Love it or hate it, cardio should be an important part of your lifestyle, as vigorous exercise makes for a healthy heart and a longer life with higher quality. What people mainly dislike about cardio are the archaic options like running on a treadmill or around a track. If you’re someone who doesn’t like to run or physically can’t because of limitations or disabilities, there are more options available than you might think. Make cardio fun by choosing activities you enjoy and raising your heart rate, and you’ll feel like you can do almost anything.

Here are a few ways to get your cardio in and have fun doing it!

Dancing

This is one of the regularly touted fun ways to get your cardio in for a reason. It has no barrier to participating because you can dance anywhere. Have a job where you sit at a desk for eight hours? Spend your time at home dancing while you cook dinner or doing your regular household chores. Put on a good soundtrack and dance around regularly for 30 minutes or more a day to get your heart rate soaring and endorphins improving. Good moves that are good for your heart? Yes, please.

Jumping Rope

As an adult, you may have forgotten how much of a workout jumping rope is if you haven’t done it since high school. It can technically fall under a traditional workout regimen, but its call-back to our youth and feelings of nostalgia for simpler times makes it more of a fun activity. You’ll remember the smile it can put on your face as you push yourself to beat your record of how many jumps you can get in a row. Set your own pace and style of jumping rope as your ease your way back into it. No need to pull a Rocky and jump right into trying to double jump your rope. Take it slow and see how your body reacts to the activity. Make sure you take precautions to lessen the impact of jumping rope it on your knees by wearing good shoes and knowing when to take a break.

Swimming

It’s always a good idea to go swimming, right? If you’re a fan of being in the water, swimming has a place on your list of fun cardio options. Many gym memberships come with access to their pools; alternatively, in the summer city pools may have times where the pools aren’t as crowded and can be used for more active swimming. Being in a pool, you’re constantly moving as you tread water, and you can add different types of strokes to your swimming time. Swimming laps might be the best way to get the most cardio out of your swim time, but there are also water aerobics classes that you can look into, with newer trends like water cycling popping up too that are a great low-impact cardio workout option.  

Walks with friends

The pandemic gave walks with friends a boost in popularity as people looked for ways to safely exercise while socializing.  Working out with someone else is almost always better than working out alone. Grab a friend, your water bottle and your best walking shoes and get to it. It’s important when taking walks to get your heart rate up to its target rate for cardio and keep it up throughout the walk. An easy way to do this is choosing a walk with hills or stairs or keeping above a leisurely pace. Good conversation plus good weather equals perfect conditions to take that walk and count your cardio done for the day.