Whether you’re short in time or want a quick session, cardiovascular exercises give you the option quickly finish your workout without compromising its effectiveness.
Cardiovascular is also known as cardio or aerobic exercise. It makes your heart rate up and pumps blood and oxygen faster throughout your body, and makes it more crucial for your overall health and well-being.
But what if you can’t get outside or don’t want to hit the gym? Check out below list, some of the best cardio exercises that you can perform without leaving your home.
The 13 Best Cardio Exercises For All Fitness Level
Add these moves in your cardio routine to improve your cardiovascular and heart health.
High Knees
- Stand with your legs together, and arms bent at 90 degrees at your sides.
- Bend your knee and lift towards your chest.
- Return your leg to the floor and repeat with another knee.
- Continue alternating legs and move your arms up and down.
Requirements: A good pair of shoes, good mobility knees and a healthy heart.
Benefits: High-knee running increases your heart rate while strengthening your lower body. It is a useful cardio exercise to burn calories in a short amount of time.
Butt Kicks
- Stand with your legs together and arms at your sides.
- Lift your hill towards the butt. Lower your feet to the floor and repeat with another knee.
- Continue alternating your hills while engaging your arms by moving up and down.
Requirements: A good pair of shoes, knees’ mobility and a healthy heart.
Benefits: Butt kick is the opposite of high knee running. Butt kick running helps raise your heart rate and strengthen your legs muscles, and it’s an excellent cardio option for beginners.
Jumping Jacks
- Stand with your legs together and arms at your sides.
- Jump and spread your feet wider than shoulder-width while circling the arms overhead.
- Jump and back again. Repeat.
Requirements: Good shoulder and legs’ mobility, a healthy heart, and a good pair of shoes.
Benefits: Jumping jacks is a great move that works for your entire body. It helps to improve your total body functionality and increases your heart rate to burn calories.
Jump Rope
- Stand with your feet together and keep a rope in your hands.
- Turn the string with its handles while jumping over it.
- Continue the process and make sure you are turning the cord with your wrists, not hands.
Requirements: A jump rope, a good pair of shoes, practice, and patience.
Benefits: Jumping rope is a great cardio workout that burns around 220 calories in 20 minutes. It is effortless to carry, inexpensive, and can perform anywhere you have space.
Kickboxing
- Stand with your legs and bending your arms in a strong pose.
- Punch, kick, or a combination thereof against a bag, the air, or (risky) other people.
Requirements: Basic knowledge of kicks and punches, and you should have a proper body balance.
Benefits: Kickboxing is a great workout to get out of your aggression, and it can burn 100 or more calories in less than 10 minutes with the right intensity. It requires no equipment, or you can use a boxing bag.
Running the Stairs
- Stand with your legs in front of a staircase, or you can use your home stair.
- Best your knee upward and step-up to the next stair.
- Lift your other knee to the above stair. Continue.
Requirements: A staircase with at least one step or you can use the stair of your home.
Benefits:Â Running or walking in the stairs is an excellent at-home workout to burn calories, and it adds extra variety to your workout routine.
Box jumps
- Stand with your legs together and arms at your sides in-front of a knee-high box or platform.
- Bent your knees and engage your core, kipping your back flat. Swing your arms upward and jump explosively into the box.
- Leaning forward and land gently into the box. Jump back off. Repeat.
Requirements: It needs a knee-high box or a platform, and proper warm-up of your knees.
Benefits: The box jump is a great cardio workout that targets your lower body, including your butt, thighs, calves, and shins. It helps to burn calories and strengthen your lower body.
Burpees
- Stands with your legs together and arms at your sides. Squat and place your hands on the floor.
- Jump your feet to a plank position. Do one push-up.
- Jump back your feet into a squat. Jump up, reaching your arms upward. Repeat.
Requirements: A good warm-up before exercise, a right floor or mat, a good pair of shoes, and experience with high-impact workouts.
