From time to time, it’s good to give your joints a break. Even if you enjoy your running, karate, boxing, or parkour, lower-impact workouts are available that build just as much cardio health, balance, flexibility, and core strength. In this article, we discuss several of them.
If you are planning to maintain your fitness throughout your lifetime, you will want to consider your joint health. Joints seem to be impervious in our youth – always ready to bend or straighten without pain or strain. But the joints are the first thing to start showing signs of wear as we age, even in healthy people. Deterioration of the joints impacts our muscle workouts as we age, and eventually a lower impact workout is needed.
Professional fitness trainers define “low impact” as any exercise in which at least one foot remains planted firmly in place on the floor. And there are plenty of effective workouts to fulfill this joint-saving directive. Let’s look at some of them.
SWIMMING
Swimming is the most joint-friendly exercise available and is great at burning both calories and body fat. It is swimming’s floating effect – the buoyancy of the water – that protects joints against impact trauma. Swimming also incorporates cardio, strength, and flexibility all in a single workout. 30 minutes of swimming burns about 250 calories for an average person.
ROWING
Rowing incorporates total body strength and cardio without weights or water. To protect your back, position yourself correctly on the row machine. Start with your knees bent and push from your heels, pressing our legs downward in the process. Lean back slightly as you pull and reverse the motion on the return. Half an hour of rowing burns about 260 calories for a person of average build.
TRX SYSTEMS
TRX System (Total Resistance Exercises system) is a very effective low-impact workout. It relies on suspension of body weight using specialized equipment (straps and connectors) to do strength training without machines or free weights. TRX improves strength, balance, flexibility, and core stability all in one exercise regimen. It also improves mobility, increases metabolic results, builds lean muscle, and develops functional strength. For a person with an average build, TRX will burn over 350 calories in half an hour.
CARDIO CIRCUIT WORKOUT
A Cardio Circuit is a series of exercises all meant to build momentum and increase the overall outcome compared with any single exercise. Find an open space in your home or yard and do a ‘circuit’ of jumping jacks, “Mountain Climbers”, and running in place. Do one minute of each, and then rest for only one minute before repeating the circuit again. Do the routine 7 times for a killer half hour cardio routine. This cardio circuit will burn over 300 calories in a person of average stature.
Are you suffering from joint pain or from inability to perform the same workout you previously did with ease? If you have questions about your joints and how to protect them, connecting with a doctor in a discrete setting has never been easier.
Opt Health is a telehealth platform that reconnects men with wellness, fitness, strength, and sexual vitality through scientific preventive medicine. From your own home, you can schedule with a physician, meet one-on-one via video conference, receive test results, and have medications delivered to your door.
For questions, inquiries, or appointments, don’t hesitate to contact us. Get personalized support and insight from top-tier physicians available 24/7.
