7 Low-Impact Cardio Options for Building Your Fitness

When people hear low-impact cardio, they often assume it means easy cardio.

It doesn't.

Low impact describes the amount of impact associated with the exercise.

It doesn't tell us how hard your heart and lungs are working, how high your heart rate can get or how demanding the session can be.

You can absolutely finish a hard cycling interval, struggling to catch your breath, without running a single step.

That's what makes low-impact cardio so useful.

It offers plenty of ways to develop aerobic fitness and conditioning while reducing the repetitive impact of activities such as running and jumping.

Whether you're trying to improve your fitness, add conditioning around your strength training, reduce your running volume or simply find a form of cardio you enjoy, there are plenty of good options.

Here are some of our favourite low-impact options for building fitness.

First: What Does "Low-Impact Cardio" Actually Mean?

Impact and intensity are two different things.

Impact relates to the forces your body has to absorb during an activity, particularly when contacting the ground.

Intensity describes how hard you're working.

Running, for example, involves repeated periods where both feet leave the ground before you land again.

Cycling doesn't.

But that doesn't mean cycling has to be easier.

Increase the resistance and effort on a bike and your heart rate can climb very quickly.

This is why we don't like using "low impact" interchangeably with low intensity.

There is also an important distinction between low impact and low joint load.

An exercise can have little or no landing impact while still placing considerable muscular and joint demands on the body.

Hard StairClimber work, resisted cycling and rowing are good examples.

If you're managing pain or an injury, don't assume that every exercise labelled low impact will automatically be appropriate for you.

For example, I strained my calf while running, so I switched a planned run to doing the same workouts on our BikeErg. This way, my calf experienced much less stretch and impact, while my heart and lungs still got the necessary stimulus to keep me on track as my calf healed.

However, incline walking or resisted Sled work would still have loaded my injured calf enough that I wouldn't be able to complete the same session.

Low-impact modalities give us an excellent toolbox for building fitness and working around limitations.

Now, what are the low-impact options we recommend?

1. BikeErg

The BikeErg is one of our favourite all-round conditioning tools.

There is no repetitive landing impact; it's simple to use, and you can regulate the difficulty extremely well.

That makes it useful for almost everything from longer aerobic sessions to short, hard intervals.

You can manipulate:

• Duration

• Cadence

• Resistance

• Power output

• Heart rate

• Work-to-rest ratios

It also makes the BikeErg particularly useful alongside strength training.

If you've already accumulated a lot of impact through running, sport or other training during the week, cycling can allow you to add more cardiovascular work without simply adding more of the same stress.

Best for: General aerobic fitness, intervals, longer conditioning sessions and adding cardio around strength training.

2. RowErg

The RowErg brings more of the body into the equation.

Rather than predominantly relying on the lower body, rowing combines a strong leg drive with the trunk and upper body to produce each stroke.

Done properly, it's an excellent whole-body conditioning exercise.

It can be used for longer steady efforts, threshold-style training, repeated intervals or short high-output pieces.

There is a little more technique involved than sitting on a bike, however. Learning how to sequence the leg drive, body movement and arm pull makes rowing both more efficient and more enjoyable.

Once you've got that sorted, it's an incredibly versatile machine.

Best for: Whole-body conditioning, intervals and people who want an alternative to predominantly leg-driven cardio.

3. SkiErg

The SkiErg offers something quite different again.

It involves a repeated upper-body pulling action combined with the trunk and hips, giving us a conditioning option that doesn't rely as heavily on repetitive knee-dominant work.

Don't mistake that for making it easy.

Once the intensity increases, the SkiErg can become brutally effective conditioning.

It's particularly useful when programming multiple conditioning sessions because it allows us to distribute the work across different movement patterns instead of hammering the legs every time we want to increase someone's heart rate.

Best for: Upper-body dominant conditioning, mixed-modality sessions and adding variety to your aerobic training.

4. StairClimber

Walking upstairs might technically be low impact.

That doesn't mean it's low effort.

The StairClimber can drive your heart rate up very quickly while providing a significant challenge to the quads, glutes and calves.

For aerobic training, you don't necessarily need to attack it.

Find a sustainable pace, settle into a rhythm and allow your heart rate to gradually rise.

Increase the speed, and it quickly becomes a much more demanding conditioning session.

The important distinction here is that low impact does not mean low load.

The StairClimber can create considerable local muscular fatigue through the legs, so where you place it around heavy lower-body training matters.

Best for: Aerobic conditioning, leg endurance and people who prefer walking-based cardio.

5. Incline Treadmill Walking

You don't always need to run to make a treadmill useful.

Increasing the incline allows you to substantially increase the difficulty of walking without needing to turn it into a run.

That gives you three simple variables to manipulate:

Speed.

Incline.

Duration.

It is also one of the easiest forms of cardio to regulate.

If your heart rate is too low, increase the speed or incline. If you're working harder than intended, bring one of them back down.

