How To Get Your Heart Rate Up Without Having To Do Traditional Cardio
You don't need to spend hours doing cardio as your exercise. Instead, spend your training and workout time lifting or doing some sort of resistance or strength training.
Save the cardio for fun, non-traditional activities!
Other activities such as:
- Dance such as Latin (salsa, bachata and many more), country, hip hop, ballroom, or another form
- Take up a fun, new, or curious recreational sport
- Stand up paddleboard
- Catch, tag or friendly games with children, pets, or the family
- A new activity or hobby like acro
- Exploring new places, towns, nature, etc. like walks on the beach, hikes, or forest preserve on foot or by bike
- Beach volleyball
- Kickball
- Basketball - not necessarily an actual game, but hoop challenges for example
**Of course you need still to challenge yourself while doing these things but it’s much easier to push yourself when having fun or with others that running on a treadmill, or repeating indoor cardio machines all the time.
Aim for getting yourself Breathless, Sweating, and Heated up during the above or other cardio pursuits.
Don’t be afraid to get hot and sweaty.
I know for some people it may be uncomfortable, but it’s NOT a bad thing!
You can achieve this by doing things in spurts (i.e. intervals and circuits like volleying in volleyball, learning a new set of dance steps) or for longer periods of time at once (an up hill trek across town you’re exploring) .
How do you get in your cardio?