There are ways to keep up with your cardio while working out at home.
Cardio might not be the most appealing type of exercise in the world, but it’s an important part of a healthy and well-rounded exercise routine. Keeping with your cardio can be a burden, but there are ways you can incorporate it into your daily workouts to make it more manageable.
If you’re still working from home, this is a great time to think about how you could incorporate exercise throughout the day since you no longer have going to the office taking up so much of your time.
Tip #1: The kettlebell is your friend.
Weight is your best friend when it comes to doing indoor cardio. Since you don’t have that much space to move around, the best trick is to utilize weights to force your body to break a sweat. The kettlebell is one of the best workout tools in this respect. You can do rapid kettlebell swings to get your heart rate up while standing in living room watching TV or on a Zoom call.
Doing twists while holding a kettlebell, when done rapidly, can also increase your cardio and help you lose weight! If you want to get serious about doing indoor cardio, definitely make sure you have one of these on hand, or an equivalent weighted tool you prefer like a medicine ball.
Tip #2: Sneak cardio into your strength training.
If you’re one of those people that absolutely dreads doing cardio, there are ways you can sneak cardio exercises into your strength training workouts. Simple modifications to common workouts are key. You could try doing five minutes of HIIT in between exercises as a way of getting cardio in while continuing to do whatever workout you normally do and enjoy.
Tip #3: Try jumping jacks, jump rope, and other ways of working out that don’t use equipment.
One of the biggest challenges of doing cardio at home is that — if you don’t have a home gym — you don’t have access to any of the fitness equipment like treadmills or rowing machines that make indoor cardio a breeze. You can still get cardio in at home with some tried and true classics like the jump rope.
Make a commitment to do fifteen minutes of jumping jacks before you start your day or before you go to bed. A jump rope is a cheap and easy way to do cardio in your house whenever you have the time. Remember, it’s the man that makes the workout, not the equipment.
Tip #4: High knees will help you break a sweat.
High knees are a cardio fundamental. It gets the blood pumping and you can do it pretty much anywhere. Plus, it burns fat in a pretty fast amount of time, so as long as you do it rapidly and with intensity you don’t even have to do it that long. Better yet, do it in small but intense bursts throughout the day to burn the most fat.
Tip #5: Don’t rely too much on HIIT for cardio, since it will disrupt your gains in strength training.
Lots of people choose HIIT as their weapon of choice when it comes to getting cardio in and it’s easy to see why. It’s quick, effective, and it gets the job done. But HIIT workouts can actually slim you down and decrease your gains from strength training since the exercises are designed to make your body more lean. If you’re trying to do cardio without sacrificing gains, make sure to not overdose on HIIT.