Best Cardio For Weight Loss: Ranked

More and more people are looking for ways to improve their health and fitness and one popular method is to take up cardio. One of the most common questions we get asked here at Fitness Fahrenheit is what cardio is best for weight loss. So, we have ranked the best cardio exercises to help you lose weight more efficiently with each cardio workout.

Check them out below!

How Does Cardio Help You Lose Weight?

The trick to understanding which cardio exercises work best at helping you shift the pounds is by understanding how weight loss actually works.

To lose weight, you need to burn more calories in a day than you take in through eating. To burn these calories, you need to move your body. The more you move, the more calories you burn - so the best cardio exercises are the ones that are highly intense and involve a lot of movement. The more parts of your body that move in a single exercise, the better as you will be burning more calories.

With that in mind, let’s take a look at some of the best cardio exercises for weight loss!

1. High-Intensity Interval Training (HIIT)

High-intensity interval training (HIIT) is one of the go-to exercises for people aiming to lose weight. It works by planning out short periods of very intense, vigorous exercise followed by periods of rest.

What exercises you do in these bursts of activity all comes down to where you want to burn the fat off your body. There are exercises tailored to help burn belly fat, arm fat, leg fat, back fat, or combinations of different parts of your body.

Depending on what exercises you are doing, one hour of HIIT combined can burn up to a whopping 900 calories!

2. Rowing

Rowing is hailed as one of the best forms of cardio for many reasons.

Firstly, it’s very intense but low impact, so it does more good for your body than bad in the long term. Its high intensity also means you burn a ton of calories in just one hour of exercise. Plus, it helps build the endurance in your legs while building muscle strength in your arms.

So, clearly, there are many benefits to rowing. Because it involves moving every inch of your body, you are burning fat in not just your arms and legs but your back and core too.

One hour of rowing can help you burn between 400 and 600 calories as long as you maintain a brisk pace throughout.

3. Incline Walking

Two of the most popular types of cardio exercises are walking and running - but both have their own disadvantages. Walking alone takes a lot of time and effort to burn an efficient amount of calories, while running can cause a lot of shock to your body, leading to aches and pains.

What is the best alternative to both? Incline walking.

Incline walking can help you burn a similar amount of calories as running but is less impactful on your body. If you struggle with running because of the pain it causes your body, then incline walking will help you lose the same amount of weight without the pain.

One hour of brisk incline walking can help you burn up to 300 calories. If you feel up to it, you can turn your incline walk into an incline jog to burn away even more fat from your body!

4. Stair Climbing

The stair climber is very similar to the incline walk but is slightly more intense and better at improving the endurance of the muscles in your legs and glutes. This makes it a great way to train your legs before moving on to more intense forms of exercise like hiking.

One hour of stair climbing can help you burn between 300 to 500 calories, but finding the right gym with the right equipment can be tricky! As a result, most people take up incline walking over stair climbing because it’s easier to access the right kind of machinery.

5. Swimming

Swimming is one of the best low-impact cardio exercises for many reasons.

Firstly, swimming makes you use every single muscle in your body and is one of the only types of exercise that does this. Secondly, it’s a friendly type of exercise that works great no matter your age. If you suffer from joint pain or other mobility issues, you can still work out and keep yourself fit by swimming!