Fat-Burning at Home: Cardio Exercises for Beginners

Cardio exercises for beginners at home are a must-do activity for sports newbies. Invigorating your routine with cardio home-based workouts is both accessible and beneficial. 

Such heart-pumping exercises offer many perks that boost your overall interest in cardio training, including benefitting your heart, brain, joints, skin, digestion, sleep, and sexual function (1). So your entire body takes advantage of cardio. 

Therefore, cardio is the top activity that promotes your physical and mental health, and doing only a 20-minute workout daily already makes a great difference in your life. The following fat-burning cardio exercises are adjustable to beginner-friendly levels and even more experienced practitioners. 

If you’ve already had some cardio experience, you may treat these exercises as a perfect warm-up strategy before more intense workouts. 

Gym-goers can also include these exercises in their gym training. No-equipment cardio exercises at the gym or home are similar – they only require a fitness mat, comfy clothing, sneakers, and some space for active movements. 

What Are Some Effective Cardio Exercises for Beginners?

Effective exercises for beginners are those that keep your body moving. When you move, you’re doing a great favor to your body. 

Picking something that is challenging can typically elevate your chances of reaching desirable fitness goals because you’re pushing your body: whether it’s weight loss or boosting your strength. 

Prepare yourself for the 10 best cardio exercises for beginners. Make sure you read the instructions carefully as proper technique and form matter when it comes to the efficacy of each exercise. 

Here’s your personal list of cardio exercises at home:

1. Sumo squats
2. Deadbugs
3. Marching glute bridges
4. Plank hops
5. Squat thrusts
6. Arm circles
7. Jumping jacks
8. Lateral shuffles
9. Superman
10. Brisk walking on the spot

Sumo Squats

How to perform: 

1. Stand with your feet wider than shoulder width and your toes slightly pointed out to the side.
2. Engage your core and push your hips back to lower into a squat. Bend your elbows and bring your palms together in front of your chest.
3. Drive through your heels to return to the standing position and squeeze your glutes at the top for 1 rep.
4. Continue for 10-12 reps.

Deadbugs

How to perform: 

1. Lie on your back on the mat with your face up. Extend your arms toward the ceiling and bend your knees to create a tabletop position. This is the starting position.
2. Your lower back should be pressed into the floor and your core engaged.
3. Gently extend your left leg out straight while dropping your right arm overhead parallel to the floor. Keep your hand and leg a few inches from the floor.
4. Bring your arm and leg back to the starting position.
5. Repeat on the other side, alternating legs and arms. Continue like this, performing 6-8 reps per side.

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Marching Glute Bridges

How to perform: 

1. Lie face up, bend your knees, and place your feet hip-width distance apart.
2. Press your lower back into the floor. From this engaged position, lift your hips, squeezing your glutes at the top. Hold here.
3. From the top position, lift your left foot off the floor, driving your knee toward your chest. Replace your foot on the floor back to the engaged body position from step 2.
4. Immediately lift your right foot off the floor to repeat on the other side.
5. Continue to march, alternating your feet. Maintain the position of your hips throughout the entire exercise.
6. Perform 8-12 reps on each side.

Plank Hops

How to perform: 

1. Assume a high plank position with your palms flat on the floor, legs extended, feet together, and core engaged.
2. Engage your abs and jump your feet forward and to the left, bringing your knees toward your left elbow. Think of it as jumping but you’re keeping your hands flat on the floor.
3. Jump your feet back to plank again and then jump your feet forward and to the right, bringing your knees toward your right elbow.
4. Jump your feet back together. This counts as 1 repetition.
5. Start with a slow pace and focus on form. You can speed up the jumps once you get the hang of the movement and feel comfortable with it.

Squat Thrusts

How to perform: 

1. Stand with your feet hip-width apart and your hands by your sides.
2. Bend down placing both your hands on the floor and hopping your feet back into a high plank position.
3. Hop forward and stand up. This counts as 1 rep.
4. Repeat 8-10 times.

Arm circles

How to perform: 

1. Rotate your arms in a circular motion, both clockwise and counterclockwise.
2. Start with small circles and gradually move to bigger ones.
3. Rotate for 20 seconds clockwise and another 20 seconds counterclockwise.

Jumping Jacks

How to perform: 

1. Stand with your feet hip-width apart and your arms down.
2. Jump out with your feet apart while raising your arms out to the sides.
3. Jump back into the starting position, bringing your arms back into your body.
4. Perform 10-12 jumps.

Lateral Shuffles

How to perform: 

1. Get yourself into an athletic position with your head and chest up and in a slightly squatted stance.
2. Start on one side of the room and shuffle toward the other side of the room by pushing off your leg that is closest to the wall.
3. Once you reach the opposite wall, ensure your feet come together and then start to shuffle back toward your starting point while pushing off the opposite leg from the one you started with.
4. Pick up the pace and increase the squat depth to increase the intensity of the exercise.