Benefits: Burpee is an excellent exercise, which involves a squat, jump, and pushup, will engage your entire body. It burns 100 or more calories in 10 minutes of workout.
Mountain Climbers
- Start in a plank with your hands under your shoulder.
- Keep your body straight along with back and core.
- Run your knees in and out from a push-up position, and continue.
Requirements: Strong wrists and shoulders with flexible legs.
Benefits: Mountain Climber helps to raise your heart rate while increases endurance and strength of your core, wrist, and shoulders.
Squat Jumps
- Start with your legs shoulder-width apart. Bent your knees and go in a squat position.
- Swing your arms back. Quickly swing your arms up and jump as much as you can.
- Land back gently into a squat position.
Requirements: Strong knees, experience with high-impact exercises, and a good pair of shoes.
Benefits: Squat is a bodybuilding workout that mainly targets your lower body. By adding a jump, you can get a crazy cardio session. Squat jump helps to increase your heart rate, burn calories, and build strong legs.
Lunge Jumps
- Start in a lunge position, and both knees bent at a 90-degree angle.
- Pull your shoulders down and your arms back. Quickly swing your arms upward and jump.
- Switch legs and land in a lunge. Repeat.
Requirements: Strong knees, experience in a high-impact workout, and a good pair of shoes.
Benefits: Lunge jump is an explosive lower-body workout, helps increase heart rate and burn more calories in less time. It’s a great leg workout option that needs no equipment and boosts stamina to your lower-body muscles.
Inchworm Crawl
- Stand with your feet together and bent forward and reach your arms to the floor, kipping your knees softly straight but relaxed.
- Set your fingers on the floor and engage your core. Start walk slowly forward with your hands, and go into the plank position, straight your body.
- Move back towards your feet by strolling with your hands. Repeat.
Requirements: A solid core, strong arms, wrist, flexible lower-back and experience of a high-impact bodyweight workout.
Benefits: The inchworm crawl is a brutal total body exercise that engages your core, back, arms, shoulders’ muscle. It’s a great cardio option to increase your endurance and make your body healthier.
Plank Ski Hops
- Start in a plank position with your arms under your shoulder, kipping your legs together, straight.
- Jump your feet to the right, bring your knees outside of your right elbow, kipping your legs together.
- Jump back into the plank and repeat the same on the left side. Continue.
Requirements: It needs a strong core and arms with high endurance level and high-impact body-weight workout experience.
Benefits: The plank ski hops is a great exercise to burn more calories in less time. This exercise mainly targets your core area and an excellent option to build your endurance.
How to Get The Most Out of Your Workout
Follow these tips to make the most of your cardio workout without getting injured:
1. Warm-up: Before starting each session, always do 5 to 10 minutes of warm-up like lite jogging and stretching (includes calves, quads, hamstrings). This will increase your oxygen and blood flow to the muscles, lowering your risk of injuries.
2. Cooldown: Finishing or stopping your workout right away; you may feel like a little dizzy or headache because your heart rate and blood pressure are rapidly down. So, 5 to 10 minutes to proper cooldown is necessary to eliminate these symptoms.
3. Do in the empty stomach: To lose fat or make the most of your cardio workout, you should do it in an empty stomach, especially in the morning (everyone knows this).
4. Aim for 150 minutes: Over the week, your aim should be doing at least 150 minutes of physical activity. You can spread this time with 30 minutes a session for five days a week.
5. Focus on your nutrition: Only cardio will not make you shredded or achieving single digit fat percentage, it’s the 10% of your equation, the other 90% is nutrition. So, it’s very crucial to focus on your diet to get your dream transformation.
Conclution
Cardio exercise is a brilliant workout option to burn calories, lose fat, and maintain muscle health. The best cardio exercises mentioned above are super convenient, which you can perform anywhere, anytime without any fancy equipment.
Remember that you should start slowly and then gradually up, especially when you’re performing a new exercise.
If you’ve any question or queries, feel free to ask in the comment section below.
