Warm Up Stretches for Cardio Workouts

Series Summary

Many people want to lose weight, and despite claims for quick fat burning pills and powders, the best way to lose weight is still through proper diet and exercise. Exercise does more than just maintain physical fitness though. Working out can also help build healthy bone density, muscle strength, and joint mobility. It can also reduce your general health risks, boost the immune system, and help with depression and insomnia. Whether your reason for exercising is to lose weight, or improve muscle mass, working out is always a good idea to help promote the health of your body and mind.

The heart is the most important organ of the body, so it's necessary to keep it in good shape. In this free video series, a trainer and fitness expert will teach you some cardiovascular exercises to improve your endurance and keep the heart pumping. You'll learn how to do jumping jacks, mountain climbers, and steam engine exercises. You'll also learn some yoga combos, side hops, and squat thrusts. With these tips and techniques, your cardio exercising will become quick and easy to do at home!

Video Transcript

"Hi my name is Kyle Brayer and next will be your in home cardio workout. Now the cardio workout is meant to burn calories. Get your heart rate elevated and really work your heart. So in order to do a warm up you just want to do a very minimal cardio workout is what you are doing. So a treadmill, an elliptical, or doing some very light calisthenics would be great. You are going to get that heart rate elevated slightly and then we are really going to get into it later. After you've done all that make sure that you get an adequate stretch in because you are going to be doing a lot of calisthenic movements where you will be jumping around. You don't want to pull a muscle. It's nice to start out with a nice touch your toe stretch, so just reach forward nice and slow. You want to bring your six bones up nice and high keep your legs straight, reach down towards those toes and breath. After you hold that for about thirty seconds to a minute you are going to have a nice staggered wide stance, reach down towards the floor trying to keep those legs straight. Thirty seconds of that and then you reach to each leg, the left thirty seconds and then the right thirty seconds. It's always good to go into a quadriceps stretch if you have something to hold on to that's always a good idea. You want to make sure the knees are lined up hold for thirty seconds on each side. And then for your upper body you want to make sure you get those shoulders, when we are going a lot of jumping jacks and yoga moves and things like that, so you want to make sure you are stretching those shoulders out really well. If you have any other stretches that you would like to do this is a good time to include them and that will be enough for your warm up and stretching."