People can choose the exercises that suit their current fitness level. They could also move on to more difficult movements over time as their fitness improves. For example, a person could do each exercise for 45 seconds to 1 minute, rest for 30 seconds, and move on to the next set. To perform circuits, a person completes 30—60 second rounds of each chosen exercise in succession before resting for 30—60 seconds.

They then perform the entire course again, as many times as they prefer. Beginner exercises do not require previous experience of physical activity or special training to perform. A person can usually increase the intensity as they advance in their cardiovascular ability.

Marching in place can elevate the heart rate, making this exercise a suitable choice for a warm-up or single cardio activity. This exercise works the abdominal muscles.

To increase difficulty, a person can lift their leg higher off the floor or jump from one leg to the other more quickly. To perform, bounce lightly from one foot to the other. At the same same, swing the arms from side to side.

Dancing to upbeat music can burn calories , while people may find it very enjoyable as an exercise. A person can perform arm circles while sitting or standing, making them ideal for all skill levels.

A person should perform this exercise while lying down, which works the abdominal muscles, chest, and shoulders. The trunk rotation works the abdominal muscles while testing the cardiovascular system.

To increase the intensity, a person can hold a heavy weight, such as a kettlebell, exercise ball, or other household items. Air squats work the thigh muscles, hamstrings, quadriceps, and glutes. Since good balance is required, they are an excellent way to engage the core muscles as well.

Intermediate exercises increase the intensity of the workout to get the heart pumping and the body moving. Jogging in place is a simple and effective exercise to increase heart rate.

This is also a suitable beginner warm-up activity. The exercise provides an alternative to jogging in place and is suitable as part of a warm-up routine. To perform, stand with the feet together and jump up and down while swinging the arms in a circular direction.

Jumping jacks are a beginner cardiovascular exercise that a person can perform almost anywhere. A person can increase the exercise intensity by jumping higher or faster. They can also reduce intensity by performing slower or smaller jumping jacks. Taking the stairs two at a time and increasing speed to a running pace can further challenge the cardiovascular system and leg muscles.

This shuffling motion closely resembles a football or speed-skating warm-up. A person can increase the intensity — referring to the rate and repetitions — of any cardio exercise to convert them into advanced movements.

However, some exercises are also more complicated and involve transitions from floor to standing. Increase the difficulty of jumping an air rope in the beginner exercises to jumping with a real rope at home.

Squat jumps are a way to increase the exercise intensity while working the glutes, quadriceps, hamstrings, and calves. Mountain climbers are an advanced exercise to work the whole body, especially the lower portion. Burpees are an advanced full-body move to get the heart pumping. If a person wishes to increase the difficulty further, they can use a special exercise device called a Bosu ball.

The bear crawl is a full-body exercise. YouTube and other streaming services mean that a person can learn from trainers in the comfort of their home. Ideally, they should choose one from a reputable organization, such as ACE Fitness or the National Academy of Sports Medicine.

Before beginning a workout, a person should spend minutes doing a dynamic warm up. Slow, gentle stretching is important to warm up muscles and prepare for more vigorous exercise. With cardiovascular workouts, a person must focus not only on the exercises themselves but also on their effort and intensity when performing them.

Very few people should aim for a 10 when exercising at home. During home exercise, a person can ideally aim for an RPE of between 3—7 , indicating moderate to vigorous exercise. Below are some characteristics of each RPE, according to the American College of Sports Medicine.

Engaging in a consistent home exercise routine 3—5 days per week can enhance physical abilities and overall physical health. Just because a person is at home does not mean they are not susceptible to injury. It makes you less likely to develop heart problems as you age, for one.

It helps lower your blood pressure , increases your high-density lipoprotein or good cholesterol , reduces stress and improves your heart's ability to pump more blood into your muscles by efficiently transferring oxygen out of the blood.

It also has indirect benefits. Lance LaMotte, interventional cardiologist and owner of Title Boxing Club in Baton Rouge, Louisiana.

On the flip side, it's also important to remain active as you age because inactivity has been linked to a greater chance of developing heart disease. It also increases your chances of a major cardiovascular event.

LaMotte said, "Studies have shown a decreased likelihood of heart attack and stroke by maintaining or increasing activity with age.

Any exercise that gets your heart rate up is beneficial for your heart health, said Dr. Although all exercise provides heart health benefits, there are some workouts that stand out as ideal to keep your heart going strong.

