• Home
  • Services
    • In Home Personal Training
    • Senior Fitness Services
    • Online Coaching
    • Nutritional Coaching
  • Pricing
  • Our Team
  • Success Stories
  • Blog
  • Locations
    • Springfield, VA
    • Fairfax, VA
    • Alexandria, VA
    • Annandale, VA
    • Arlington, VA
    • Burke, VA
    • Centerville, VA
    • Chantilly, VA
    • Clifton, VA
    • Falls Church, VA
    • Oakton, VA
    • Reston, VA
    • Tysons Corner, VA
    • Vienna, VA
    • Herndon, VA
    • Tampa, FL
  • Run Club
  • Contact Us

702-756-4444

info@onthegofitnesspro.com
On The Go Fitness ProOn The Go Fitness Pro
  • Home
  • Services
    • In Home Personal Training
    • Senior Fitness Services
    • Online Coaching
    • Nutritional Coaching
  • Pricing
  • Our Team
  • Success Stories
  • Blog
  • Locations
    • Springfield, VA
    • Fairfax, VA
    • Alexandria, VA
    • Annandale, VA
    • Arlington, VA
    • Burke, VA
    • Centerville, VA
    • Chantilly, VA
    • Clifton, VA
    • Falls Church, VA
    • Oakton, VA
    • Reston, VA
    • Tysons Corner, VA
    • Vienna, VA
    • Herndon, VA
    • Tampa, FL
  • Run Club
  • Contact Us

Low impact cardio workout

People running on treadmill
Happy group of sportive people in a gym. Concepts about lifestyle and sport in a fitness club

Low impact cardio workout

Posted by David Nickum Exercise

Cardio is an important key to a workout program if your goal is to improve overall health. Cardio workouts can help with weight loss, heart health and reduction of stress. Many of us don’t get the cardio workouts in. We feel that doing activities like running are too hard on the body. The good news is that you don’t have to do high impact workouts like running. Doing a low impact cardio workout can give you the same benefits without all the wear and tear of running. 

In this article we will go over the benefits of a low impact cardio workout. As well as some ideas of the workouts you can add to your exercise program. 

Improves aerobic conditioning

What is aerobic conditioning? well it’s defined as: “Aerobic conditioning is regular physical training in aerobic activities over an extended period of time. Aerobic fitness is the capacity to exercise in aerobic” Improving aerobic conditioning is important because having an aerobic base provides a solid foundation for most exercise programs. For example when it comes to training for a race, building an aerobic base before you start your training cycle will help you handle the intensity of the training cycle. This is because your body will be able to use the aerobic energy system more efficiently which will allow your body to hold on to fuel like carbohydrates for the more intense parts of the workout. The reason that aerobic conditioning is so important is that it trains the body to use fat as a fuel source rather than carbohydrates. The reason why you want to use fat for fuel is because you have a nearly endless supply of fuel from your fat storage. This is key because our bodies can only hold a limited amount of carbohydrates. 

How does it improve aerobic conditioning?

Doing low impact cardio workouts helps improve aerobic conditioning by allowing you to do large amounts of training without the stress on the body. If you are trying to improve aerobic conditioning with only running you might end up injured or burnt out with a high volume of training. Another reason low impact cardio workouts help with aerobic conditioning is because you can control the effort of the workout. When we do a running workout when we are deconditioned. It can be challenging to keep our heart rate in the aerobic zone. This is because running is basically a workout where we are doing a series of small jumps from one foot to the other. Doing a low impact exercise such as incline walking, cycling and the elliptical machine can make staying in these zones a lot easier. 

How to build an aerobic base 

Above I talked about how low impact cardio workouts can help you improve aerobic conditioning which will give you a solid aerobic base to build on. How you do this is an important topic. First you want to figure out what low impact exercises you plan on doing for your base building program. After you pick your low impact workouts you can program them into your week. Your goal should be to do 30-60 minutes of training 5-6 days a week. The heart rate should be around 140 bpm during these training sessions. Your base training cycle will last about 8-12 weeks. Remember if you’re just starting out you might want to stick to the 30 minute workouts and build up to 60 minutes. Low impact exercises include incline walking,walking, swimming ,cycling, rowing and the elliptical machine. There’s a bunch of other exercises you can do but these are some of the most common.

How to do high intensity training

Now that we have talked about building aerobic conditioning with low impact cardio workouts, it’s time to go over how to build a stronger aerobic capacity. Aerobic capacity is defined as: “Aerobic capacity is the highest amount of oxygen consumed during maximal exercise in activities that use the large muscle groups in the legs or arms and legs combined. … Aerobic conditioning is regular physical training in aerobic activities over an extended period of time.”. The best way to improve aerobic capacity with low impact cardio is to do interval training. Interval training is a style of workout that has you doing a mix of hard, easy, hard, easy training. This would look something like this. 

