5 Calorie-Blasting Cardio Exercises (No Treadmill Required!)

5 Calorie-Blasting Cardio Exercises — No Treadmill Required!
Photo: Daily Burn 365

These moves come to you from Daily Burn 365 trainers Cheri Paige Fogleman, Becca Pace, Prince Brathwaite and Krystal Dwyer. To catch their complete workouts head to DailyBurn.com/365.

Love to hate cardio? You don’t need to hop on a treadmill for hours just to reap the benefits of cardiovascular training. You can improve your endurance, rev your heart rate and burn calories without a single piece of gym equipment.

In fact, you don’t even need to head to the gym at all! The five moves below from Daily Burn 365 trainers will help you work up a sweat, and all you need to get started is your body. (Say bye-bye to those excuses!)

RELATED: 5 ‘No Excuses’ Tricks to Stick to Your Workouts

5 Quick Cardio Exercises That Don’t Involve Running 

Star Jump Cardio Exercise
GIF: Daily Burn 365

1. Star Jump
How to: Start standing with your feet together and your knees slightly bent. Your arms should be bent up in front of your chest, like you’re carrying firewood (a). Next, step your legs out quickly, one leg at a time and shoot your arms out diagonally so you create a star shape with your body (b). Quickly hop your feet back together and bring your arms back into the starting position (c). Repeat for 60 seconds.

RELATED: Daily Burn 365: New Workouts, 7 Days a Week

Fast Feed Cardio Exercise
GIF: Daily Burn 365

2. Fast Feet Touchdown
How to: Stand with your feet a little wider than hip-width apart. Bend your knees and turn out your feet slightly. Loosely hold your arms bent in front of your chest (a). Balance your weight on the balls of your feet. Keep your upper body relatively stable and focus on moving your feet as fast as you can (b). Once you step five times on each foot, quickly bend down, touch the ground, and then rise back up and continue hot-stepping from foot to foot (c). Repeat for 60 seconds.

RELATED: 5 Standing Ab Moves for People Who Hate Crunches

Single-Leg Skip
GIF: Daily Burn 365

3. Single-Leg Skip
How to: Stand with the right leg behind you in a shallow lunge position. As if you’re about to run a sprint, bend your arms and bring the right arm in front of you, left arm behind you (a). Push off your back foot and perform a skip on your left leg, bringing your right leg up and driving up with your left arm (b). Land softly on our left leg and bring your right leg back to the starting “sprint” position (c). Perform 10 reps on this side, and 10 on the left.

Overhead Chop
GIF: Daily Burn 365

4. Overhead Chop
How to: Start facing forwards with your arms extended straight overhead (a). Lift your left leg up straight out in front of you while bringing your arms down like a karate chop. (Engage your abdominals as you chop!) Your leg should be in between your arms (b). Bring your leg back down to the floor while raising your arms back overhead (c). Alternate legs for 15 reps on each side.

RELATED: Is It Better to Do Cardio or Strength Training First?

Plank Jack
GIF: Daily Burn 365

5. Plank Jack
How to: Begin in a plank position with your hands on the floor, shoulders above your hands and toes tucked under you. Your core should be engaged and your body should be in a straight line from head to toe (a). Bend your knees slightly and quickly jump your feet out to the side, like you’re doing a jumping jack, but with your palms glued to the floor (b). Then, quickly jump your feet back together (c). Repeat for 60 seconds.

Can’t get enough of these moves? Head to DailyBurn.com/365 for new, live workouts daily. 

Originally posted October 1, 2015. Updated November 27, 2015. 

Note to reader: The content in this article relates to the core service offered by Daily Burn. In the interest of editorial disclosure and integrity, the reader should know that this site is owned and operated by Daily Burn.

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