Here's a breakdown of five of the top exercises for heart health. These exercises get your heart pumping and offer a variety of options to prevent overuse injuries and work different muscles. A good rule of thumb to follow with interval training is to keep the exercises short and intense followed by a rest period of the same length or shorter in between.

Interval training is a good option when you're short on time and want to break a quick sweat. Studies even suggest that HIIT-style or high-intensity interval training workouts improve both your lung and heart health , as well as your heart's response to exercise.

Additionally, there are workout apps and programs you can download that focus on this type of training if you're not sure where to begin.

Weightlifting may be slower paced, but it is also a good way to get your heart rate up and improve your heart's strength.

Depending on your goals, it's helpful to connect with a personal trainer who can teach you proper techniques and set up a customized workout program for you. Walking is just as beneficial as getting a run in , but is gentler on the body.

It's easy to do anywhere and you can gain even more benefits by picking up the pace. Research suggests that brisk walking can further improve your cardiovascular health compared to walking slowly.

Other ways to make your walks more challenging are by walking with some weights in hand, adding a half mile every time you go for a stroll, or adding bodyweight exercises every so often.

Yoga is known to lower blood pressure, improve your flexibility and balance and help reduce any aches and pains. Yoga can be done in the comfort of your own home -- all you need is a yoga mat and a small space to move.

Swimming is a low-impact, full-body workout that is gentle on the joints, but still packs some cardio punch. Swimming keeps your lungs and heart strong and even helps lower your blood pressure.

It's a great aerobic option if you're also recovering from an injury or if your body doesn't respond well to high-impact exercises. Before you take on any new exercise program, it's important to discuss it with your doctor, especially if you have had any prior health issues, or if heart issues run in your family.

LaMotte said that "if cardiovascular risk factors are present, it is advisable to have a physician's clearance prior. If you're just getting started on your workout journey, it's important to make sure you don't do too much too soon. LaMotte recommended that you start slowly to establish consistency and set reasonable goals.

For example, if you're just taking up running, it's best to focus on completing a set distance at a comfortable pace, rather than upping the intensity and tackling the distance at the same time. A good rule of thumb is to follow the recommendations of the American Heart Association. Aim for minutes of moderate-intensity aerobic activity or 75 minutes per week of vigorous aerobic activity , or a combination of both per week.

Exercise can even reduce your risk of many different types of health conditions, including heart disease. But what type of exercise is best and how much do you need?

We answer these questions and more. Simply put, exercise makes your heart stronger and more effective. Like any muscle, the heart gets stronger the more you use it. And when your heart is stronger, it can move more oxygen-rich blood throughout your body, both during exercise and at rest. Pretty much all exercise improves your heart strength and health.

But the fastest way to improve cardiovascular health includes a variety of exercises that work your heart, build muscle tone and improve flexibility. Below we share four types of heart healthy exercises and how much you need of each:.

Exercise target: 5 times weekly for a total of 2. Cardio is probably what comes to mind when you think of exercise. Cardio includes those activities that increase your heart rate, makes you breathe faster and gets you sweaty. So, is cardio worth it? Since your heart is a muscle, the more you work it, the bigger and stronger it gets.

And when your heart is stronger, it takes less beats to push blood throughout your body, leading to a lower heart rate. By getting regular cardio exercise you may be able to lower your resting heart rate by as much as beats per minute bpm — possibly saving your heart millions of beats throughout your lifetime.

In fact, the easiest way to fit in your cardio might just be slipping into your walking shoes. Here are some examples of good cardio workouts:.

For most people, a brisk walk each day is enough to get their heart rate up enough for it to count as a heart-strengthening exercise. Watching your heart rate is the best way to check if your stroll is intense enough to counts as a cardio workout, or you can gauge how your breathing changes with exercise intensity:.

As you become more fit, it will take more intensity to increase your heart rate. Research shows that riding a bike can reduce your chance of cardiovascular disease while providing a mental boost and other health benefits. Swimming is a whole-body exercise that improves strength and flexibility while giving your heart a workout.

Interval training is a different approach to cardio training, involving continuous transitions between high intensity and moderate intensity workouts of the same activity. Some days it seems I answer more questions about sports injuries than I do about heart health. It's partly because my patients know I'm pretty active golf, tennis, Pilates To me, the key is to find what works well for both.

