Introduction to Cardio Exercise
Maximize Your Cardio Fitness From Home
Cardio workouts are among the most popular and widely practiced forms of exercise. By simply walking or jogging at a moderate pace to get your heart rate up, you’re performing a cardio workout. But for those of you who want to learn more about cardio and how to practice it in different ways, this is the guide for you.
Below, we explain what cardio is, the different types of cardio workouts, how it benefits you, and the best gear and equipment to help you go to the next level.
Already familiar with cardio and want to jump ahead? Visit our Cardio Article section!
At-Home Cardio Table of Contents
What is Cardio?
Cardio exercise, which is short for “cardiovascular exercise”, are exercises that increase your heart rate to exercise your cardiovascular system. Our cardiovascular system includes our heart and lungs and is responsible for pumping blood and oxygen throughout your body.
So by exercising in a way that increases your heart rate for an extended period of time, we’re exercising our heart and lungs, which helps improve how efficient they are at supplying the rest of the body with blood and oxygen.
The most common cardio exercises are walking, jogging, or running at a moderate to high intensity, but you can also achieve the same results by cycling, swimming, and dancing. Any movements engaging the majority of your body for an extended period of time with limited rest will do the trick!
Benefits of Cardio Exercise
The benefit of cardio exercise in a nutshell is that it strengthens your heart and lungs, which improves how well they pump blood and oxygen to the rest of the body. With better blood and oxygen flow, the risk of heart disease is reduced and your athletic ability improves as well because you can perform longer than before without rest.
Cardio exercise has also been found to help with mental health as well. When performing cardio, your body releases endorphins, which are hormones that act as natural pain relievers and are often called the “feel-good” chemicals because they make you feel better and improve your mood.
Types of Cardio Exercises
As we’ve said, as long as your increasing your heart rate for an extended period of time, you’re practicing a cardio exercise at some level, but here are three main categories of cardio workouts:
Aerobic Exercise
Aerobic exercises are the basic form of cardio exercise, which focus on increasing your heart for an extended period of time. This is where cardio exercises like walking, jogging, cycling, and swimming fall in. Because they’re all repetitive movements done over an extended period of time, they all check the box of increasing your heart rate with little rest.
Dance Workouts
Dance-based workouts are essentially another form of aerobic exercise, except dance workouts involve performing various dance moves instead of the same repetitive movements as in walking and running. These workouts are usually considered more fun because you’re dancing to music, such as latin, jazz, or hip hop.
High-Intensity Interval Training
Also referred to as “HIIT”, these cardio exercises alternate between periods of more intense exercises and periods of either rest or less intense exercise. Because HIIT goes back and forth between high and low intensity, you can achieve the same results as steady-state aerobic exercise in less time.
Any exercise can be considered a HIIT exercise: you just change the pace. For example: jog at a light pace for 30 seconds, sprint for 10 seconds, and repeat nine more times for a HIIT exercise.
How to Do a Cardio Workout
Before just jumping into a cardio workout routine, it’s good to lay the ground work first.
Safety First
As with any exercise, we need to be mindful of proper form and safety, and cardio exercise is no different.
Always complete your warm-up and cooldown stretches, monitor your intensity, stay hydrated before, during, and after your workouts, and always listen to your body and consult a healthcare professional if certain aches or pains persist.
Also, if you plan to do your cardio workout outside, always wear a helmet when cycling and consider wearing high-visibility or reflective clothing if working out in low-light conditions.
Set Your Goal and Choose the Right Exercise
If you want to drive a screw into a 2×4, do you use a screwdriver or a hammer? Exercise is the same thing: first we need to decide what the goal of our workout is, and then we can pick which exercises are best to help us meet that goal.
For beginners, starting with walking or cycling is a good way to get into a routine without heavy impact to your body. But over time, you want slowly increase the intensity of the exercises by either going at a faster pace or a longer duration. Eventually, you can add HIIT exercises as well to add a whole new level to your exercise routine.
Warm-Up
Once you have your exercise plan set, the next step is to warm up to prevent any injury or strain on your muscles.
To warm-up, you want to do either a single or set of exercises for 5 to 10 minutes at a lower intensity, such as jumping rope or a light jog, to start to increase your heart rate and loosen your muscles.
Once warmed up, it’s good to perform a set of dynamic stretches as well to loosen your muscles even more.
Ready, Set, Exercise!
Now that we’re warmed up and ready, we can start exercising.
