Ramp up your energy and start your day with healthy movement with this 15-minute At-Home Cardio Workout.
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I have a love-hate relationship with cardio. It’s hard. Sometimes it makes my heart feel like it’s going to beat out of my chest.
But, in the end, when I’m covered in sweat, I feel powerful and energized. I’m proud that I got through it.
According to the American Heart Association, adults should get 150 minutes of moderate-intensity cardio exercise each week or 75 minutes of vigorous cardiovascular exercise.
While those numbers may seem daunting, it’s not really that much when you break it down. If you take 150 minutes and break it up over 5-days, that’s only 30 minutes per day.
This time can be spent walking at a brisk pace, riding a bike, dancing, doing water aerobics, and other moderate activities.
On the other hand, you can do 5 days of vigorous exercise for 15 minutes each time to meet the 75-minute goal.
Along with cardio exercise, you should also be doing resistance training at least two times per week. It helps strengthen your muscles and bones, and it can increase your resting metabolism.
You can do both this Beginner-Friendly Shoulder Workout and this Booty Workout from home with just resistance bands and dumbbells.
The at-home workout I’m sharing with you today can definitely be a vigorous exercise. However, you can easily modify this workout to make it lower intensity or impact.
15-Minute At-Home Cardio Workout
You don’t need any equipment for this at-home cardio workout. However, you may want a yoga mat for the exercises that require you to lay on your back.
Aside from that, the only other thing you will need is an interval timer app on your phone. I like to use Interval Timer. It’s available on the App Store, but you can get a similar app on Google Play.
To set up your timer, you are going to set the low-intensity interval (rest) to 10 seconds and the high-intensity interval (work) to 20 seconds. Set the total number of sets to 30.
For this workout, you will do 15 different exercises, repeating each exercise 2x before moving on to the next. You will have 10 seconds rest between each exercise.
If you need added rest between exercises, pause your timer and rest. Let your heart rate recover a bit, and then jump back in. It’s only 15-minutes. You can do anything for 15-minutes.
Workout Routine
Structure: 20 seconds work/10 seconds rest. Repeat each exercise a total of 2x before moving onto the next exercise.
*You will find visuals examples of each exercise below if you are unsure of how to complete an exercise.
- Jumping Jacks
- Burpee + Alternating Kick
- Runners, Left
- Runners, Right
- Scissor Abs
- Squat Jump + Alternating Side Leg Raise
- Traveling Pushups
- 3 Butt-Kickers + Alternating Reverse Lunge
- Plank + Alternating Knee to Elbow
- Static Squat + Alternating Reverse Lunge
- Downward Dog Pushups
- Skaters
- Mountain Climbers
- Oblique Twist Jumps
- Alternating Single Leg Jackknife Crunch
Jumping Jacks
Burpee + Alternating Kick
Runners
Scissor Abs
Squat Jump + Alternating Side Leg Raise
Traveling Pushups
3 Butt Kickers + Alternating Reverse Lunge
Plank + Alternating Knee to Elbow
Static Squat + Alternating Reverse Lunge
Downward Dog Pushups
Skaters
Mountain Climbers
Oblique Twist Jumps
Alternating Single Leg Jackknife Crunch
Important Tips and Modifications
Remember that the goal is to keep your heart-rate pretty high throughout the entire workout. Hence, the short rest periods. However, if you begin to feel any pain, stop immediately.
Also, keep your abs pulled in tight to your backbone. This helps stabilize your core and it also helps strengthen your core muscles for better stability in day-to-day activities.
When doing any exercise where you back is against the floor, make sure that your lower back does not arch off the floor. If it does, move your feet higher in the air or reduce the range of motion.
Also, you can modify pushups and planks by doing them from your knees instead of your feet. And for jumping exercises, you can leave the jump out altogether. For example, in a jump squat, just come up into a calf raise rather than a jump. And for the oblique twist jumps, simply stand in place, lift one knee towards the opposite side of your hips and rotate your upper body towards the leg that’s lifted.
Let me know how you liked this at-home cardio workout in the comments below. And if you have a moment, I would love if you could hop over to Facebook and like our page.
