Cardio Suggestions for a Complex Older Guy?

I currently lift 3 days per week with Monday-Chest,shoulders, tris Wed back and bis friday legs lower back Abs each lifting day. I walk 2-3 miles on a treadmill tues,thurs,and sunday. I train karate saturday 2 hours and often another day during the week.

Heres my dilema: I am 56 years old and have hip replacement. I can squat again with no problem but running, bouncing and high impact stuff is out of the question. I am looking for suggestions for an alternative cardio workout (maybe videos or something) that would take about 30 minutes and get my heart rate to target zone. I can do it with treadmill but that sometimes gets old. I am toying with creating my own cardio workout with karate training basics (warmups, exercises, and kata) but would like some ideas. I don’t want to do anything that would be detrimental to my lifting so circuits, calestenics, and kettlebell stuff is probably out of the question.

Any body got any thoughts/suggestions?

Thanks guys.

Rowing machine? once you learn the proper technique and you body adapts, it is a very very effective cardio tool. I row myself, and for straight cardio we did 20-30mins at 20 strokes per min. this can also be used as an effective tool to train lats, biceps, glutes and quads due to the biomechanics of it.

If you know someone who rows, it would be worthwhile to get them to teach you how to row. PTs at gyms are usually hopeless with teaching rowing technique as it is very technical, but once you learn it, you are set for life

Rowing? Virtually zero impact, and stimulates more of your body than walking alone. Most gyms have them, else you can buy one for about $1k. Nice to do when it’s raining or cold outside, not so nice when it’s a great day for getting out - for that, you could use a bicycle, which is also virtually zero impact (but lower body only).

GL

Elliptical machine.
No seriously, ride a bike.
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HIIT on rower or bike.

Sprints in the pool

How about some low rest circuit total body training?

How would those be detrimental to your lifting?

[quote]jskrabac wrote:
How would those be detrimental to your lifting?[/quote]

Wouldn’t circuits make recovering from lifting harder? If I used weights, what percentage of max lifts, or how low should the weights be?

[quote]Josann wrote:

[quote]jskrabac wrote:
How would those be detrimental to your lifting?[/quote]

Wouldn’t circuits make recovering from lifting harder? If I used weights, what percentage of max lifts, or how low should the weights be?[/quote]

It all depends on how you use them. You could use circuit training on your lifting day, keeping the same rep ranges and weights but performing your lifts for the day in circuit fashion. If you’re looking for something more like HIIT, you could look into complexes to do on your off days or after a lifting session. If you’re looking for something analogous to steady-state cardio, grab 5 or so exercises, performing 15-20 reps of each at 30% of your 1RM with no rest as you jump from exercise to exercise. This will actually serve 3 purposes: cardiovascular health, active recovery from lifting days, and technique practice. I don’t believe any of these should make recovering harder if you take a few weeks just to figure out where the best place to put them in your weekly routine is (i.e. in such a way to maximize recovery.)