The dreaded word cardio. Unless I am trying to lose a little bit of fat (or a lot), I don’t ever want to hear my training partner ask me ‘shall we do some cardio’? That’s just me though, and I do understand some people enjoy cardio workouts. I feel like most people either enjoy cardio more or hitting the weights more. I haven’t ever met anybody that performs one as much as the other, although both are, in their own rights, as important as each other.
I’m sure you know the benefits of lifting weights, but what about the benefits of cardio? They include the following;
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Improves cardiovascular health (obviously)
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Lowers blood pressure
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Helps to regulate blood sugar
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Can help reduce pain
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Aids sleep
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Boosts mood
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Relatively safe for everyone
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Can help burn additional calories
Having realised this, I knew that I had to figure out a way to get some cardio in just for the health benefits. I started with something super simple, upping my activity level with extra steps. I mean, I figured I was pretty good at walking, I did it every day. A few extra thousand steps every day would be a nice easy place to start.
What I didn’t like however, was simply stepping on a treadmill or bike and slogging away, so this needed to change. My cardio needed to be fun in some way, or just not as mind numbing. What I’m sharing below are some of the more enjoyable cardio workouts I did (did I just say I enjoyed cardio?). Anyway, give them a try!
Conditioning complexes
These sound awful, I know, and I'm not going to lie to you. They are hard if you do them right. On the plus side, they aren’t going to take very long to get your heart racing and your muscles burning.
They are easy to perform and the only equipment you will need is a barbell, a pair of dumbbells and a kettlebell. You are going to choose 2-3 exercises that you can use for each piece of equipment and perform them back to back for a circuit. Start off on lower reps and work your way up over the weeks, it can be quite humbling. An example of what the workout could look like is below.
Dumbbells
Thrusters, goblet squats, alternate lunge
Barbell
Military press, barbell curl, clean
Kettlebell
Swings, snatches, turkish get ups
So, perform all the dumbbell exercises, then move onto barbell, complete the exercises, then move onto the kettlebell. Aim for 3 rounds. You will be gassed, but you should also have a good pump.
Carry’s
Weighted, of course. Have you ever carried your bodyweight for as long as possible? 3 times? It burns. It also recruits a hell of a lot of muscles you didn’t know you had.
There are a ton of ways to carry weight, from the well-known farmers walks to a sandbag on the shoulder. They are also really simple to perform. Pick something up and walk with it for as long as you can.
If you can carry your bodyweight for 90 seconds, 3 times, then it’s time to up the weight that you carry.
Use a cardio machine you haven’t used before
Seems obvious, but it worked for me. I hadn’t ever used the stepper (surprising when every influencer on social media uses one, I know). It just didn’t appeal to me. However, when I decided to bite the bullet, I enjoyed it, it felt more of a leg workout to me. Don’t get me wrong, it will hurt your lungs if you climb enough flights on the right setting.
You may never like cardio, but these are some ways I found to make it a lot more bearable.
