- Ease back into your workouts. Start with just a few days a week and keep the intensity/time at a level you can handle.
- Gradually build onto your workouts. It's best to slowly add time to your workouts each week to give your body time to adjust to exercise.
- Focus on time rather than intensity. When you're getting back to workouts, focus more on accumulating time. Once you can work continuously for 30 or more minutes, then play around with your speed, resistance and/or incline to add intensity.
- Choose what you like. Pick an activity you can see yourself doing without a lot of muss and fuss.
Beginners
If you're new to cardio exercise or it's been a long time, these resources will help you get started:
- Cardio 101 - The Basics of Cardio
- Cardio for Beginners
- Target Heart Rate Calculator
- Cardio Workouts for Beginners
For the record, how often you do cardio depends on your fitness level, goals and schedule. To lose weight, the more cardio the better and getting something in everyday is a good idea. Doing a variety of workouts with different activities, levels of intensity and duration will help you avoid plateaus.
Something a Little Different
If you've been doing some cardio, it may be time to shake things up and try something different:
Get Motivated
The key to great cardio workouts is motivation. All of us have to find what motivates us each day (and that changes all the time), but here some tools I use to stay interested:
