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You’ve got strength and cardio down, but there’s a point where you reach a plateau in your routine that you just can’t break. Or you’ve been doing classic cardio, like running, but it’s become too boring or inconvenient. It’s at this point where you can challenge yourself with weighted cardio exercises.
Cardio weight training involves adding equipment like dumbbells, weighted vests or weights strapped to your ankles or wrists to your cardio workout to increase the intensity and resistance.
What’s the benefit of adding the extra weight? Apart from increasing the intensity and resistance, weighted routines help improve cardio endurance, strength, speed and agility and burn calories like butter.
Here are some of the 9 best-weighted cardio exercises for a holistic approach to strength and cardio.
Cardio can become more palatable by adding some dumbbell movements into the mix. These dumbbell workouts will increase your heart rate, burn fat and boost your metabolism. Doing cardio with weights is way more fun than hopping on a treadmill or going for a run.
Remember to rest sufficiently in between sets and try not to overexert yourself. Incomplete rests won’t help you reap the benefits of these dumbbell workouts.
The goblet squat is a simple drill that requires only one dumbbell.
Stand with your feet shoulder-width apart, keep your core engaged and hold the dumbbell with both hands in front of you at around chest height.
With your knees slightly bent, slowly lower your bottom while keeping your core engaged.
While keeping your spine in a neutral position, keep the dumbbell consistently level with your chest at all times.
Hold for a moment before slowly returning to the goblet squat stand position once more.
This type of cardio weight training workout looks super easy but can run the risk of being performed incorrectly, leading to little to no muscle growth or, worse, injury.
Your starting position should be standing upright while keeping your feet hip-width apart with a dumbbell in each hand.
Keep your elbows close to your body and shrug your shoulders.
Slowly bring up your right hand while grasping the dumbbell, leading the movement by bending with the elbow.
Once your arm reaches chest height and above, squeeze your bicep and, with a slow, controlled movement, bring it down again.
You can do this exercise by alternating sides to work the right and left arm or grab both dumbbells and try both sides at once when you’ve got form and control down.
The renegade row is essential for any full-body workout.
Start by placing a pair of dumbbells on the floor shoulder-width apart.
Now, get your frame to rest in a high plank position. For this you’ll need to keep your frame in a straight line with your feet shoulder-width apart while grasping the dumbbells to elevate you off the floor.
Grasp the dumbbells and bring your right elbow up to your ribcage, keeping your entire body stiff and straight.
Slowly return the dumbbell to the ground while staying in the high plank position.
Alternate sides for more reps.
The lateral raise workout is an excellent upper body workout to build muscle in your shoulders and traps. You can perform them standing or seated. With this exercise, it’s important to keep your body as still as possible and avoid swinging so you don’t use the momentum to take away from activating the targeted muscles.
First, grab a pair of dumbbells. The ideal starting position should be placing them at your sides with your palms facing your body and bending your elbows ever so slightly.
Keep your feet flat and engage your core, pulling your shoulders back and down.
Then, with control, lift the dumbbells outward to your side, lifting until your arms are extended and your frame is in a T-shape. Pause at the top of the movement and hold for a second or two.
Lastly, you’re going to lower the weights slowly, bringing your arms back to your sides.
Tip: For this routine, we don't want to get the dumbbells or weights overhead, as that will defeat the purpose of this routine.
Training your lower body is just as important when doing cardio exercises with weights. You want to focus on building strength all around if you’re going to reach your fitness goals.
First, start by standing straight with each dumbbell in hand hanging at your sides.
Inhale and take a step forward with your right foot, keeping your left leg planted at the heel.
With your right leg, keep your knees bent until parallel to the floor and then alternate with your left leg, keep those knees bent as well and maintain balance.
Exhale as you bring your right leg back and keep repeating the movement on the opposite sides.
This is a variation on the dumbbell lunge that jumps straight into improving the intensiveness of the cardiovascular fitness gained from performing lunges.
Repeat the motions of the dumbbell lunge as stated above
However, instead of returning to the starting position, you alternate between your right and left legs.
This next exercise is a high-intensity variation of the classic dumbbell lunge that’s bound to get your heart rate up.
Step forward with your front leg into the lunge with a dumbbell in hand.
Hold the position while bringing up your arm to curl the weight up.
Then, lower the dumbbell and return to the standing position once more.
The Romanian deadlift is an all-rounder cardio workout that strengthens your lower back, glutes, hamstrings and core. This is one of the best cardio workouts with weights for those who suffer from lower back pain since it won’t risk injury to your back.
Stand with your feet hip-width apart and your knees slightly bent.
With the dumbbells in a firm grip in each hand, place them in front of your hips with your palms facing your thighs.
Keep your spine neutral, and squeeze your shoulder blades before pushing your hips back.
Keep the dumbbells close and lower them down until they’re in front of your shins. Try not to manoeuvre your bum further once they pass the knees.
To fully extend hips and knees, drive through heels and squeeze glutes until the top of the movement is achieved.
You’ll need quite a bit of space to do this cardio workout with weights. We suggest doing these steps in your local park or running track.
Stand upright with your dumbbells in each hand.
Let your arms hang freely by your sides, breathe in and brace your core before you begin marching.
Once you’ve reached 20 meters turn around without swinging the weights and walk back to the starting point.
If you’ve only got one dumbbell with you — try the suitcase-carry variation in your right arm and alternate to your left hand once you've rested and started to walk back.
The trick with this one-handed weight cardio workout is to avoid tilting and keep your shoulders straight.
These weighted cardio exercises will help make the most out of lower-body and upper-body training. They are great alternatives if you want to focus on fitness but you’re tired of the same old boring workout routine. These nine activities are easy to adapt to when you're looking to switch things up while you burn fat.
