A cardio workout is good for your heart. Your heart is a muscle, and like all muscles, benefits and improves through exercise and training. Cardio workouts benefit your whole cardiovascular system. Plus, cardio workouts burn calories.

In a cardio workout, your activity level increases your heart rate. A cardio workout is aerobic when it also increases your breathing and oxygen intake. If you're new to cardio workouts, let your body be your guide to the right cardio workout level for you. If ever you feel lightheaded or dizzy, stop and rest. If you're not breaking a sweat, you're not working hard enough, so pick up the pace.

Any activity that keeps you moving at a sustained level of exertion can be a cardio workout: walking, jogging, running, mountain biking, hiking, calisthenics, and aerobic dancing are only a few. You want to build up to a higher level of exercise that you can maintain for at least 20 minutes at least three times a week. Exercises where you start and stop, or coast - which include tennis, most team sports, and bicycling around a flat neighborhood are a good adjunct to a cardio workout but do not alone provide enough sustained aerobic benefit. If you're trying to lose weight, any activity burns calories, so go for it!

To start any cardio workout program, pick an activity you enjoy and do it at a level just past your comfort zone until you are tired but not exhausted. In the beginning, you should be working on your conditioning and endurance; it's too soon to be thinking about distance or speed. Listen to your body; if it's sore or tired, take an extra day of rest. Once you can handle 30 minutes of sustained activity, you can think about increasing your intensity.