Here's how I rank a variety of exercises in terms of their benefits to both your heart and overall health. Interval training: This is unrivaled for preventing heart disease and diabetes, losing weight, and efficiently improving fitness.

The strategy: Combine short bursts of high-intensity exercise with slightly longer periods of active recovery. So if you're a walker, you might alternate 3 minutes at normal speed with 1 minute at a brisk pace.

Continuously raising and lowering your heart rate improves vascular function, burns calories, and makes the body more efficient at clearing fat and sugar from the blood.

Total-body, nonimpact sports: The more muscles involved in an activity, the harder your heart must work to fuel them all—thus, it grows stronger itself.

Rowing, swimming, cross-country skiing, walking with poles all recruit muscles throughout the body without beating it up. Add some intervals and you have the ideal workout. Weight training: In a sense, this is just another form of interval training.

You increase your heart rate during reps and recover between sets. By efficiently handling the demands placed upon them, strong muscles ease the overall burden on the heart. Use free weights, which recruit more muscles, engage your core, and build balance.

Core workouts: The reason I like Pilates, which strengthens my core muscles and improves flexibility and balance, is that it doesn't just help me play golf and tennis better, it helps me live better. A good rule of thumb to follow with interval training is to keep the exercises short and intense followed by a rest period of the same length or shorter in between.

Interval training is a good option when you're short on time and want to break a quick sweat. Studies even suggest that HIIT-style or high-intensity interval training workouts improve both your lung and heart health , as well as your heart's response to exercise.

Additionally, there are workout apps and programs you can download that focus on this type of training if you're not sure where to begin. Weightlifting may be slower paced, but it is also a good way to get your heart rate up and improve your heart's strength.

Depending on your goals, it's helpful to connect with a personal trainer who can teach you proper techniques and set up a customized workout program for you.

Walking is just as beneficial as getting a run in , but is gentler on the body. It's easy to do anywhere and you can gain even more benefits by picking up the pace. Research suggests that brisk walking can further improve your cardiovascular health compared to walking slowly.

Other ways to make your walks more challenging are by walking with some weights in hand, adding a half mile every time you go for a stroll, or adding bodyweight exercises every so often. Yoga is known to lower blood pressure, improve your flexibility and balance and help reduce any aches and pains.

Yoga can be done in the comfort of your own home -- all you need is a yoga mat and a small space to move. Swimming is a low-impact, full-body workout that is gentle on the joints, but still packs some cardio punch. Swimming keeps your lungs and heart strong and even helps lower your blood pressure.

It's a great aerobic option if you're also recovering from an injury or if your body doesn't respond well to high-impact exercises.

Before you take on any new exercise program, it's important to discuss it with your doctor, especially if you have had any prior health issues, or if heart issues run in your family. LaMotte said that "if cardiovascular risk factors are present, it is advisable to have a physician's clearance prior.

If you're just getting started on your workout journey, it's important to make sure you don't do too much too soon. LaMotte recommended that you start slowly to establish consistency and set reasonable goals.

For example, if you're just taking up running, it's best to focus on completing a set distance at a comfortable pace, rather than upping the intensity and tackling the distance at the same time.

A good rule of thumb is to follow the recommendations of the American Heart Association. Aim for minutes of moderate-intensity aerobic activity or 75 minutes per week of vigorous aerobic activity , or a combination of both per week.

Interval training is a good option when you're short on time and want to break a quick sweat. Studies even suggest that HIIT-style or high-intensity interval training workouts improve both your lung and heart health , as well as your heart's response to exercise.

Additionally, there are workout apps and programs you can download that focus on this type of training if you're not sure where to begin.

Weightlifting may be slower paced, but it is also a good way to get your heart rate up and improve your heart's strength. Depending on your goals, it's helpful to connect with a personal trainer who can teach you proper techniques and set up a customized workout program for you.

Walking is just as beneficial as getting a run in , but is gentler on the body. It's easy to do anywhere and you can gain even more benefits by picking up the pace. Research suggests that brisk walking can further improve your cardiovascular health compared to walking slowly.

Other ways to make your walks more challenging are by walking with some weights in hand, adding a half mile every time you go for a stroll, or adding bodyweight exercises every so often. Yoga is known to lower blood pressure, improve your flexibility and balance and help reduce any aches and pains.

