Winter is coming on so in this video I am going to give you a bunch of indoor interval cardio options.

People in fitness like to make themselves look like geniuses for inventing something new when in fact, its very old news. Tabata intervals, HIIT, and interval training all great examples of what I am talking about. Ooooh, tabata, thats new and high tech! LOL! Not really. People have been doing tabata intervals and HIIT for thousands of years, its called BALL SPORTS!
Every ball sport out there has intense periods of sprinting punctuated by short rests, in other words, INTERVAL TRAINING! Depending on the game, the sprint to rest ratio will vary. In soccer and basketball, its almost all sprinting with almost no rest. With sports like American Football, its very short bursts of sprinting with long rest periods. Sports like tennis or doubles beach volleyball like my husband and I are plahying here is somewhere between the two extremes. Its all interval training. Sprint rest sprint rest. Thats all HIIT is, thats all interval training is, and that is all Tabata is.  We will get to all those HIIT cardio workouts you can do at home but a quick FAQ first.

Advantages of Interval Training

  1. Most people think of interval training only in relation to running but you can do it with almost anything. Running, biking, boxing, squats, box jumps, jump rope .. anything that allows you to get really tired, really fast.
  2. Yes, interval training is more effecient at burning off calories per minute, a bit faster.
  3. Yes, interval training is a great way to increase endurance and speed. Long steady state cardio has its place as does interval training.

Disadvantages of Interval Training

So if HIIT is so wonderful, why doesnt everyone do it?  Easy! You are more likely to get injured and injured people cant workout at all

For example if you are 80 pounds overweight and try to do tabata intervals sprinting, you will likely end up with a foot, knee, or hip injury. If you are in pretty good shape but over 40 years old and do tabata box jumps, you will probably end up with jumpers knee. Yes, interval training is good but you have to be cautious about the way you apply it.

10 Awesome Home Cardio Workouts (Interval Training)

The one thing you will need is a tabata timer, you can get a free app like this for your android or iPhone. You set the rest interval and the workout interval and push GO! Feel free to experiment with various rest and workout intervals, what is right will depend on how hard it is do what you are doing. I would suggest that your workout last at least 20 minutes, 30 minutes is better in my opinion. As an example, when I do bag kicking workouts, I do 30 seconds of intense exercise followed by 20 seconds of rest. When I do stationary bike, the exercise intervals might be 2-3 minutes with the rest being a minute. Again, its all good, set the exercise/rest intervals to whatever works for you.  Here is the free Tabata timer app I use, any of them are fine:


No Equipment at all ( or under $15)

  • Tabata box jumps
  • Tabata bodyweight squats
  • Tabata jumping squats
  • Tabata burpees
  • Tabata jump rope

Equipment required:

  • stationary bike intervals
  • bag kicking intervals
  • bag punching intervals
  • kettlebell swings
  • kettlebell deadlift pushup combo

Will any exercise work for tabata cardio workouts?

Basically anything that uses legs or the entire body is good for interval training. Things that only exercise little muscles like arms, abs, or calves wont work for interval training. Muscles that tire too easily dont work either. A great example is pecs. Pushups are a great exercise but most peoples chest will give out before they get anything close to a good cardio workout. Think legs. Think whole body.


The original tabata workout!

Dont forget, you can do the ORIGINAL interval training workout, just play a ball sport! Racquetball tennis, volleyball, basketball, soccer!