For someone beginning aerobic training, returning to exercise or simply wanting additional lower-intensity work during the week, incline walking is difficult to overlook.

Best for: Beginners, steady aerobic work, lower-intensity conditioning and building general activity levels.

6. AirBike

The AirBike is another excellent low-impact conditioning option, particularly when you want the whole body involved.

Unlike a traditional stationary bike, the AirBike combines pedalling with pushing and pulling through the handles.

The harder you work, the more air resistance the fan creates, so the machine naturally scales with your effort.

That makes it incredibly versatile.

You can use it for longer aerobic sessions at a controlled pace, moderate intervals or very short, high-intensity efforts.

Because both the upper and lower body contribute, the AirBike can also produce a very high cardiovascular demand without requiring running or jumping.

Just remember that low impact doesn't mean low fatigue. Hard AirBike sessions can be extremely demanding, so intensity and placement within your training week still matter.

Best for: Whole-body conditioning, aerobic intervals, high-intensity efforts, and anyone wanting a simple way to regulate effort without running.

7. Sled

Sled training isn't normally the first thing people think of when they hear aerobic conditioning, but it can be an excellent low-impact option when programmed appropriately.

At The Training Ground, we use the SledMode function on our treadmills for aerobic sled training.

Instead of pushing a traditional sled across the floor, SledMode lets us add resistance to the belt and perform continuous, sled-like pushing or pulling.

The important word there is aerobic.

Sled work doesn't always need to mean loading it as heavily as possible and grinding through a short effort.

Reduce the resistance, control your pace and extend the duration, and it becomes a completely different conditioning tool.

Because there's no running or jumping involved, we can create a substantial cardiovascular demand while keeping impact low.

At the same time, you're continuously working through the legs, hips and trunk to drive against the resistance.

Like the StairClimber and AirBike, however, low impact doesn't mean low muscular demand.

Aerobic sled work can build plenty of fatigue in the legs, so resistance, duration, and where it sits in your training week still matter.

Best for: Aerobic conditioning, leg endurance, resisted walking and adding variety to traditional cardio training.

Which One Is Best?

There isn't one.

And that's actually the advantage.

If your goal is improving your aerobic fitness, you don't need to become loyal to one machine.

Different modalities allow us to distribute stress differently.

You might use the BikeErg for a longer aerobic session, the RowErg for intervals and incline walking for some easier conditioning later in the week.

Another person might prefer almost everything on the bike.

Both approaches can work.

The machine is simply the tool.

What you do with it matters more.

Low Impact Doesn't Have to Mean Easy

One of the biggest advantages of these machines is the range of intensities available.

Low-impact conditioning might be an easy 30-minute aerobic session where you could comfortably hold a conversation.

It could also be repeated intervals where your heart rate is high, and you're counting down the seconds until the work period finishes.

Both have a place.

Australia's current movement guidelines recommend adults accumulate moderate-to-vigorous physical activity for 30 minutes or more on most days, alongside regular strength and functional activity.

That doesn't mean every cardio session needs to be hard.

In fact, it shouldn't be.

Using different intensities allows you to accumulate more aerobic training without turning every workout into another recovery problem.

The Machine Isn't the Program

This is where people often get stuck.

You know the BikeErg is good for you.

Great.

What are you actually going to do on it?

Ten minutes?

Thirty minutes?

Intervals?

How hard?

How long should you recover?

Should today's session be easy or hard?

When should you increase the workload?

Simply jumping on a cardio machine and working until you've had enough is certainly exercise.

But if the goal is to improve your fitness, a little more structure goes a long way.

Good conditioning programming manipulates intensity, duration, work-to-rest ratios, training volume and modality over time.

The machine gives you somewhere to exercise.

The programming gives that exercise a purpose.

How Should Cardio Fit Around Strength Training?

You don't have to choose between being strong and being fit.

For most people, the better goal is developing both.

The key is managing your total training load.

If you've just completed a demanding lower-body strength session, smashing your legs on the StairClimber may not always be the smartest choice.

A different modality or easier aerobic session may fit better.

Likewise, if you're several days away from your next heavy lower-body session, you may have much more freedom to push your conditioning.

This is another reason we use different erg-based modalities rather than prescribing the same form of cardio every day.

We can train the cardiovascular system while changing where some of the muscular workload goes.

Want Us to Program Your Cardio for You?

Knowing which machine to use is only part of the equation.

Improving your aerobic fitness comes from consistently training at appropriate intensities, accumulating enough work and progressively developing what you're capable of doing.

That's exactly what our Erg Conditioning Programming is designed to do.

Every week, you'll have five low-impact aerobic workouts loaded and ready to complete.

The sessions use different conditioning methods, intensities and equipment so you aren't left standing in front of a cardio machine wondering what you're supposed to do.

Choose the workout that suits your training day, follow the session and get to work.

For people already strength training, it's also an easy way to add structured conditioning to your week without needing to write another training program yourself.

Build your strength.

Build your engine.

And let us take care of the programming.