agardner
Tuesday, March 19, 2019 - 13:59
Whether you love cardio or hate it, it’s essential to a balanced, healthy lifestyle.  Fortunately, if spending hours on the treadmill to meet your cardio exercise requirements isn’t appealing to you, FitClub has easy ways to add more cardiovascular activity to your workout regimen.

Why does your body need cardio?
Maybe your ideal workout regimen includes only strength training or only Yoga.  It’s nice to imagine a healthy lifestyle built only on the activities that we prefer, but one hundred fifty minutes of cardio exercise each week is essential to preventing certain medical conditions like heart disease and stroke.  It’s also crucial for building endurance and burning calories and an effective way to manage or lose weight.

How can you add more cardio without spending hours on the treadmill?
If you’ve avoided cardio in the past or you’re new to exercise, you might be surprised to learn that cardio exercise can be any activity that raises your heart rate to such a degree that your body will burn fat and calories.  To get to that target heart rate zone during your workout, you need at least ten minutes of cardio activity.  If long runs on the treadmill don’t appeal to you, FitClub has you covered with easy ways to add more cardio and maximize your results.


  • Keep it simple. Cardio doesn’t have to be complicated to be effective.  Adding a brisk walk, a short ride on a stationary bike, or a series of sprints on the treadmill to your strength training warmup can help you hit your cardio goals without adding tons of time to your workout.  Your effort in doing the activity counts far more than the complexity of the activity.  When you’re introducing your body to cardio, keep it simple and judge your workout by your effort and intensity, rather than the activity, speed, or miles.

  • Break it up. Don’t let the magic number of one hundred fifty minutes scare you away from trying to add more cardio to your workout.  Cardio doesn’t have to be done in huge blocks of time to be effective. You can break up a strength training workout with ten to twenty minutes of cardio between sets and maximize your results without adding hours to your workout routine.  Breaking up your workout may also help to break up the monotony of strength training, allowing you to stay more mentally engaged in each part of your workout.

  • Hire a personal trainer or try a FitClub group exercise class. Working with a professional can take the guesswork out of adding cardio to your workout and you might be surprised at how easily a professional can transform a strength training exercise into a cardio workout.  Personal trainers know how to build compound sets or vary your recovery time between sets to increase your heart rate while you perform the moves you already love.  Group exercise classes, too, bring an advantage in letting you feed off the motivation of others in the class.  With FitClub’s varied group exercise class schedule, you can easily find something that sparks your interest in a time and location that’s convenient for you.


Do you have interesting, easy ways to add more cardio to your workout? Share your tips with your fellow FitClub members in the comments!