Cardio Exercise

Top 5 Cardio exercises

Dr Aadarsh Yadav14th December 2019

What are cardio exercises?

Cardio exercises are defined as a physical exercise of low to high intensity that depends primarily on the aerobic energy-generating process. Cardio exercise is also known as cardiovascular exercises or aerobic exercises which is essential for good health.

The cardio exercises increase your heart rate, gets your blood pump faster. This release more oxygen throughout your body, which keeps your cardiovascular system, especially the heart and respiratory system, especially lungs healthy.

The best kind of cardio exercises is compound exercises, which involves multiple joints and more than one muscle group of your body. So, lets read some cardio exercises which will help you to lose weight, get sound sleep, and reduce your risk of different types of chronic disease.

Health benefits of the cardio exercises

There are several health benefits of cardio exercise. Some of them are enlisted below.

• It helps in the strengthening of the respiratory muscle like Diaphrgram, external intercostal muscle, internal intercostals muscle and many more. The main aim of the strengthening of the respiratory muscle is to facilitate the flow of air in and out of the lungs.
• Cardio exercises help in strengthening the cardiac muscle, to improve its pumping efficiency and reduces the resting heart rate.
• Helps in improving circulation adaptability and also lower the blood pressure.
• It helps in facilitating the transport of oxygen by increasing the total number of red blood cells (RBCs) in the body.
• Cardio exercises improve mental health and lowering the incidence of depression.
• It helps in reducing the risk of Diabetes Mellitus (DM).

Types of cardio exercises

Three categories mainly characterize cardio exercises.

Indoor

• Elliptical trainer
• Indoor rower
• Stationary bicycle
• Treadmill

Outdoor

• Walking
• Cycling
• Running
• Cross-country skiing
• Cross-country running
• Nordic walking
• Inline skating
• Skateboarding
• Rowing

Indoor or Outdoor

• Swimming
• Kickboxing
• Skipping rope or jump rope
• Circuit training
• Jumping jacks
• Water aerobics
• Jogging

Skipping rope or jump rope

Skipping rope or jump rope is one of the most straightforward cardio exercises which can burn about 200+ calories if you skip progressively for 20 minutes. The benefits of jumping rope or skipping rope include being cardio exercises that improve your coordination, advance your metabolism, and makes you sweat like crazy. Skipping rope can be a high warmup and an effective cross-training workout for runners.

How to do:

1. You need to stand straight, spine and head are erect. Hold the rope with hands behind your body. Make fixed that your hands are at least one foot away from your body or else there are chances of your plunging over.
2. Now swing the rope forward and lope over it, allowing it to actuate behind your body.
3. Leap on your toes. Allow your wrists and hand to move to actuate along with handles.

You need to do two sets of 30 reps each.

High knees

High knees are cardio-intensive exercises performed at a fast pace. It engages your core, invigorates all the muscles in your legs, gets your heart rate up and ameliorates momentum, coordination and flexibility. Because of the many physical godsends, high-knees are incorporated into a wide variety of workouts.

How to do:

1. Stand with your legs well-adjusted and arms at your sides.
2. Drive one knee toward your chest. Lower your leg and ingeminate with the other knee.
3. Endure alternating knees, pumping your arms up and down.

Lunge jumps

This is one of another cardio exercise that helps in toning the thigh muscles. This exercises also escalate your heart beats without any equipment. It also helps in bettering the body coordination while keeping the lower body more supple and toned.

How to do:

1. Onset in a lunge; both knees bent at 90-degree angles. Point your feet forward.
2. Shore your core, pull your shoulders down, and swing your arms back. Quickly turn your arms upward and jumps. Simultaneously switch legs.
3. Land in the lunge. Repeat the process.

Squat jumps

Squat jump is a bodyweight move that targets the lower body. Squat jumps pep up the rate of your heartbeat, improving the circulation levels and boosting the metabolism. This cardio exercises burn loads of calories and enhance the power of the legs.

How to do:

1. Stand erect with Feet a little bit wider than shoulder apart.
2. Hands up by the ears.
3. Sit back into a regular squat.
4. Next, thighs should go down to parallel with the floor
5. Explode up
6. And finally, land down with soft knees.

Mountain climbers

Mountain climber is great for building cardio endurance, core strength, and agility. You work several different muscle groups with mountain climbers- it’s almost like getting a total-body workout out with just one cardio exercise.

How to do:

1. Lie on the floor in a plank position with your body attuning on your wrists.
2. Your body should be in a collinear line from head to toe.
3. safeKeeping your lower back arched, bend your left knee towards your chest.
4. Grasp the pose for 2 seconds, return to the initial position, and swiftly repeat with right leg.
5. This makes one rep. Do this workout break until you complete one set.

Recommend to do: 2 sets of 20 reps each.

Drawbacks of cardio exercise

• Some disadvantages of cardio exercise include:
• Repetitive, high-impact exercise such as distance running may lead to overuse injuries.
• It is not a valid form of fat loss unless used consistently
• It is not a practical approach to building muscle.

Conclusion

Cardio exercise keeps one of the best activities to keep your lungs and heart and other body muscle healthy. If you follow indoor cardio exercises, you don’t even need to leave your house to add it to your fitness routine. Try these cardio exercises, and let us know if you have any query regarding these exercises.