It’s time to throw your gym membership out the door. In a bad economy, you need to cut back where you can. Exercising at home is probably the best way to save a whole bunch of money and get into great shape!
What are my Cardio Options?
Performing cardio at home is very easy. You don’t need to purchase any fancy equipment at all. The following are some cardio activities you can perform with limited to no equipment:
Shadowboxing
This is an activity that professional boxers use to train for their fights. It requires standing in front of a mirror and basically boxing yourself. They usually practice footwork and punching. However, you can shadowbox practically anywhere just by throwing some punches in the air while bouncing side to side.
Jump roping
A jump rope shouldn’t cost you more than $15. Just the way you were when you were little, just start skipping rope. Eventually, you want to learn some techniques such as doubleunders and crossovers. These techniques will really get your heart rate up and give you a great cardio workout.
Running
Running is the basic cardio choice for most people. Now, I’m talking about running, not jogging. This shouldn’t be an easy run. If you’re only going to run a while, then really run a mile. Try to run that mile as fast as possible.
Calisthenics
Calisthenics are those exercises you used to do in your school gym class. They include jumping jacks, windmills, and a variety of other heart pumping movements. You can do circuits of jump roping and running in place for an intense cardio workout.
Sprinting
Sprinting is running all out within a short distance. You can start out by just sprinting from one end of the block to the other. Repeat this 10-12 times for a great fat burning workout. Steadily increase the distance until you can do an all out sprint for approximately 400 meters.
In-Home Cardio Workouts for Beginners
Beginners should ease into their in home cardio workouts. You can set up a very basic 3 days per week, 20 minutes per day routine that will help you lose weight. And because I do not want you to become bored with the routine, I want you to choose 3 separate activities for each day.
Make your Cardio Workouts Harder
After a while, basic cardio will become very boring. You can only shadowbox for so long until your body becomes used to the movement. I am against increasing the time of the movement and prefer increase the intensity of the workout.
The following are some of my favorite cardio intensity techniques:
Descending Reps
This technique works great with shadowboxing, jump roping, and calisthenics. Choose two exercises such as jump roping and jumping jacks. What you want to do is create a workout where the repetitions are steadily decreasing after each round.
Tabata
Tabata intervals are where you perform 20 seconds of high intensity training followed by 10 seconds of rest. This is performed best with sprinting, but can also be performed with high intensity jump roping or shadowboxing.
Traditional Tabata is performed for a total of 8 intervals, so the workout lasts 4 minutes long. You can perform just one exercise per day, or include other exercises. Beginners should start off by just performing one exercise per day.
If Tabata Intervals are too hard for you, then you can start off with easier intervals such as 30/60, or 30/30. Start off slow, because Tabata intervals are one of the most brutal exercises out there.
One of the best ways to help you with your intervals is to use the GymBoss Interval Timer. It costs just $19.95, and you can program it to help you keep track of any sort of intervals you may use. Click here to grab yours today.
Alternate with Strength Training
Performing cardio movements in a superset fashion with bodyweight or free weight exercises is another great method to help you drop fat really quickly. You get both the cardio and strength benefit with these workouts.
Setting up this workout is very easily. All you need to do is choose one cardio movement, and one bodyweight or dumbbell exercise and alternate between them the way you would perform regular supersets.
Doing Cardio without Doing Cardio
Now it’s time change your mind set. That last technique there, alternating with strength training and cardio is only scratching the surface when it comes to creating cardio workouts without doing cardio. The thing that most people don’t realize is that Cardio is short for the word “Cardiorespiratory.”
In short, you’re training your heart. So as long as you keep your heart rate up, in a way, you’re performing cardio. The cardio effect disappears when you rest too long and let your heart rate return to normal. If you rest for a very short time between two or more strength training exercises, then you will never need to do actual cardio ever again!
Remember one thing: no matter how great a fitness program is, you will never get results from it if it’s not fun. You workouts need to be exciting and challenging. So you need to choose something that you truly enjoy doing.
Actually, I need to stop using the word cardio. It’s not cardio, it’s Energy Systems Training (EST). EST is all about improving the way your body uses nutrients to fuel strenuous physical activity. In other words, train your heart and lungs to help you fuel your workouts.