Yoga can be done in the comfort of your own home -- all you need is a yoga mat and a small space to move. Swimming is a low-impact, full-body workout that is gentle on the joints, but still packs some cardio punch.

Swimming keeps your lungs and heart strong and even helps lower your blood pressure. It's a great aerobic option if you're also recovering from an injury or if your body doesn't respond well to high-impact exercises.

Before you take on any new exercise program, it's important to discuss it with your doctor, especially if you have had any prior health issues, or if heart issues run in your family.

LaMotte said that "if cardiovascular risk factors are present, it is advisable to have a physician's clearance prior. If you're just getting started on your workout journey, it's important to make sure you don't do too much too soon.

LaMotte recommended that you start slowly to establish consistency and set reasonable goals. For example, if you're just taking up running, it's best to focus on completing a set distance at a comfortable pace, rather than upping the intensity and tackling the distance at the same time.

A good rule of thumb is to follow the recommendations of the American Heart Association. Aim for minutes of moderate-intensity aerobic activity or 75 minutes per week of vigorous aerobic activity , or a combination of both per week. Along with this, you should include resistance training at least two days per week.

The advantage of interval training is that it can take less time to fit in the amount of heart-healthy exercise you need. While aerobic exercise gets the gold star when it comes to heart health, there is growing data that shows regularly lifting weights can significantly reduce your risk of heart attack or death related to heart disease.

Still, your heart gets the best protection if you do both cardio and strength training. While movements are slow and controlled in weightlifting and resistance training, these activities still give your heart a workout.

In fact, strength training can temporarily increase your heart rate and blood pressure levels more than an exercise like jogging. As with cardio training, pay attention to when the exercises start to become easy. In the beginning, it may be tough to get through repetitions of a given exercise.

But as time goes on, it will get easier. If you go to the gym for cardio, the easiest way to fit in strength training is to tack a few minutes onto your workout for weightlifting. Here are areas to focus on and exercises to try:.

Working with a trainer can help you find the right machines and help make sure you use them correctly. Instead of using machines to provide resistance during exercise, you can use your body weight, handheld weights or resistance bands.

Another option is a multi-exercise machine that uses your body weight and gravity to further increase resistance. Great exercises for at-home strength training include squats, lunges, planks and shoulder press exercises. Stretching and balance exercises can reduce the mind and body stress that can affect your heart in a big way.

Plus, flexibility and balance make it possible to do the cardio and strength training exercises that you need for heart health. Flexibility and balance are just the beginning of the health benefits that come from including yoga as part of your workout routine.

As a go-to activity for whole-body wellness, yoga is also known to:. The exception are cardio yoga classes that provide stretching along with exercises designed to increase your heart rate. The trade-off with cardio yoga is that it may not be as calming or relaxing.

Or include a few yoga poses as a warm-up before jumping on a bike, or as part of your cooldown after a run. So, take steps to be more deliberate about how often you move. If you sit for long periods of time, make it a point to walk around for about five minutes every hour. Stand up during that next video meeting or take the long way to the kitchen to get your morning tea.

Get started today by simply sitting less and moving more, whatever that looks like for you. Science has linked being inactive and sitting too much with higher risk of heart disease, type 2 diabetes, colon and lung cancers, and early death. So what are you waiting for? Share an infographic of the Physical Activity Recommendations for Adults and the Physical Activity Recommendations for Kids.

Written by American Heart Association editorial staff and reviewed by science and medicine advisors. See our editorial policies and staff. Fitness Basics. Getting Active. Staying Motivated. Home Healthy Living Fitness Fitness Basics Recommendations for Physical Activity in Adults.

Recommendations for Adults Get at least minutes per week of moderate-intensity aerobic activity or 75 minutes per week of vigorous aerobic activity, or a combination of both, preferably spread throughout the week.

Add moderate- to high-intensity muscle-strengthening activity such as resistance or weights on at least 2 days per week. Spend less time sitting. Even light-intensity activity can offset some of the risks of being sedentary.

Gain even more benefits by being active at least minutes 5 hours per week. Increase amount and intensity gradually over time. Recommendations for Kids Children years old should be physically active and have plenty of opportunities to move throughout the day. Kids years old should get at least 60 minutes per day of moderate- to vigorous-intensity physical activity, mostly aerobic.

Include vigorous-intensity activity on at least 3 days per week.