The Best 6 Cardio Exercises

You may have come across my post about the only 6 exercises you need here. But that was primarily focused on lifting weights in the gym. Now, don’t think you shouldn’t be lifting, because you can also burn fat lifting. However, doing cardio in addition to any strength training routine will not only boost your weight loss results it will allow you to eat a bit more (if you’d like) and it will keep your heart healthy.

Some factors for the rankings below consist of how much I personally like the exercise, the feeling of freedom you get from it, the feeling of strength you get from it, the functional use of the exercise, the use of your cardiovascular system, the amount and type of impact on your body and joints, and strength building without compromising your gains.

So, without further ado, below is a (partially biased) list of the best 6 cardio exercises from least best to best-best.

6 Running

I am a runner at my core. I ran cross country in high school and it was one of the best decisions I have ever made in my entire life. I was pretty good at it, too. In only a year, I joined varsity and surpassed many more seasoned runners. I adore the ability to just lace up some sneakers and decide that with my own two feet I am going to go wherever I please and my legs will bring me there. There’s not many things that bring me more joy than exploring a new area or woods or trail by going out for a run and catching all the intricacies.

And even so, it is the very last exercise on this list.

Why?

Well, while I think every abled-bodied person should run as it’s what our body is designed for, the biggest concern is damage to the joints. This often occurs at the knees in runners, especially if they do a ton of hills. Since it is so high impact, it can easily damage other parts of your legs and core. And, honestly, think about it – every single step you take you are slamming whatever weight you are all together onto one single small point of impact on the ball of your foot. Some bodybuilders and fitness experts like Greg Doucette have mentioned that it may even reduce your gains because of this. Also, let’s not forget the dangers of tripping the few and far in between times it has happened to me. So, unfortunately it is not one of the best cardio exercises.

5 Stairclimber

I only rank this one higher than running because it’s a little safer than running but I still think it’s a horrible workout. You’re literally just walking up a stairs. I could not imagine a more boring thing. And it doesn’t have the dynamic environment of walking outside. And it’s missing one important thing that walking around outside has – the Sun. Just the bodily reactions and vitamin D boost is enough to want me to screech at you to go walk a hill outside than inside an often dimly and artificially lit gym. In theory, it should help you develop massive quadriceps muscles, which are a boon in the Stairclimber’s favor.

So, if it’s the only thing you like to do for cardio – then that’s fine. If you found something that works for you – that is better than no cardio. But please consider the following.

4 Elliptical

I genuinely love the elliptical but it only lacks one thing – sunlight. My favorite thing about the elliptical is the uniqueness of not just moving your upper body, but in such an active position. You are pushing and pulling the machine arms itself along with moving your legs and using your core all at the same time. The activation of all these muscles is more than you’d get in a stair master or simply walking around. It also has the benefit of not aggravating your joints as much as running does, and may be better for those with joint issues in the long run. I would often use the elliptical when I had running injuries but still wanted a similar enough movement. I think the elliptical works well as one of the best cardio exercises.

3 Walking

You could do it all day. You can do it for hours, sit down for one, and get right back up and do it again. Walking is one of the most supreme exercises in existence. You can carry weight while doing it, if you’d like to be a pack mule, or you can just bring yourself. It’s the easiest exercise to also bring a friend with you and socialize while doing it and keep pace – something that’s hard to do while running or biking. And one of the best results of walking include the mental effects of just taking it easy and relaxing and taking your time for once.

As I said earlier, you can also walk literally all day, go to sleep, and get up and go walk all day again. Try to do that with running or swimming or bicycling. Walking is low impact, easy to recover from, relaxing, let’s your mind wander and breathe for a bit, and can change the intensity at any moment to more or less intense. Lastly, you can throw in walking as more free cardio in addition to any other more intense cardio like running and you will still recover fine the next day.

2 Bicycle

This is one of the best, if not the best exercise for maintaining muscle mass. And that’s important because if you worked hard to get that muscle, you should be kind to it and hold onto as much as you can. A great example of a bodybuilder who spends a lot of time and energy bicycling instead of any other type of cardio is none other than the Doctor himself – Coach Greg.

Some of the reasons it’s superb is that its motion is unlike any other exercise you would do while lifting. While running, for example, uses similar muscles in a similar range of motion that squatting would. And you may over-exert yourself if you were to do legs then go run. I mean, consider that the best long-distance runners in the world are very thin. Running super fast does not coincide well with muscle gain and maintenance, but biking does.

Some other awesome benefits include cheap transportation and massive quad gains. If you obtain a bike instead of just doing it on the machine, and you are either crazy enough or lucky enough to have a safe bike to work or the gym or other locations in your town – then just bike. It’s free cardio, it’s much cheaper to maintain than a car, and you will be surprised that it’s quite fast and fun to zoom past cars that are stuck in traffic.

1 Swimming

I have swimming as best of the best cardio exercises because it is so unique compared to all the others. If you simply swam freestyle in the pool, you will mostly be using your pulling/back muscles and your legs to flutter kick. But then you must add the additional considerations of maintaining breathing and direction. All of these moving parts turn swimming into a lightly resistant muscle-building workout but with an enormous cardio component. And due to the natural resistance of water over air, I think it builds muscle in the used body parts better than other cardio workouts do to their used muscle groups but maintaining a gentle way of recovering from it.

Secret Best Cardio – Hiking!

If you can hike, I would say to go for it. If I lived in Colorado, I’d be hiking every day. It’s often free and is just advanced walking and you will get some of the most amazing views of your life. And you earn those views, too. Which makes it feel more worth it. A lot of the time you will be using your quads and other leg muscles to push yourself up like on a stair stepper. But sometimes it really is just a gentle walk around a trail and it drops you into the beauty of nature. Just the psychological effects from seeing so much green and trees and wild animals frolicking about is more than enough to make me want to get out to do it, but it also happens to great for all the other reasons I mention above. So take a hike!

So, if you needed to choose a cardio workout to do, then please choose at least one and focus on that. Any cardio is better than no cardio. If you are not ready to run or buy a bike or have anywhere to hike then walk. Walking is free and as long as you have to good legs, you can always do it.

And it doesn’t have to be a lot – like an hour. Start small if that speaks to you. I often start small with 5 minutes of a new cardio then build up 2 or so minutes week by week until I reach a time I am happy with. Or you could start with 10 minutes of running and ramp up 5 minutes each week. Or each day. You must experiment with yourself but I have provided as much information as I can. Go out and get some cardio in!

Godspeed,

Dennis