As you’re exercising, you want to make sure the intensity of the workout matches your plan, which you can do with the “Talk Test”: if you can carry on a conversation, you’re at moderate intensity, but if you’re too out of breath to talk, you’re at high intensity. Neither is right or wrong, but it needs to match your goals. Also, don’t forget to stay hydrated before, during, and after your cardio exercise!
Cool Down Stretch
Same as warming up, we want to perform a set stretches to help our body cooldown and reduce muscle soreness later on. A good rule of thumb is to stretch the primary muscles used in the workout for about 10-15 seconds per stretch.
Cardio Gear
Because a cardio exercise meets its goal simply by elevating your heart rate, you really don’t need much to get started. However, for those looking to progress their cardio workouts to higher levels, you want to make sure you have the right gear and equipment.
Footwear and Clothing
If you’re going to be walking or running for extended periods of time, you’re going to want to make sure your shoes are comfortable. For cardio, we want our shoes to have enough cushioning, support, and stability for your feet and ankles to reduce soreness and reduce the risk of injury.
Similarly, we want to make sure our clothing is comfortable as well. Because we will be sweating during the cardio workout, we want clothes that are moisture wicking and breathable. We also want clothing that isn’t too tight so it doesn’t hinder our movement and isn’t uncomfortable.
Water Bottle
Remember, priority number one is safety, and part of cardio safety is staying hydrated. Finding a water bottle that is durable, refillable, and easy to carry will help you stay hydrated while working out.
Music Player
Depending on what you’re doing, your cardio workout can get a little lonely or boring eventually. By listening to music, you can make the workout more enjoyable and help you stay motivated. You can also multitask: workout while listening to podcasts or eBooks to learn something new while working out. Ideally, a smartphone with wireless headphones works best so you don’t have the hassle of any headphone wires.
Heart Rate Monitor
To get a more accurate read on your workout intensity, using a heart rate monitor can help you stay within your target heart rate range. Obviously you want to have a higher heart rate during cardio to get the benefits of the workout, but working out with too high of a heart rate could lead to premature fatigue or injury.
Indoor Cardio Machines
For those who prefer to add an indoor element to their cardio exercises, three popular types of cardio machines are available: Treadmills, Stationary Bikes, and Ellipticals.
Treadmills
Treadmills are the most well-known option for indoor cardio. To use a treadmill, you stand on the belt, set the speed and incline of the belt, and walk or run depending on the speed you set.
One of the best benefits of treadmills is they cater to people of all fitness levels: beginners can stay at a low speed and low incline setting while more conditioned users can opt for a faster speed or higher incline. Also, many treadmills come with features like heart rate monitors and pre-set workout programs, and treadmills can accommodate both steady-state cardio and interval training.
Stationary Bikes
Stationary bikes are the indoor alternative to cycling, providing a solid cardio workout as one would experience riding a bicycle. To use a stationary bike, you sit on the seat, place your feet on the pedals, and set the desired resistance level before beginning to cycle. Unlike treadmills, the speed you cycle at is based entirely on how fast you pedal, but you can increase the resistance on the stationary bike the same way you can increase the incline on a treadmill.
Stationary bikes also provide a low-impact cardio workout on your joints because your feet remain on the pedals, making stationary bikes a great cardio exercise for users with joint pain.
Ellipticals
Ellipticals are quickly becoming a widely popular option for cardio workouts indoors. To use an elliptical, you stand with your feet on pedals and holds onto handles with your hands. As you use the machine, the pedals will move in an elliptical motion while the handles move in coordination with the pedals. This provides both a lower and upper body cardio exercise.
A key benefit of ellipticals over treadmills is the reduced impact on joints. When using a treadmill, you are either walking or running, and the repetitive contact of your feet against the treadmill creates impact on your joints. With ellipticals, because your feet never leave the pedals, the impact is significantly reduced, making ellipticals an excellent option for people with joint pain seeking a good cardio workout.
Cardio from Home Summary: Running it Back
As you can see, a lot more goes into a cardio workout than simply going outside and running a mile. Here, we explained what cardio is and how it benefits your body by strengthening your heart and lungs. We showed how you can approach cardio exercises from different ways, including aerobic, dance, and HIIT, to meet your fitness goals. We took you through the steps of a good cardio workout, emphasizing the importance of proper safety and warmup and cooldown stretches. Finally, we provided suggestions on what gear, equipment and indoor machines are available to help you optimize your cardio workouts.
From here, your next steps are to set your own personal goals, pick what type of workout you want to try, and continue learning more so both your physical fitness and education continue to improve.
We hope this guide helps set a good foundation for you if you plan to pursue cardio exercise. If you have any questions, don’t hesitate to Contact Us so we can continue to help!
