Teens still need to do cardio, especially if they’re trying to lose weight. While it’s great if they can get to a local 9 Round Gym, teens can still do cardio even if they’re stuck at home and they don’t have expensive machines to use.

This is one effective cardio workout they can try:

Step 1: Jumping Jacks

You’ll need to do 20 jumping jacks to start the workout. To make sure that everyone’s on the same page, this is what you do:

Stand straight, with your arms to the sides and your feet a shoulder-width apart.
Jump while you lift your arms above your head and you spread your legs wide as you land.
Jump again and get back into your starting position.
These 2 jumps make up 1 jumping jack.
Do 20 of these jumping jacks.

Sure, it may seem a bit silly for some teens, who may think this is exercise for little kids. But this exercise warms you up nicely, and starts your heart going.

Step 2: High Knees

Even if you’re no longer stuck at home, high knees is an exercise that’s great for non-runners. It won’t hurt your legs at all.

Here’s what you do:

Begin with a neutral standing position.
Raise the left knee high enough that it forms at least a 90-degree angle with your body.
Get it back down and then alternate with the right knee.
Continue going back and forth.
Do 30 knee raises, which means 15 times for each knee.

You have to do this exercise as if you’re running in place. The legs must move at all times, with a brisk clip to make sure that you get your heart pumping faster.

Step 3: Squat Jumps

Squat jumps strengthen your legs, along with giving you a nice cardio workout. Here are the steps:

Start by standing with your legs a little wider than shoulder-width apart.
Your back must be straight at all times, and try to keep your feet flat on the floor.
Extend your arms in front at chest level, like you’re flying like Superman.
Squat all the way down.
Jump as high as you can, even as you set your arms back past your sides. Your arms should move like you’re dramatically opening a set of theatre curtains.
As you jump, squeeze your glutes.
Do this jump 10 times.

When you jump, you have to explode while you concentrate all that power from your legs. The squatting and jumping should be steady and continuous. You can’t slow down or stop for this exercise to work.

Step 4: Mountain Climbers

This is like doing high knees, but you do it with the pushup position. The exercise targets the abs as well as offer great cardio.

Here’s a list of the steps:

Get into the starting pushup position.
Bring one knee into your chest.
Bring that knee back, extending the leg all the way back out.
At the same time that you’re bringing the knee back, you bring the other knee up to your chest.
While you’re doing all this, you should also squeeze your abs.
Continue for 30 seconds.

Get on with a good rhythm, and try to get a good pace to get your heart pumping. It’s also important that you get your knees up as high as you can.

Step 5: Jumping Lunges

Here’s how you do this:

Start by taking a knee. That means one leg is in front, the other leg is behind, and your back leg toes are touching the floor.
Make sure you’re forming a 90-degree angle with both knees.
Jump, and alternate your legs.
That means when you land, you then have the other leg in front.
Do this 20 times.

Again, you should get a good rhythm going.

Conclusion

So, let’s review what you have to do.

20x jumping jacks
30x high knees
10x squat jumps
30 seconds mountain climbers
20x jumping lunges

If, for some reason, you’re not sure that you’re doing the exercises right, then just go online. Watch YouTube videos of these exercises so you can see what you need to do.

You have to do all these 5 steps 3 times. That’s the complete cardio workout. Just doing it won’t cut it.

You don’t rest between the exercises.
After each cycle of the 5 exercises, you can rest for just 30 seconds before you repeat the cycle.

Over time, you might get used to it and then find it too easy. That just means you have to tweak it a bit to make it more challenging.

Perhaps you can increase the number of reps per exercise.

So instead of doing 20 jumping jacks, you can do 22 of them next week.
The 30 knee raises can become 33 knee raises.
10 squat jumps become 11.
The 30-second mountain climbers can be done for 33 seconds.
The 20 jumping lunges becomes 22.

You can do the increases gradually over time, so that you don’t shock and overexert your body. You just need to keep the entire workout challenging, but still doable. In fact, if the reps are just too hard for you to do for 3 cycles, you may want to start with a 10% reduction of the reps.

Terrific Cardio Workout for Teens at Home