Low-impact training is a great way to build your fitness with a reduced risk of injury, and it’s perfect for beginners or anyone wary of running or HIIT workouts with lots of jumping because of the impact involved.
You can achieve your health goals without this type of high-impact training, including increasing your cardio fitness and burning a significant number of calories during your workouts.
This 20-minute standing workout from fitness trainer Maddie Lymburner, who goes by MadFit on YouTube, is a great example of how low-impact sessions can be highly effective, and it’s perfect for beginners in particular.
You don’t need any equipment for the workout, but if you have one of the best yoga mats at home, it’s worth rolling out to provide better grip.
Watch MadFit’s 20-minute low-impact workout
During the workout, you’ll be working for 40 seconds with each exercise, and then recovering for 20 seconds. However, this will be active recovery where you aim to keep moving in some way, so your heart rate stays high.
This also means that if you find any of the exercises too tough to complete the full 40 seconds, then try to keep moving on the spot rather than stopping for a complete break. If you can keep moving for the full 20 minutes, it will make the session a lot more effective in terms of boosting your fitness and burning calories.
For the exercises themselves, you are doing sets of two moves, doing two rounds of both before moving on to the next set of two exercises.
All of the moves in the workout are low-impact exercises done from a standing position, making it a very accessible session for all fitness levels. You’ll be doing moves like walking jacks, standing high knees, and unweighted squats.
While this is a session aimed at beginners, it’s a workout that anyone can tackle and benefit from. If you’d like to make it more challenging, you can do the same moves while holding a light pair of dumbbells.
You can also progress by doing a longer workout, like this 30-minute low-impact workout that challenges the whole body.
Everyone can benefit from adding low-impact training into their weekly schedule, and because it's not so hard on your joints in particular, you can do more training safely. Low-impact does not mean easy, though, so make sure you're prepared to still work hard.
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