Superman

How to perform: 

1. Lie on your stomach. Extend your legs behind you and your arms in front of you, your palms resting on the floor. This is your starting position.
2. Lift your upper body and lower body off the ground simultaneously. Keep your neck in line with your spine.
3. Lift, hold for one to two seconds, and then lower back down. This is 1 rep.
4. Continue like this for 10-12 reps.

Brisk Walking on the Spot

How to perform: 

1. Start walking in the same spot, gradually picking up the pace.

This exercise is excellent for individuals who can’t currently go outside but feel like moving their bodies a bit. You can turn on your favorite TV show and walk to it at the same time. This can spice up your in-place walking. 

Read more: Workout Challenge for Beginners: Your Complete Guide to Starting and Staying Fit

What Is the Best Cardio for Beginners?

The cardio exercises listed above are designed for beginners with no equipment. However, there are a number of different options that require equipment that could pump up your heart rate. We couldn’t narrow it down to one and instead collected our top 3 cardio activities that will spark up your fitness life. Feel free to pick your favorite and stick with it! 

The first one is walking, particularly brisk walking. This is a low-impact activity that requires no equipment or special fitness skill level. It can be done anywhere, inside and outside. 

This simple activity we often take for granted offers a bunch of perks: 

• Better heart health
• Increased muscle strength and endurance
• Reduced body fat
• Stronger bones
• Improved management of specific health conditions, such as high blood pressure, joint pain, and high cholesterol (2)

The second cardio activity for beginners is bike riding. This is both heart-pumping and quite enjoyable. Hopping on your bike and exploring the outskirts of your city or other favorite place can be fun, especially when you take a bike ride with friends or family members. 

Cycling is good for your body as it:

• Promotes your strength and flexibility
• Burns calories
• Increases cardiovascular fitness
• Improves mood
• Leads to a better posture (3)

The third activity is dancing. Dancing is the most inspiring cardio activity that brings out all the best in you: it releases your inner power, boosts your mood, and unravels a new part of you. Dancing can also: 

• Increase aerobic fitness
• Improve your balance
• Ramp up your confidence
• Improve muscle strength and posture
• Boost mental functioning
• Manage your weight (4)

What Other Cardio Exercises Can Beginners Do at Home?

If you’ve already experimented with the aforementioned 10 cardio exercises for beginners, why not spruce them up with 5 additional movements? 

These body weight exercises can help you get stronger and prepare for advanced cardio routines. No equipment is required here either, so you can start doing them today. 

1. Bear crawls
2. Inchworms
3. Elevated push-ups
4. Squat to front kicks
5. Trunk rotations

Bear Crawls

Instructions: 

1. Get in a high plank position.
2. With your knees bent, crawl forward by alternating leg and arm movements.
3. Keep your core engaged.

Inchworms

Instructions: 

1. Start in a standing position, bend down, and touch the ground briefly. Then instantly walk your hands out to a push-up position.
2. Walk your feet toward your hands and lift your hips upwards, as you would do in the downward dog position.
3. Then walk your hands again.

Elevated Push-Ups

Instructions: 

1. Get into a high plank position with your hands on a bench or chair. Your hands should be shoulder-width apart and your shoulders should be stacked directly above your wrists.
2. Extend your legs behind you.
3. With your core engaged, bend your elbows and lower your chest to the bench.
4. Push through the palms of your hands and straighten your arms.
5. This is 1 rep. Continue like this for 10-12 reps.

Squat to Front Kicks

Instructions: 

1. Stand up and drive your hips back to get in the squat position.
2. Return to standing and extend one leg to perform a front kick.
3. Start to perform another squat repetition and then repeat the kick on the other side.

Trunk Rotations

Instructions: 

1. Stand with or without a heavy object at chest height with your elbows at your side.
2. Twist from the torso, turning to one side and then the other.

It should be noted that it’s not necessary to complete all 15 cardio exercises in one session. You can split them and combine more difficult ones with easier exercises. Gradually, you’ll be able to perform all the exercises, but stay patient and listen to your body all the time: if you feel pain, stop the exercise and perform another movement. 

The more you listen to your body, the less likely you are to get physically hurt. 

How Long Should a Beginner Do Cardio?

If you’re a beginner who’s never done cardio before or hasn’t trained for a while, you might need to slow down at the beginning and start with 15 to 20 minutes. 

When you get stronger, you can increase your cardio workout to 30 to 40 minutes. Make sure you don’t do this too soon– your main task is to get the hang of basic exercises and level up their intensity. 

Every workout, whether it’s a cardio workout or strength session, needs to involve a short warm-up and cool-down routine. In this case, your cardio exercises along with a warm-up and cool-down routine may take 25-30 minutes overall. 

