postures practiced the qigong way.

Pick one of the four tomorrow morning. Add the next when the first one feels like yours.

— Brehan Crawford, L.Ac.

References

1. Zhou J, Yu Y, Cao B, et al. Characteristic of Clinical Studies on Baduanjin during 2000-2019: A Comprehensive Review. Evid Based Complement Alternat Med. 2020;2020:4783915. doi:10.1155/2020/4783915
2. Chen X, Marrone G, Olson TP, et al. Intensity level and cardiorespiratory responses to Baduanjin exercise in patients with chronic heart failure. ESC Heart Fail. 2020;7(6):3782-3791. doi:10.1002/ehf2.12959
3. Liu C, Zou J, Zhang C, Zhu L, Li J. Effects of Fitness Qigong on muscle function in elderly patients with sarcopenia: A systematic review and meta-analysis of randomized controlled trials. Complement Ther Med. 2025;95:103292. doi:10.1016/j.ctim.2025.103292
4. Song F, Ding K, Qi W, et al. Effects of Baduanjin Exercise on lung function and 6 min walk in COPD patients: a systematic review and meta-analysis. Sci Rep. 2024;14(1):17788. doi:10.1038/s41598-024-68581-7
5. Liu Z, Hu H, Wen X, et al. Baduanjin improves neck pain and functional movement in middle-aged and elderly people: A systematic review and meta-analysis of randomized controlled trials. Front Med (Lausanne). 2023;9:920102. doi:10.3389/fmed.2022.920102
6. Li J, Chan JSM, Chow AYM, Yuen LP, Chan CLW. From Body to Mind and Spirit: Qigong Exercise for Bereaved Persons with Chronic Fatigue Syndrome-Like Illness. Evid Based Complement Alternat Med. 2015;2015:631410. doi:10.1155/2015/631410
7. Araujo CG, de Souza e Silva CG, Laukkanen JA, et al. Successful 10-second one-legged stance performance predicts survival in middle-aged and older individuals. Br J Sports Med. 2022;56(17):975-980. doi:10.1136/bjsports-2021-105360
8. Sakamoto K, Nakamura T, Hagino H, et al. Effects of unipedal standing balance exercise on the prevention of falls and hip fracture among clinically defined high-risk elderly individuals: a randomized controlled trial. J Orthop Sci. 2006;11(5):467-472. doi:10.1007/s00776-006-1057-2
9. Yang M, Shao C, Shao C, Saint K, Wayne PM, Bao T. Tai Chi for balance and postural control in people with peripheral neuropathy: A scoping review. Complement Ther Med. 2024;86:103089. doi:10.1016/j.ctim.2024.103089
10. Zhang L, Zhang L, Yu X, Zhou H, Ding Y, Wang J. Effect of Tai Chi Yunshou training on the balance and motor functions of stroke patients: a systematic review and meta-analysis of randomized controlled trials. Front Neurol. 2023;14:1178234. doi:10.3389/fneur.2023.1178234
11. Talasz H, Kremser C, Kofler M, Kalchschmid E, Lechleitner M, Rudisch A. Phase-locked parallel movement of diaphragm and pelvic floor during breathing and coughing: a dynamic MRI investigation in healthy females. Int Urogynecol J. 2011;22(1):61-68. doi:10.1007/s00192-010-1240-z
12. Fan J, He R, Zhong D, et al. Small-world network properties and cortical responses of Tai Chi Yunshou: Insights from fNIRS. Complement Ther Med. 2025;93:103224. doi:10.1016/j.ctim.2025.103224
13. Hébert-Losier K, Wessman C, Alricsson M, Svantesson U. Updated reliability and normative values for the standing heel-rise test in healthy adults. Physiotherapy. 2017;103(4):446-452. doi:10.1016/j.physio.2017.03.002
14. Padberg FT Jr, Johnston MV, Sisto SA. Structured exercise improves calf muscle pump function in chronic venous insufficiency: a randomized trial. J Vasc Surg. 2004;39(1):79-87. doi:10.1016/j.jvs.2003.09.036
15. Noetel M, Sanders T, Gallardo-Gómez D, et al. Effect of exercise for depression: systematic review and network meta-analysis of randomised controlled trials. BMJ. 2024;384:e075847. doi:10.1136/bmj-2023-075847