Cardio should always be quick, effective, and never boring.
That's why we put together cardio workouts that you can do in under a half hour. Bonus: Running is not required for all of them.
5 things to note about these:
1. You should try to maintain a brisk pace throughout these workouts.
The work portions of each workout should be done at a comfortably hard pace — about a 7 on a scale of 1 to 10, where 1 is at complete rest and 10 is an all-out effort.
2. Be sure to warm up first and cool down after.
Sulaver recommends prepping for these workouts with a few minutes of light jogging, rowing, or whatever the main cardio activity of the workout is, as well as with the World's Greatest Stretch and cooling down with some static stretching.
3. Feel free to mix and match movements.
If you can't or don't want to run, substitute 500 jumps with a jump rope for every 1/4 mile, for example. Or run hills outside instead of doing it on the elliptical. Or, if you like the Run and Jump workout but hate running, swap in the rower or elliptical.
4. These are designed to get progressively more challenging over time.
So feel free to make them incrementally more difficult each time you do them. If you do 8 sprints in week one, aim to do 10 in week two, 12 in week three, and so on. Or you can add 100 meters to your rowing intervals or extra mileage to the runs, etc.
5. If you want to do these workouts as part of an monthlong workout program, check out the BuzzFeed's one-month Get Fit Challenge.
And you can swap in even more cardio workouts with these.
Now go cardio!