1:00 minutes easy/rest 

2:00 minutes hard 

Repeat 8-10 times 

This type of workout can be done using the incline walking,walking, swimming ,cycling, rowing and the elliptical machine workouts that we talked about before. The goal is to be almost out of breath at the end of each interval. Doing workouts like these will improve your aerobic capacity, VO2 max and will help you to cope with being uncomfortable. 

What is VO2 max: “VO2 max, or maximal oxygen consumption, refers to the maximum amount of oxygen that an individual can utilize during intense or maximal exercise. This measurement is generally considered the best indicator of cardiovascular fitness and aerobic endurance.”

As you can see in the definition VO2 max is one of the best ways to improve cardiovascular fitness and this is why it’s important to add these workouts into our program. It’s important to note that you should build an aerobic base before cranking up the heat with interval training. Having a strong base will help you to recover between work sets and lead to a better interval workout. Also having an aerobic base will help you avoid burnout in your training program. 

How to add intervals into your program

Adding intervals should be done after you build a solid base of training. Intervals should be done 1-3 times a week depending on your fitness level. Remember that more interval training does not mean better. If you do interval training everyday you’ll most likely burn out and not have energy to see improvements during the training cycle. With interval training you can simply replace your base training workouts with interval workouts. Make sure you spread them out with at least one day of rest between each workout. 

Key Takeaways 

Doing a low impact cardio workout can be a great way to improve aerobic conditioning and aerobic capacity while avoiding injury and getting burnt out. Doing things like incline walking,walking, swimming ,cycling, rowing and the elliptical machine can be a nice replacement for activities such as running or jogging. Remember to build a base before kicking up the intensity of your workout program. 

Check out our article benefits of low impact cardio

Check out our blog on how many push up should I do.

Share

About David Nickum

David S. Nickum is an inspirational fitness professional with over 10 years in the health and wellness industry. What he brings to any workout program is a deep understanding of anatomy, nutrition, and exercise physiology. His programs are unique, innovative, educational, and customized to get the job done quickly. He is a cutting edge professional who builds a program that fits your individualized goals. Starting out in the field of automotive technology industry, David had a lot of problems with pain in the lower back. This led him to the world of health and wellness. David was tired of getting prescribed pills to address his problems and he knew that physical therapy would only be a short-term fix, so he decided to learn about the human body to fix the problem on his own. Being a musician has helped David to also apply an artistic approach to health and wellness. He always told me; “exercise is an art just as much as a science”, he was right, every human is different and needs an artistic touch to get the most out of a workout. Throughout his career, David has developed a deep understanding about the human body. He started out only knowing the basics. Seven years later he has become a leader in the field of fitness, he designed his own style of training which works on posture, metabolism, pain management, and performance. After working with David my life has never been better, the pain in my body is gone for the first time in 10 years. After only 6 months of training I feel like a new person. I feel and look the best I have in years. He gave me the education and the tools I needed to prevent failure in the future. He gave me a new lease on life and I am thankful for that everyday.

You also might be interested in

A Workout Guide for Weight Loss

Aug 6, 2018

  If you are reading this right now, you are[...]

People running on treadmill
Happy group of sportive people in a gym. Concepts about lifestyle and sport in a fitness club

Can you be fit and fat

Oct 14, 2022

Being fit and fat is often seen as an oxymoron,[...]

Two people planking together
sporty young couple doing plank exercise in gym

A Guide to Program Design

May 18, 2018

A Personal Trainer’s Guide to Program Design When I first[...]

Categories

  • Exercise (72)
  • fitness (7)
  • Fitness programs (41)
  • Health (28)
  • Nutrition (47)
  • Personal Training (46)
  • reviews (8)
  • Running (36)
  • Senior Fitness (12)
  • Uncategorized (95)
  • Weight Loss (45)
  • Workouts (1)

Let's get in touch

Send me an email and I'll get back to you, as soon as possible.

Send Message

Areas We Service

Mclean Fairfax Arlington Alexandria Herndon

Reston Centerville Annandale Oakton

Burke Clifton Vienna Chantilly Springfield

Services

Areas We Serve

Free! From Fat to Fit eBook

Free! A Personal Trainers Guide to Fitness eBook

In Home Personal Training

Get started today!

Find us here

  • On The Go Fitness Pro
  • Fairfax, Virginia
  • 702-756-4444
  • onthegofitnesspro@gmail.com

Useful Links

4 Exercises That Help Reduce Belly Fat
Benefits of Low Impact Cardio

Exercise for seniors

Exercises For Office

Hip Exercises For Runners

How to stop cheating on diet

In Home Workouts

Self Myofascial Release Benefits

Squats for Runners

Weight Loss

Sitemap

© 2021 · On The Go Fitness Pro. All Rights Reserved.

  • Privacy Policy
  • Terms and Conditions
  • Cookies Policy
  • Disclaimer
Prev Next
Subscribe to our newsletter for workout and nutrition advice.