Cardio That Slims and Tones Thighs

Along with eating a healthy diet, getting regular exercise is essential for achieving a sleek physique — including slim, toned thighs. As for the best type of cardio to do, it’s the one you’ll do consistently. And you can choose from activities like walking, running, dancing, and high intensity interval training (HIIT).

Any kind of cardio can help you reach your goals. But some forms may be more efficient than others.

Why Cardio Is Important for Weight Loss

Doing cardio brings you many health benefits, and it burns calories. That can help you create the calorie deficit needed to lose weight. In a calorie deficit, your body uses more calories than you take in each day. This causes it to draw on stored energy, part of which is in the form of fat.

The larger your calorie deficit, the quicker you’ll slim down. According to Mayo Clinic, creating a daily deficit of 500 to 1,000 calories can help you lose about one-half to 2 pounds a week.

You can decide how much cardio will contribute to the deficit and how much will come from your diet. For example, you might decide that you can burn 300 calories a day through cardio and cut 200 calories a day from your diet. Then you’ll meet that 500-calorie-a-day goal.

Weight loss is a little more complex than that, but you can use this as a guideline for reaching and maintaining a calorie deficit.

Just be aware that you can't “spot reduce” fat from your thighs, or from any part of your body, according to ExRx.net. The only way to get slimmer thighs is to get leaner overall.

Your genetics, age, body type, and other factors influence where you tend to accumulate more fat and how quickly you can lose it, according to the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. So, you may have to be patient.

Your Cardio Quota

No matter what type of cardio you choose, you have to do it consistently to see results, according to Cleveland Clinic. How much you need to do depends on your goals and diet, as well as the type and intensity of your workouts. If you do less-intense activities, such as brisk walking, you’ll have to do more cardio than if you run to see the same results.

That’s because the more intense the activity, the harder your muscles and heart have to work, and the more energy your body uses. For example, according to Harvard Health Publishing, a 155-pound person burns varying calorie amounts doing various moderate-intensity activities for 30 minutes:

• Brisk walking (4 mph) burns 175 calories.
• Ballroom dancing burns 198 calories.
• Water aerobics burns 144 calories.
• Low-impact aerobics burns 198 calories.
• Riding a stationary bike at a moderate pace burns 252 calories.

That same person will burn more calories doing vigorous exercises for the same amount of time:

• Running (6 mph) burns 360 calories.
• Swimming laps burns 360 calories.
• Riding a stationary bike burns 278 calories.
• High-impact step aerobics burns 360 calories.
• Jumping rope burns 421 calories.

How many calories you burn also depends on the climate, the terrain, your weight —heavier people burn more — and other factors. You can wear a heart monitor or fitness tracker while you work out to get a more-precise number that you can keep track of.

As a baseline, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) recommends that most adults get at least 150 minutes of moderate-intensity cardio exercise or 75 minutes of vigorous exercise each week. If you have a health condition, it’s important to talk with your doctor to get the go-ahead before starting a new exercise program. For most people, though, this is a good goal to try to meet or exceed for your first few weeks if you’re new to fitness or you’re getting back into it after a long break.

After that, the HHS says you can reap even more benefits by increasing your weekly goal to 300 minutes of moderate-intensity or 150 minutes of vigorous-intensity exercise. You can do more than this if you have time. The more you do, the more calories you’ll burn.

Benefits of HIIT

But who isn’t short on time these days? It’s at the top of the list of reasons why people don’t get enough exercise, according to one study. If you don’t have time to linger in the gym for hours each day, try to make every minute count.

One of the best ways to do that is to increase your workout intensity, according to Mayo Clinic. But not everyone can keep up a running pace of 6 mph for 30 minutes. Trying to do that often leads people to poop out after the first 10 minutes and walk the rest of the way. It may also increase your risk of injury.

That’s where a type of cardio training called HIIT comes in handy. HIIT involves alternating periods of intense effort with periods of recovery at a slower pace, according to Cleveland Clinic. Think: running sprints at a track.

There’s no concrete evidence that HIIT is more effective than moderate, steady-state cardio for burning fat, according to one research review and meta-analysis. But some studies suggest it’s more time efficient. In a randomized controlled trial published in BMJ Open Sport and Exercise Medicine, 32 participants with obesity either did 12 weeks of moderate-intensity cardio or HIIT. Those who did HIIT lost an average of 0.7 pounds less than those who did moderate-intensity cardio, but their workouts were an average of 10 minutes shorter.

Because you can get your heart rate very high during the intense intervals, you may burn more calories overall in a shorter amount of time than by jogging along at a steady pace for 30 minutes.

There may be a slight benefit to HIIT workouts after you've finished your workout, too. Due to the intense nature of the workout, your body has to exert more energy to repair and recover than it does with moderate-intensity exercise, according to the National Academy of Sports Medicine (NASM). As a result, you may burn slightly more calories post-workout.

You can do interval training no matter your fitness level, according to Cleveland Clinic. All you need to do is work as hard as you can during the more-intense periods. For some people, this might mean jogging or running at a slower pace. For others, it may mean sprinting.

According to Cleveland Clinic, other activities that work well for HIIT workouts include:

• Cycling
• Brisk walking
• Rowing
• Stair-climbing
• Calisthenics, or body-weight exercises like squats, lunges, and burpees

Aim to gradually increase your effort during the higher-intensity intervals.

You can try this HIIT workout to get started: Warm up at an easy pace for five minutes. Increase your pace on the treadmill, bike, stair stepper, or rower for 60 seconds. Then return to an easy pace for 90 seconds. Continue to cycle through these intervals for 20 minutes. Then cool down for five minutes.