A cardiovascular workout, more commonly known as cardio or aerobic exercise, is important to stay physically fit and maintain a longer and healthier life. It gets your heart rate up, making your heart pumps blood faster through the rest of your body. As more blood and oxygen are delivered throughout your body, your lungs and heart will also become stronger and healthier than ever.

Aside from keeping your heart and lungs in healthy status, doing cardio exercise also increases your metabolism. Cardio exercise boosts caloric expenditure. The more you move, the more energy you give and the more sweat you produce — helping you burn more calories. If you want to be fit, here are 5 benefits of adding low-impact cardio exercise to your everyday routine:

  1. Better Calorie Burn
    As mentioned earlier, Cardio or aerobic workout burns more calories than you think. This type of exercise is best for people who want to lose weight. As your heart rate increases, your body fats burn and decrease. When you run, swim, or walk, it can easily boost your metabolism and help you to burn calories, and suppress your appetite post-workout for a while.

Including a 30-minute low-impact cardio exercise in your daily routine can increase your stamina, reduce your health risks, manage your chronic conditions (if any), and help you achieve your ideal body.

  1. Less Stress on Joints
    Low-impact cardio exercises like Yoga, swimming, and cycling are great ways to get your heart rate up, without giving pain to your muscles and joints. These activities will make your bones stronger than ever. Many studies have shown that exercising does wonders for your joints, including building healthy cartilage and muscular support around the joints.

You can try these exercises for up to 10-15 minutes every day to control joint swelling, pain, and bone loss. Performing low-impact aerobics daily restores lubrication to the cartilage of the joint and lessens stiffness.

  1. Higher-Endurance and Stamina
    Doing cardiovascular activities on a regular basis will strengthen your lungs and heart. Performing this type of workout will enhance blood circulation for better stamina and endurance.

Squatting and running are the perfect ways to improve endurance and stamina. It will burn the reserved fats and improve the glycogen content of your muscles.

Other forms of aerobic training to boost endurance are cycling or biking exercises, climbing stairs, and cross-training among others. This fitness component involves the development of a person’s physical ability, without experiencing fatigue and other body aches.

  1. Lower risk of injury
    Many people are not aware that doing cardio exercise prevents injury. Unlike other rigorous workouts and exercises, aerobics helps you to stay injury free during your workout sessions.
    To avoid the chance of getting injured, you need to create a cardio fitness plan along with strength training and flexibility. It is very important to alternate these exercises to build more muscles. Aerobics paired with stretching exercises can improve muscle strength to reduce potential injuries.

Adding low-impact cardiovascular exercises will benefit your health in the long run and will help you to achieve the goals that you want to have a fit body. You can do this at your gym at home.