Step Up Your Fitness: Low-Impact Cardio Options for Black Women with Joint Pain

If you've never heard of low-impact cardio, the name gives you a good idea of what it's all about. According to Peloton, low-impact cardio workouts limit the force you put on your joints. These workouts include walking, swimming, elliptical training, or hiking and are great for everyone, especially Black women with reduced joint mobility. There are many reasons why you should adopt low-impact cardio today, and Dunbar explains a few. 

Obesity has been linked to several other conditions, but one of the most threatening is heart disease. Joint pain typically results in reduced physical activity, which can increase the chances of developing obesity and other metabolic conditions and, in turn, lead to heart disease. With low-impact cardio, however, you can stay physically active while protecting your joints and staying pain-free. 

"In general, this type of activity can improve cardiovascular health and reduce the risk of many diseases and injuries, including obesity, cardiovascular diseases, and cancer", Dunbar states.

By staying active with joint-friendly, low-impact workouts, you can also reduce the chances of overweight-related medical conditions like hypertension and dyslipidemia.

"It is particularly great because it helps reduce the risk of injury while still receiving the benefits of cardio. These benefits are especially important for Black women, who tend to suffer from joint pain, CV disease, obesity, certain cancers and other physical and mental health ailments at higher rates than other groups", she adds.

In addition to improving your cardiovascular and metabolic health, low-impact cardio can also help as an outlet for stress and improve your mood. 

"[Low-impact cardio] can improve mental wellbeing, including mood and sleep, and generally makes you feel really good in your body and mind," Dunbar says. 

“Above all, be kind to yourself. Fitness is a journey of highs, lows and everything in between. So give yourself a break, give yourself credit for showing up, learn to laugh at your mistakes and, even when it’s challenging, try to enjoy the ride.”

— Alahna Dunbar

Jogging every day certainly works for some people, but it didn't do that for me alone. What I really needed was a personalised fitness routine that worked for me and my short attention span. For Black women like me who want to incorporate weights into their cardio routine, you must seek help.

"Beginners should seek beginner-friendly fitness classes or consider working with a personal trainer to ensure they execute the proper movement technique/form to reduce the risk of injury. Furthermore, technique is a good indicator of whether you need a break. If your form starts to go, that's a good cue it's time to take a break and reset," Dunbar advises.

There's also the task of becoming familiar with the equipment, especially if you're new to spinning or weights. 

"If you are participating in a class that requires a particular kit or equipment like clip-in shoes or a bike setup, make sure you are aware of the kit you need before taking part in the activity and ensure that it fits you and is comfortable. If your activity requires equipment setup, arrive 10-15 minutes before your activity to ensure you get set up correctly and so you can ask your instructor any questions before you start," she adds. 

Talking to professionals about where you are and what you can do with your present self is essential, which involves bringing up past injuries or worries.

"If you have any concerns, pregnancies, or injuries, you will need to communicate this to your instructor before the class to ensure they give you appropriate modifications, if necessary. And, of course, always consult your doctor or physiotherapist before engaging in a new activity", Dunbar recommends.

Starting out can be a hard step, but Alahna Dunbar has some sample workouts to help you break the ice and get started. But first, you need to recognise that you are a beginner and take things slow for your routine to be safe and sustainable.

"Complete beginners to any activity should approach with a curious and relaxed mindset. In short, don't come with performance goals. The beginning of any fitness journey is about assessing where you are and building a consistent fitness routine, whether you are totally new to fitness or just new to that activity," Dunbar advises.

"You can create simple, achievable goals, like 30 minutes of weight training 2-3 per week or 50 minutes of low-impact cardio 3 to 5 times per week (both of which are the government recommended minimum). Your first goals should be about getting you into the habit of exercising and figuring out what will help you stay consistent," she adds.

To help with consistency, Dunbar recommends creating a workout playlist you love, finding a class of other women, getting a workout buddy, or taking a more active route while doing cardio.

"The beginning of your fitness journey is a time of exploration and discovery. It's the time to figure out what you like, how to move, how certain things feel, what you hate, what you're good at, and what you can work on," Dunbar says. 

"The recommended minimum weekly activity is 150 minutes moderate cardio or 75 minutes intense cardio per week, plus two sessions of resistance (weight) training to build muscle strength," Dunbar says. 

Moderate or intense cardio might not make sense to a beginner, but Dunbar explains what this might look like for your routine.

"For a beginner, this might look like 3x 50-minute cardio sessions per week (i.e. beginner spin classes, brisk walking sessions, dance classes, etc) with 2x full-body strength sessions (weights, Body Pump, Pilates, barre, etc) per week. If you are a total beginner to fitness, this may seem daunting, so you might start with two weekly fitness cardio classes that incorporate both cardio and strength, like a beginner spin class and a Body Pump class. Again, the crucial thing is to find something fun that fits your schedule and stick to your sessions. Even if it's 20 minutes of walking daily, that is better than nothing," she adds.

