Endurance training at home: the best exercises

We all know that sport – be it endurance or strength training – is good for us. Exercising regularly increases your oxygen capacity, strengthens muscles, burns more fat, boosts blood circulation and, over time, lowers your heart rate at rest and under strain.

But not all training is the same. A study conducted by cardiologists at the Saarland and Leipzig university hospitals has shown that endurance sport and interval training are more effective at slowing cell ageing than strength training.

In a press release, Professor Ulrich Laufs, head of the study and professor of cardiology at Leipzig University, explained that they had examined blood cells to determine that both types of endurance training have a beneficial impact as important regulators of cell ageing. He went on to say that strength training is a good complement to endurance workouts, but not a replacement.

You can do an effective cardio workout without any equipment - even if you have little experience. And you don't even have to leave your home to do it. Martina Stucki, fitness instructor at Zone4Performance Winterthur, shows in the video how you can keep fit within your own four walls with just a few exercises.

If you didn’t find the workout tough enough, try our high-intensity interval training (HIIT). You’ll find the video with the exercises here. 

The basic rule is: the more regular, the better. It's better to do a short cardio session of 10 to 30 minutes several times a week than just one hour a week. “It's not the length of the workout that matters, but the intensity,” explains Martina Stucki. “You can achieve just as great an effect on your endurance with a short, intensive interval training session as with a long, moderate basic training session.” However, this does not mean that you only need to train at an intensive level.

Even a leisurely, longer session has a positive effect on your well-being and ability to recover. The expert's tip: “Don't just train in the medium range (60 to 80 percent of your maximum heart rate), but rather alternate between intensive cardio units (80 to 100 percent of your maximum heart rate) and gentle basic training (up to 60 percent of your maximum heart rate).”