A cardio workout plan that is easy-to-follow is indispensable for all beginners. Normally, a cardio workout plan mainly includes the basics that should be done regularly. It must also consist of the duration and intensity of the exercises. Before starting any exercise program, make sure that you consult a physician first.

This is particularly the case for individuals who have a medical condition. Keep in mind that blood pressure can increase during exercise. A cardio workout plan for beginners should mainly consist of exercises of a lower intensity. Take a look at this easy-to-follow cardio workout plan for beginners:

Stretching exercises


Before doing any form of exercise, a good warm-up is necessary to prevent injury. It also gets the blood circulating and prepares the body for exercise. People who often ignore the warm up won't be able to get the most out of their workouts. 

Doing a combination of static and dynamic stretching is recommended. Static stretches involve holding a position for 20 seconds or so, while dynamic involves more motion. An example of static is a simple hamstring stretch, where you sit down and reach for your toes. Ballistic exercises would be knee lifts, arm swings, torso twists, and half squats.

Walking


This is a low intensity exercise that is perfect for beginners. You don't need any equipment, and it will get your heart rate up. Doing this exercise 4-5 days per week for a period of time will certainly improve your stamina. As you progress, you can increase the intensity by walking up hills or longer distances. If you have access to a treadmill, then you can increase the angle of the ramp for more intensity.

Jumping Jacks and Jump Rope


When you have finished walking, you can do some additional cardio that will elevate your heart significantly. Exercises such as jumping jacks and jumping rope also improve leg strength and give the upper body some work as well. They are also basic to do. In fact, you can jump rope without even using a rope.

Cool Down


Whenever you are finished with a cardio workout, you should always do some exercises to cool down. If you were to go out for a run, a way to cool down would be to walk. The objective is to get the heart rate back down to normal levels. Static stretching is recommended as well. Focus mainly on the muscles that you used the most during your workout.

You might lose a little fat walking around the hood,, but you will quickly plateau if you don't shake things up a bit.

Research confirms that adding high intensity interval training to your fat loss exercise regime will significantly increase your fat burning success.

So much so that women in a recent study who never changed their diet STILL lost more fat doing the intervals than women doing only long slow cardio such as walking and cleaning up their diets.

Here is a list of home cardio workouts you can do anytime right at home that will ignite your fat burning engine:

#1: Stair exercises


You can run the stairs using either the stairs at your house or perhaps a set in your neighborhood or local park. Just alternate jogging or running up the stairs, with a short break when you get to the top. Make sure to be careful and walk on the way back down.

#2: Burpees


If you know me, you know this is one of my favorite home cardio workouts to do. It can be pretty tough, and some days I take pride in that. The best thing about burpees is that not only are they a total body exercise,, but you can modify them to meet your current fitness level. 

Burpee progressions include: squat thrust → burpee →burpee with jump →burpee with push up → burpee with push up and jump→burpee with push up, jump, and chin up → burpee with push up, jump, chin up, and knee lift.

#3: Kettle bell swings


A close runner-up to burpees as one of my favorite home cardio workouts! Swing the kettle bell for 24 seconds and then rest for 36. Repeat for 15 minutes.

#4: Swim sprints

Do you have a pool out back? Great! Hop in and do some swim sprints. Sprint to the other side of the pool and then recover for 30 seconds. Repeat for 10 minutes.

#5: Body weight cardio


Did you know you could get a great cardio workout at home just by using your own body weight? Simply do one or more of the following exercises for 30 seconds and then rest for 30 before repeating for 10-15 minutes.

Body weight squats, mountain climbers, jumping jacks, planks, mountain jumpers, inverted rows.

#6: Jump rope

Go old school and feel like a kid again. Try jumping for 60 seconds and then resting for 30 seconds. Repeat for 15 minutes.

#7: Battling ropes

This one might be new to you but is super effective. Get your hands on some heavy rope (i.e., 1.5 inches (ca. 4 cm) thick, 40 feet (ca. 12 m) long) and wrap around a tree. With an end in each hand, simply make waves with the rope for 10 second intervals followed by 20 seconds rest. Repeat for 10 minutes.

#8: Vertical jumps

Yup, just squat down and jump up in place as high as you can. Repeat until you jump 50 times but you are welcome to take breaks as needed.

#9: Hill sprints

Obviously, you would need a hilly yard or a nice hill in a local park to tackle this one. Simply run up the hill and walk back down. Repeat for 10 minutes.

#10: Shuttle sprints

Set up 3 markers in your yard about 10 yards (ca. 9 m) away from each other. Start at the middle marker, sprint to the marker on your right and touch the ground. Then sprint all the way to the marker that was on your left and touch the ground. Then sprint back to the middle to finish. Try doing 5 shuttle sprints to start and adding one more each time you try them.

#11: Play

Maybe one of the best home cardio workouts of all time? Get out and play! Get a soccer game going or a game of ultimate Frisbee or basketball. Or simply run around playing with the kids!

#12: Metabolic resistance training


Metabolic resistance training is basically cardio with weights. For example, doing a barbell squat with enough weight on it to elicit a cardio vascular response while doing it. Should be a challenging enough weight, so make sure you do this safely in your home gym with a spotter.

#13: Intervals on treadmill, bike, rower, or elliptical trainer

Boring, but works. Stay away from the long, boring cardio that doesn't challenge you and stick with intervals. Try 24 on and 36 off, or go crazy and do 2 mins on and 2 mins recovery. Shoot for 20 mins.

