Enter any gym (24 Hour Fitness), and you won’t lack for cardio machines. After you’re your cardiovascular health is important. Heart disease is the #1 killer in the US, accounting to almost ¼ of all deaths each year.
Cardio exercises also help with weight loss, and that’s another big problem that you need to address. More than ⅔ of all American adults are overweight, with 36.5% of all adults are considered obese.
A good gym like American Family Fitness will have many different machines, such as treadmills, cycles, ellipticals, and arc trainers. And if you’re a gym member, you’ll have trained professionals to help you use them properly.
But if you want, you can buy yourself a good cardio machine for home use. That way, you can use them any time. Also, you won’t have to worry too much about social distancing.
Here are some of the best cardio machines you can buy right now even if you’re a beginner, and some tips on how to use them right.
NordicTrack Commercial Series Treadmill 2450 Model
This is one versatile machine, as you’re able to do a lot of cardio exercises with it. You can start with brisk walking, and then go on to jogging. You can even do sprints with it. You can also set the incline at an angle, so simulate jogging up a hill.
The best way to start using this is to walk or jog, preferably at a 1% incline. Once you’re used to that, you can then experiment with the settings to adjust the speed and incline, for more challenging workouts. One way to do this is to change the settings for every 2 minutes, for a total of 30 to 45 minutes.
Perhaps you can alternate between 1 minute of sprinting, and then 1 minute of walking, while at a setting of 2% incline. Or you can alternate between jogging and walking every minute, with the incline at 10%.
Assault Fitness AirBike
This is rather challenging, but even beginners find this very easy to use. It’s also better for your knees than jogging. It engages your core (and basically your whole body), and it even helps to improve your posture.
If you’re a newbie, get used to this machine by just setting it at moderate intensity, and then biking for 20 minutes.
When you want to level up, try pedaling all out for 30 seconds, and then recover for 30 seconds. Alternate between these modes for 10 to 20 minutes.
The Stairway
Lots of experts recommend climbing up staircases as a convenient way of exercising. But that can be rather inconvenient even if your office building is tall enough. You might sweat too much in your office building, and then you’d probably offend other people in the elevator as you get back to your own floor.
The good news is that you can just get The Stairway machine instead, which simulates staircase step-climbing. This machine works well for newbies, but you can adjust it to make it more challenging.
To use this properly, set tangible goals for each workout. You might start with a goal of 50 floors for your first workout. Then increase the bar an additional 20 floors for the next workout, until you reach 110 floors. That gives you goals of 50, 70, 90, and 110 floors. That’s a total of 4 workouts, which is good enough for the week.
Then you should note how much time you need to finish each number of floors. Then for the next week, try to achieve your floors at a faster rate.
Concept 2 SkiErg
This may look a rowing machine set upright, but the SkiErg machine simulates the challenges of Nordic skiing. And this will engage your whole body, and won’t let you cheat. You can’t just let go of the handles and let your legs do all the work. With this machine, you’ll get your heart rate going even as it engages your core and upper body. It also works the legs, but it’s lighter on your joints.
The first step is to learn the proper form and the right breathing techniques. That way, you can maintain the proper movement mechanics you’ll need for each rep.
Once you know the proper form, set it at light intensity and then go for maybe 20 minutes, with rest periods of perhaps 3 minutes.
For your next workout, go all out for 3 minutes straight, then take 1 minute to rest. Do this for a total of 20 to 30 minutes. Time yourself, and then improve your distance for every 3-minute effort.