It's hard to start, but staying consistent and avoiding stagnancy is much harder. To keep your fitness journey interesting and impactful, it is vital to measure your progress. 

"To progress your fitness and prevent plateaus, you can aim to increase your effort by about 5-10% each week, and there are many ways to do so. You can perform an effort for a little longer or with more repetitions or sets. You can do one more workout session per week or increase the duration of that session. You can also increase the weight or resistance, move a little faster, or work harder," Dunbar lists.

"The important thing is to progress incrementally to gain fitness without risking injury, overtraining, and burnout. A method I find useful is the "1 or 2" method. "Can I do 1 or 2 more reps, 1 or 2 more minutes, 1 or 2 more sessions, 1 or 2 more Kilograms or kilometres?" For me, this is mentally manageable and usually 1 or 2 or anything is enough", Dunbar adds.

It's okay to be wary of overtraining while getting started, but as time passes, it also helps you challenge yourself with more advanced levels of your combined fitness training.

"When it comes to any cardio class, the more beginner-friendly option will be endurance-focused, with moderate intensity and longer duration effort. For weight training classes, you can always advance by going to a class that uses heavier weights or more complex moves. Some classes are strength endurance-based, which are higher repetitions but lighter weights. Muscle-building classes tend to use more challenging weights at a lower repetition. And more advanced weight classes focus on power, which combines lifting heavier weights quickly and usually more complexly," Dunbar explains.

So do challenge yourself as you go on, but do so with guidance and within reason. 

Like every other workout routine, combining spinning and weights has a few pitfalls you must be wary of, especially around setting unrealistic goals for your body. 

"The most common mistakes I see beginners make are setting unrealistic goals and expectations, forcing themselves to do exercises they hate and going too intense too soon. All these mistakes set you up for failure and usually lead to people getting discouraged and quitting because they don't see results fast enough, dread going to that boring but tough class, or work so hard the first session that they need a week or more to recover. By then, they lost the habit," Dunbar says.

So rather than setting such a high peak for yourself in the first few tries, Dunbar says to focus on consistency instead. 

"Find something fun and simple. Build a consistent fitness habit. Be kind to yourself, try your best, embrace the challenges and give yourself time to adapt. The good news is that beginners do tend to improve the quickest! So long as you are consistent, typically, you will notice the biggest change at the beginning of your fitness journey. You'll likely keep going once you see the changes start, so just get started!" she adds.

It's not enough to combine these workouts; you need to focus on keeping your routine sustainable for your lifestyle and health. To do that, Dunbar emphasises the importance of rest and recovery for your fitness journey.

"Rest and recovery are required to improve fitness. Many people think fitness gains happen during workouts, but they do not! It is during the recovery and repair phase that you adapt to become stronger and fitter. If you don't recover, you won't see the gains you want, and you will likely overtrain and, thus, risk quitting or getting injured," she explains. 

Just like you need a long nap after a long day of work and a quick one during midday activities, the amount of recovery you need after a workout depends on the intensity of said workout. 

"Generally, you can do more low-intensity and moderate-intensity workouts daily or every other day, as long as you properly warm up, cool down, eat nutritiously, and hydrate. Higher-intensity work requires more recovery. For instance, I would only recommend that my riders do two (three max) high-intensity weekly rides for more advanced riders. The same goes for weight training," Dunbar recommends.

Rest is essential to avoid burnout, but your body will not cooperate further if you're already there. 

"The big cue of whether you are overtraining or burnout is how you feel. If you aren't getting proper sleep, are in pain, can't maintain proper form, are too breathless or dizzy, are not able to progress your workout due to fatigue or are even regressing, these are all signs that your body is not fully recovered," Dunbar says. 

In all, it's imperative to have fun with your fitness in order to stay motivated. 

"Start with something simple, start with something FUN. It might be tough to start, so you find something you enjoy: find a class with or listen to your own banging music, go dancing, get outdoors, enjoy a swim, exercise with friends who make you laugh, whatever gets you going! There are so many unique, enjoyable activities out there; you will fall in love with one of them. Just start moving and keep moving. Consistent, small efforts win", Dunbar says.

"Furthermore, embrace the wobbles, mess-ups and struggles; they're a part of the process of becoming healthier, stronger, fitter and more resilient. Trust the process. And above all, be kind to yourself. Fitness is a journey of highs, lows and everything in between. So give yourself a break, give yourself credit for showing up, learn to laugh at your mistakes, and, even when it's challenging, try to enjoy the ride".