Are Low Impact Workouts Still Effective?

Low impact workouts are easy on your joints, but that doesn’t make them easy on fat cells! If you’re wondering whether or not low-impact workouts are still effective for muscle building and weight loss, have no doubt. Low impact does not equate to low intensity. You can workup quite a sweat while burning calories and even toning your muscles-all without putting a lot of impact on your joints.

Low impact workouts are all about going easy on your joints, which is especially beneficial for people with joint pain and mobility issues as it is. However, low impact workouts remain the favorite type of exercise for people across every ability and age group because they’re thought to be better for your body overall. After all, why put undue stress on your joints when you don’t need to? All of this in mind, while some low impact workouts are certainly low intensity, not all of them have to be. A popular example of a low impact, low intensity workout could be an easy stroll through the park. Even this will burn calories, without elevating your heart rate too much or putting stress on your joints. However, you can also go easy on your joints while effectively burning calories fast. One example of a low impact, high intensity workout is swimming. In fact, any exercise you do in the water is generally low impact since the water works to cushion your movements and, therefore, protect your joints from impact. Of course, you can imagine how many calories competitive swimmers burn during a tournament or even their warm-up. Swimming is actually one of the best workouts you can do, professionally or in your free time.

Aside from walking and swimming, other low impact workouts of varying intensity include yoga, pilates, and any type of mat-based exercise where you won’t be doing a lot of jumping. Running and jumping are the two highest impact moves you can do and, while effective at burning calories, they’re best avoided if you want to avoid impact. However, you can actually make most any high-impact move a low-impact one by simply doing it on a rebounder (mini trampoline) or another cushiony surface.