It may seem simple and attainable, but without enough fitness experience, even 10 minutes of cardio can have you out of breath from the start. Find what you can do consistently and gradually build off of this over time. The best form of exercise is one that can keep you motivated and push you closer to your own individual goals.  

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What Cardio Burns the Most Fat?

When we discuss fat burn, this refers to the overall calorie-burning capabilities of a given exercise. One of the top cardio workouts that burns a lot of calories is running. A study in 2023 observed different runners who ran at least 10 kilometers per week. The results of the study showed a significant change in body mass, body fat, and visceral fat (our favorite tummy area) (5).

The effects of aerobic exercise on reducing body fat have also been evaluated in another study. Based on the 2021 research, aerobic exercise significantly promotes weight loss and body fat (6). 

In addition to running, you could add these aerobic routines into your fitness life: 

• Cycling
• Swimming
• Walking or jogging
• Cardio equipment (7)

Aerobic activities generally improve strength and mental function and help with balance and flexibility. They also lower your blood pressure, increase good cholesterol, help with the management of blood sugar, and improve lung function (7).

Read more: Cardio 7 Days A Week: Is It A Safe Approach Or A Ticking Bomb For Your Health? (Based On Science)

What Is the Healthiest Cardio Exercise?

All cardio workouts at home and exercise in general are healthy activities as long as you start slowly and gradually level up your intensity and timing. Whether you perform aerobic activities or home-based exercises for beginners, this will help you boost your mental and physical health. 

You must warm yourself up before cardio exercises and cool down afterward in order to limit your likelihood of getting injured. 

You should avoid:

• Striving to complete the reps through pain
• Not resting for long enough between your workouts
• Not drinking water during your cardio sessions
• Failing to perform the exercise correctly
• Expecting fast results and starving your body.

Eating healthily, sleeping well, and doing cardio exercises for weight loss can help you reach your major body goals. So instead of quantity, you should aim to enhance the quality of your workouts. 

Finally, understand that you’ll likely be weak at the start of any exercise program. It’s completely fine to lack the stamina or strength needed to complete some cardio exercises. What’s most important is to keep trying and following a well-structured schedule. 

What Is the Best Form of Exercise for Beginners?

It’s difficult to define what the best form of exercise for beginners is as every person’s goals and physical capabilities differ. However, recent research compared strength training and cardio in terms of their abilities to maximize fat loss. Research revealed that strength training may be the best option if your goal is to burn fat.

Three exercise regimes were compared: resistance training three times per week, moderate-to-vigorous endurance training three times per week, and a time-equated combination.

The results showed that both groups shed weight, but the strength-only group experienced a greater loss in fat, in addition to a greater increase in strength and lean muscle mass (8).

Despite the results, we want to highlight that every workout matters, and as long as you move your body consistently, you’re enhancing your ability to make great changes inside and outside. For the most part, the best-case scenario is a prolific combination of resistance training and cardio workouts. 

For example, one day is devoted to cardio exercises and the next is devoted to strength training. Brisk walking in between these exercise sessions could be another way to increase your daily calorie burn. Remember that any movement your body does will burn calories. 

Both resistance training and low-impact cardio workouts have their benefits, so mixing them up will double the perks for you and can help reduce the chance of becoming bored with exercise. 

Frequently Asked Questions

• Is 30 minutes of cardio a day enough?

Yes, 30 minutes of cardio per day is enough to improve your cardiovascular capabilities, burn some calories, and improve your health. However, if you’re aiming to lose more weight, you should focus on a combination of strength training, cardio, and a healthy diet. 

• Does walking count as cardio?

Yes, walking counts as cardio. It’s a low-impact activity you can add to your daily routine that will keep your heart rate elevated from its resting rate for a prolonged period of time. Aim for at least 30 minutes of walking daily to promote your health. 

• Is it OK to do cardio every day?

When it comes to walking, then yes, you can absolutely do this cardio activity daily. However, regarding more intense cardio training, it’s not advised to perform daily – 3-4 times a week is enough. You must take one day of rest for your body to recover. 

• What form of cardio is easiest on the body?

Easy cardio activities typically include walking, swimming, using elliptical machines, cycling, rowing, shadowboxing, and hiking. Mixing them up or choosing at least one of them will improve your health and strength. However, we’re all unique individuals with differing capabilities and what’s easy for one person may not be easy for you. Find what works for you and try your best to stick with it! 

The Bottom Line

Today, you’ve discovered the power of at-home fat-burning cardio exercises for beginners. Such regimes are accessible, low-impact, and offer a bunch of perks for improving your life quality. 

In addition, you’re now aware of other cardio activities that enhance overall health: walking, bike riding, and dancing. 

We’ve also disclosed that among different cardio regimes, a combination of strength training and cardio activities will work together to maximize overall calorie burn and can burn the most fat as long as it’s paired with a calorie-appropriate diet. Mixing cardio with resistance training and healthy eating habits can increase your chances of reaching weight loss goals.