#14: Walk, Run the dog

Take the dog out for his daily run. He can do intervals too, you know!

#15: Rebounding

I do a lot of rebounding for my home cardio workouts because I still fight an old running injury from 2004 and the rebounding seems to work for me. Good rebounding workouts for you to try will come with a quality unit.

#16: Intervals on your bike

Take out the bike and hit the hood. Increase the resistance and pedal fast for 30 seconds, and then coast and recover for 30 -60 seconds. Enjoy your time outside.

#17: A good follow along DVD

While it's rarely exciting,, there are some decent home cardio workouts follow along DVDs available. Grab one and find a favorite for a rainy day.

So let's start with understanding fitness in general.

Cardio for Weight loss?


If your goal is weight loss, then spending 1 hr on treadmills or running early in the morning(before breakfast) might give you OK results,, but it also has the lot of drawbacks. 

In this kind of workouts, you burn out your muscles as well as fat. In reality, fat is the last thing you'll burn in any workouts. You'll be burning glycogen stored in your body first and then muscles…

You see, every pound of muscle you have will burn 50 calories a day. If you burn these muscles, your metabolism will slow down. You'll lose weight, no doubt about that,, but you'll also lose critical muscles.

Cardiovascular exercise is considered doing anything from walking your dog to skating in a full speed ice hockey game. Targeted cardio is cardio done to burning fat and retaining muscle.

 For most people, this can be done by taking a jog in the park or on the treadmill at your local gym. But questions normally arise as to how fast should I run and for how long? Should I eat before I run? Should I take breaks?


Using cardio to target fat loss and muscle preservation is more a matter of timing instead of intensity and duration. Targeted cardiovascular exercise for fat loss has strict guidelines for intensity depending on factors such as what time and if you do resistance training, what time you eat your meals and how many hours of sleep you get a night.

For maximum fat loss and muscle preservation, cardio is most effective when performed at 65-75% of your maximum heart rate (220-age) for 30-60 minutes. When performed at this medium intensity, your body is less likely to burn carbs (and protein) as energy, and will turn towards fat for energy. 

Performing cardio at higher intensity (75-90%) will switch your body to burn carbs (glycogen) for energy to compensate for the greater requirements by the muscles as well as the cardiovascular system. 

Doing short interval training (less than 10 minutes) at higher intensity (75%+) will lower the demand by the muscles and burn more fat, since your heart rate will drop to the 65-75% range during rest and including up to 2 hours after high intensity training is done. More on this later.

Since macronutrient processing is so important for energy, it is important to make sure that you are doing cardio at the right time relates your nutrition consumption and resistance exercise is critical.

 The body burns dietary macronutrients (calories we eat) in the order of carbohydrates, fats, then protein. Doing cardio at 65-75% of MHR on an empty stomach will be most effective at burning fat. The medium intensity will have your body looking for fat as energy and on an empty stomach no dietary macronutrients will be present, so the body will turn to stored fat as its source of energy for the cardiovascular system. 

This environment mostly can be achieved right when you wake up and your body is in a fasted state, since you haven't eaten for around 6-8 hours (depending on sleep and nighttime meal consumption). Doing 30-45 minutes of cardio (depending on where you are in your diet/exercise routine), will burn fat stores as energy, not muscle protein.

Another good time to achieve the fasted fat burning state is after a weight training session. At this time, your body has used up all the dietary carbohydrates and fat from your pre-workout meal as energy during the resistance training of higher intensity. 

Now, doing medium intensity cardio will keep your heart rate elevated, but will switch your body to target fat stores for energy since all carb stores are exhausted.

Word of Warning—Doing cardio higher than 75% MHR will have your body looking to use carbs for energy. If this cardio is done while your body is in a fasted state (no dietary carbs to burn), the body will look for carbs in another form—glycogen. 

The only problem is that glycogen is found in muscles and burning muscle glycogen is a catabolic process, IT IS BURNING MUSCLE!!! This is not good, but there is some good news for people who don't have a choice but to exercise at high intensity (sports players, etc…) developing a defensive nutritional plan around your exercise can help keep muscle and while giving you energy during the high intensity exercise.

 Since you know your body will be craving carbs when you get your heart rate above 75% (normally when you start breathing heavy), it is good to supplement your body with extra carbs before and during the exercise. 

A pre-workout shake with plenty of complex (slow absorbing) carbs will provide your body with a constant stream of energy that your body can use instead of stored muscle glycogen. 

You won't necessarily be burning fat, but you will not be burning muscle! Actually, as stated above when doing high intensity cardio exercise above 75% MHR, your heart rate will stay elevated up to 2 hours in the good fat burning zone, thus burning fat after the fact.

Another good way to prevent muscle breakdown during high intensity activities where you can control the duration is to do the exercise at intervals. This is why weight training can be considered a fat burning activity. During weight training, you elevate your heart rate for only a specific period of time (seconds). 
Then it lowers back into the good range while you rest. With weight training, you are stressing the muscles more than you would during a fast sprint or other high intensity interval activity, so the activity is, in itself, catabolic.
 So, it is important, after doing any kind of high intensity cardio exercise, to implement post-workout supplementation (see Nutrition Tips for Anabolic Nutrient Timing Factor).

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