Cardio workout at home: three sessions, from quiet low impact to hard intervals

What counts as cardio

Cardio, or aerobic exercise, is any activity that keeps large muscles moving long enough to raise your heart rate and breathing. The NHS gives three levels.

• Moderate: you breathe faster and feel warmer, you can talk but not sing. Brisk walking or dancing are examples.
• Vigorous: you breathe hard and fast and cannot say more than a few words without a pause. Skipping, aerobics, walking up the stairs.
• Very vigorous: short bursts of maximal effort broken up by rest, such as circuit training or running up stairs. This is what is usually called high-intensity interval training.

According to the NHS, 75 minutes of vigorous activity a week can give similar health benefits to 150 minutes of moderate activity. That is why, in practice, one vigorous minute is counted as two moderate ones.

Before you start

You need a space of about two metres by two metres, shoes with some grip, a window you can open and a bottle of water. On a hard floor or in a flat, the low-impact session avoids jumping and noise.

Always begin with a warm-up. The NHS suggests a routine of at least six minutes: three minutes of marching on the spot, then heel digs, knee lifts, shoulder rolls and shallow knee bends. It raises your heart rate gradually and is already a gentle cardio session in itself. For more, see our warm-up before a workout.

Session 1: low impact, no jumping

Eight exercises, 45 seconds of work, 15 seconds to change, three rounds, one minute of easy marching between rounds: about 26 minutes plus the warm-up. Effort: moderate, rising towards vigorous in the last round.

1. Fast march on the spot, arms pumping.
2. Step jacks: step one foot to the side while raising the arms, alternate.
3. Knee lifts, touching each knee with the opposite hand.
4. Squat to calf raise: a half squat, then up onto the toes.
5. Shadow boxing: fast straight punches, light on the feet.
6. Side steps across the room, low and quick.
7. Standing mountain climbers: drive the knees up alternately, arms reaching high.
8. Heel digs with punches, as in the NHS warm-up, at a fast tempo.

Session 2: intervals

For people who already move regularly and have no medical reason to avoid hard effort. After the warm-up, six exercises, 30 seconds hard, 30 seconds of marching, two to three rounds, one minute between rounds.

1. Jumping jacks.
2. High knees, as fast as you can.
3. Squat jumps, or fast squats without the jump.
4. Skaters: lateral bounds from one leg to the other.
5. Mountain climbers on the floor.
6. Burpees, with or without the push-up and the jump.

Effort: by the end of each 30 seconds, you should only be able to say a few words. This is the logic of the high-intensity circuit described by Klika and Jordan in an ACSM journal in 2013, twelve bodyweight exercises of 30 seconds with short transitions, here simplified to six. For a broader look at interval training, read short, hard workouts.

Session 3: the stairs

If you have a staircase at home or in the building, it is one of the most effective cardio tools there is. The NHS lists walking up the stairs among vigorous activities.

• Warm-up: 5 minutes of easy walking up and down, holding the rail.
• Main block: 8 to 10 climbs at a brisk pace, walking back down slowly each time to recover.
• Cool-down: 3 minutes of walking on the flat.

Always walk down, never run, and keep a hand near the rail. Stop if you feel dizzy.

How hard, and does it work?

Use the talk test rather than a target heart rate if you have no monitor. If you do, our zone 2 heart rate guide explains how to estimate your training zones.

On the evidence: the review by Campbell and colleagues for the 2018 US guidelines found that interval training improves insulin sensitivity, blood pressure and body composition about as much as moderate continuous exercise. In people with lifestyle-related heart and metabolic conditions, a meta-analysis by Weston and colleagues found that interval training raised aerobic fitness almost twice as much as moderate continuous training. Both formats work: choose the one you will repeat.

Hard intervals and stair climbs put a strong load on the heart. If you have a heart condition, high blood pressure, diabetes, are pregnant or have been inactive for a long time, ask your doctor first and start with the low-impact session. Stop immediately if you feel chest pain, unusual breathlessness or dizziness.

A week of cardio at home

A week that meets the World Health Organization's minimum, with two days of strength as the guidelines also require:

• Monday: low-impact session, about 30 minutes with the warm-up.
• Tuesday: strength circuit from our home workout no equipment.
• Wednesday: interval session, about 20 minutes, which counts double.
• Thursday: brisk walk outside, 30 minutes.
• Friday: strength circuit.
• Saturday: stairs or low-impact session.

That gives about 130 to 150 moderate-equivalent minutes, and a longer walk on Sunday closes any gap. For a version built around exactly half an hour, see our 30-minute workout.

Keep your cardio going with Never Skip Club

Home cardio is easy to postpone: there is no class time and nobody waiting. Never Skip Club changes that. In one minute, the app builds a guided session: choose the body area, the level (easy, medium or intense), 20, 30 or 45 minutes, the place, home, hotel or gym, and no equipment. Five or six exercises appear in animation, and you log what you did.

Then set up a crew of three to seven friends with a rhythm, for example three sessions a week for a month. A session counts when it lasts 30 minutes or more, and the ranking rewards regularity rather than intensity. Create your free account and plan your first home cardio session, and if you want an expert to tailor the intensity to you, book a coach from our network.