Burn 300 Calories in 30 Minutes

If you're trying to burn calories and lose weight using cardio machines, we have a challenge for you: Put down the magazine, turn off the television, remove the towel from your dashboard, and stop looking at your watch. Okay, you can keep your earbuds in, but everything else has to go. Why the drastic measures?

If you aren't paying attention, you may not be working as hard as you think, and it may also be harder to stay motivated. There's nothing wrong with zoning out from time to time during a workout, but if you do that all the time, it's easy to slack off on your intensity.

Paying close attention to your pace and intensity, on the other hand, can force you to focus on what you're doing and how hard you're working. Incorporating intervals also allows you to get in bursts of higher-intensity activity. This not only keeps you from getting bored, it also helps burn more calories and increases your endurance very quickly.

Use this technique with any cardio activity to keep things interesting and keep burning calories.

Cardio Workouts That Burn More Calories

The following workouts incorporate interval training, a technique that involves alternating short periods of higher-intensity exercise with periods of easier intensity for recovery. They're a great way to help you pay attention to what you're doing by making you change the settings on your machine. And the intervals will burn more calories.

The speeds and inclines listed are only suggestions, so modify each workout according to your fitness level. Feel free to increase or decrease the speed, incline, and/or workout time to fit your needs.

Before each workout, warm up with 5 to 10 minutes of light cardio. During the workout, keep track of your perceived exertion scale (RPE), which is how hard you feel you're working on a scale from one to 10, or monitor your heart rate. End with a cool down and stretch.

Treadmill

After your warmup, start with the incline at zero and set the speed at a pace just outside your comfort zone (walking or jogging).

Elliptical Trainer

Using the manual program, enter the workout time as 30 minutes and choose a pace that takes you just out of your comfort zone.

Stationary Bike

Using the manual program, enter your workout time as 30 minutes and choose a pace that's just out of your comfort zone.

Outdoor Walk/Run

Instead of spending time inside a sweaty gym, head outside for a walk/run. It's easy to add intervals to walking or running workouts. You can time your intervals, as suggested in the workout below, or simply pick up the pace several times during your workout.

A Word From Verywell

Admittedly, cardio workouts can get boring, especially indoors on cardio machines. Intervals are a great way to spice them up and keep them interesting. Not only do intervals burn more calories and make you fitter, they're a fun challenge. And interval workouts tend to fly by, as you constantly adjust settings and count down the time until your next harder effort. Give them a try!