Cardio is a key component of overall fitness, since it affects your body's ability to deliver oxygen to the heart and muscles. It's critical at every age, but you may find that it doesn't come as naturally as you get older. When you're young and moving around more, you tend to get enough cardio by default, but eventually aerobic exercise takes more conscious effort.
Luckily, you can still do cardio even if you don’t have the time or energy to hit the gym or run around the park. Take a look at our suggestions for simple exercises you can do around the house to get your heart pumping and your blood flowing.
If you have mobility issues, or if you want to start small before working your way up to more active aerobics, there are plenty of cardio exercises you can do from a chair. Take turns lifting your right and left knees up to perform seated marches, then engage your arms by stretching them out to your sides and making big circles — you can do these chair exercises separately or together, depending on the level of challenge you’re looking for.
Next, strengthen your core with side reaches: Put your right arm over your head and lean to the left in your seat, then raise the left arm and lean to the right, and repeat.
When it’s not a great time to be outside, you can still go for a walk without going anywhere. Walking or jogging in place in your living room is just as good as doing laps around the neighborhood.
When you start to get tired, slow things down by marching in place or doing leg stands — the pace isn’t as brisk, but you can lift your legs higher and work different muscles. If there are stairs in your home, simply going up and down is decent cardio (people in single-story homes may want to buy exercise steps).
You can hop your way to a healthier heart with a few different exercises. Jumping jacks will put your whole body to work, getting your feet off the ground and your arms in the air.
For something a bit more intense, take a jump rope to your garage or backyard and see how many skips you can do. You can also engage more muscles by doing squat jumps: Lower yourself into a squat position, hold for a second when you reach the bottom, then spring into the air and make sure to bend your knees when you land.
This set of exercises may be too physically demanding for some, but if you can handle getting down on the ground, they’re excellent in-home workout material. Start simple with snow angels: Lie on your back with your feet planted on the floor, stretch your arms out to your sides, and slide them up and down repeatedly, just as if you were making “wings” in fresh powder.
When your arms need a break, flip over and do some mountain climbers: Get into a push-up position, but instead of lowering and raising your body, move your knees back and forth under your torso as quickly as you can.
If you’re ready for something really intense, try burpees: Start with a squat, transition into a push-up, and then jump into the air on your way back up (this is fantastic cardio, but don’t get ahead of yourself — get in the habit of doing less physical exercises before you give burpees a shot).
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