Cardio workout videos

February 18, 2017 1:06 PM

I need to start exercising more. My go-to is to walk my dog on the hills in my neighborhood, which gets my heart rate up (and my dog loves it too!). Unfortunately, it's been mega-rainy recently, so I need some alternatives that won't aggravate my chronic neck injury.

I can't do a lot of the aerobic/dance videos that I would normally do (I used to love Zumba, sigh). Can you point me towards some good videos that don't involve a lot of arm movement? Or other workouts that would get my heart rate up but not aggravate my neck?

posted by radioamy to Health & Fitness (2 answers total)

Sorry to hear about your chronic neck injury. I often get trigger points in my upper back that make it hurt to turn my head, and I often find that as long as I stick to my legs, I don't get pain from that.

So all of the usual lower body bodyweight exercises seem on the table: squats, squat jumps, split squats, split squat jumps, forward / reverse lunge, stepping onto a box and down again. Do them to a podcast?

If all you need is exercise videos without arm movement, could you feel about Irish dance? Reelrobics and Eirerobics are terms you can look up, or you can go to straight Irish Dance videos. This is just a promo for the aerobics-take, but it definitely contains steps that seem like they would get your heart rate up. (Just remember to massage, roll out, and stretch your calves, too, or you'll get shin pain)
posted by batter_my_heart at 12:19 AM on February 19, 2017

High Intensity Interval Training (also known as HIIT) + "low impact lower body workout" gave me these results on google.

Ballet barre exercises can also get your heartrate up and give you a good workout; just skip anything that involves twisting, jumping, or your upper body. And you don't need an actual barre, you can just use a chair or table or something else for balancing. Good luck!
posted by LuckySeven~ at 11:43 PM on February 19, 2017