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Low impact cardio is aerobic exercise where at least one foot stays in contact with the ground or the machine, so there is no landing shock. This guide is for anyone whose knees, hips, back or body weight make running a bad idea, and for anyone setting up home cardio around them. It explains what low impact actually means for your joints, whether it is as effective as running, whether the StairMaster counts, and which low impact cardio machines suit bad knees.
What Low-Impact Actually Means
Impact is the force that goes through your joints when your foot strikes the ground. Running is high-impact: each stride lands two to three times your bodyweight. Walking is low-impact. Cycling, rowing and elliptical motion are non-impact — your feet never leave contact with the machine — and rebounding on a mini trampoline sits in between, because the mat absorbs most of the landing.
Low-impact does not mean low-intensity. A rower will take your heart rate as high as you like, a bike can leave you gasping, and a brisk walk on an incline is real work. Confusing the two is how people end up believing low-impact cardio is for beginners only. It is for anyone whose joints want the shock taken out.
Who It Is For, and Who Should Still Run
The case is strongest for three groups: anyone with joint pain or a history of it, anyone carrying enough extra weight that running is uncomfortable, and anyone in the first months back from a long layoff. For those people, non-impact cardio is the difference between a routine that lasts and one that ends in a flare-up.
Impact itself is not the enemy. Bone density responds to loading, and healthy joints tolerate and adapt to running done sensibly. If you can run without pain and enjoy it, keep running. The point of this guide is that you do not have to, and that nothing about a bike, a rower or a walking pad makes your cardio less real.
The Home Options, Ranked by Joint Load
Non-impact: exercise bikes, rowing machines, ellipticals and under-desk ellipticals. Feet stay in contact with the machine; the joint load is muscular, not shock. Rowers work the most muscle per minute; bikes are the easiest to use badly at low effort; ellipticals are the closest to running without the landing.
Low-impact: walking pads and treadmills at walking pace, stair steppers, and mini trampolines. Walking on a pad under a desk is the option most people actually sustain. A rebounder absorbs most of the landing and gets people moving who hate every other machine. Stair steppers are low-impact but knee-demanding, which is a different thing.
Our cardio machine chooser walks through the room-and-schedule questions that decide between these; the mini trampoline, walking pad and under-desk elliptical roundups cover specific models.
Building a Routine Joints Will Tolerate
Frequency beats duration. Twenty minutes most days does more, and hurts less, than one heroic hour on Saturday. Start below what feels like enough, add five minutes a week, and let the joints set the pace; soreness in muscle is expected, pain in a joint is information.
Vary the machine if you can. Alternating a rower and a walking pad, or a bike and a rebounder, spreads the load across different tissues and keeps the routine from becoming a chore. Attach it to something fixed — a podcast, a call, the first twenty minutes after work — because the habit is what produces results, not the machine.
Getting Intensity Without Impact
Incline is the walker’s secret: a brisk walk at a moderate grade raises heart rate to jogging levels with walking-level impact. Resistance does the same on a bike or elliptical. On a rower, intensity lives in the legs and the stroke rate; on a rebounder, in how high and how fast you bounce.
Intervals work on every machine here: a minute hard, two minutes easy, repeated. They are the fastest route to fitness on low-impact equipment and the reason nobody should assume non-impact means gentle. Build the base first, then add them.
What Not to Buy for This
Vibration plates are not cardio. Ab machines are not cardio. Most gadgets sold as ‘low-impact full-body workouts’ are neither. And a treadmill bought for running by someone whose knees say no is an expensive clothes rack; if walking is the plan, a walking pad does it in a fraction of the space.
Be equally skeptical of claims that any low-impact device detoxes, drains lymph or melts fat by itself. Cardio raises heart rate and burns energy; the machine that gets used is the one that works. Our walking pad vs treadmill comparison and the cardio machine chooser cover the buying decision without the marketing.
What Is Low Impact Cardio, Exactly?
Two different forces get lumped together as “impact.” The first is the landing spike when a foot strikes the ground after a flight phase, which only running and jumping have. The second is the compressive load that your own muscles put through a joint every step, which every weight-bearing activity has. Low impact cardio removes the first; it does not remove the second.
Kutzner and colleagues measured the second force directly with instrumented knee implants (Journal of Biomechanics, 2010). Average peak knee forces in five patients:
| Activity | Peak knee force, % of body weight |
|---|---|
| Standing on two legs | 107% |
| Sitting down | 225% |
| Level walking | 261% |
| Climbing stairs | 316% |
| Descending stairs | 346% |
So even walking puts more than two and a half times body weight through the knee. What low impact cardio removes is the sudden landing spike, not the load itself. How much knee load remains depends on the machine, which is why the order below matters more than the label.
Is Low Impact Cardio as Effective as Running?
For heart and lung fitness, the evidence says yes at matched effort:
- A 2010 study in the Journal of Strength and Conditioning Research (Brown and colleagues, 18 untrained adults) had people exercise for 15 minutes at the same perceived exertion on a treadmill and an elliptical. Oxygen use and energy expenditure did not differ significantly.
- A 2006 study in the Journal of Sports Science and Medicine (Dalleck and Kravitz, 24 adults) found no significant difference in VO2max, maximum heart rate or test duration between maximal tests on an elliptical and a treadmill.
Intensity is available too. The 2024 Compendium of Physical Activities lists running at 6 mph at 9.3 METs, and these low impact options at or above it: elliptical, vigorous (9.0), stair treadmill ergometer (9.3), stationary bike at 151–199 watts (10.3), rowing at 150–199 watts (11.0). What low impact cardio does not do is train the bone loading and tendon stiffness that running develops, so a runner sidelined by injury will still need a gradual return to running.
Time-poor? The WHO’s 2020 guidelines count vigorous minutes roughly double: 75–150 vigorous minutes a week match 150–300 moderate ones. A bike or rower is the safest place to work at vigorous intensity with sore joints, because you can push hard with no landing and stop instantly. Three sessions of 25 minutes with hard intervals meets the lower target; a daily 30-minute brisk incline walk meets it at moderate effort.
Is the StairMaster Low Impact?
Yes by definition: one foot is always on a step and there is no landing. But it is the most knee-demanding of the low impact machines. In the Kutzner implant data, climbing stairs put 316% of body weight through the knee against 261% for level walking. A rotating stair mill only ever climbs, so you skip the descending phase (346%), which is the hardest on knees on real stairs.
It is also intense: the Compendium rates the stair treadmill ergometer at 9.3 METs, the same as running at 6 mph. If your knees tolerate stairs, that is a lot of cardio for no impact. If stairs already hurt, start on a bike and come back to the climber later. To keep the knee load where you want it:
- Take full steps at a slow speed rather than fast half-steps.
- Keep the knee tracking over the middle of the foot.
- Rest your hands on the rails for balance only; leaning on them shifts work off the legs and makes the numbers meaningless.
Our StairMaster vs treadmill comparison has the full calorie and muscle breakdown.
Low Impact Cardio for Bad Knees: Where to Start
The CDC’s guidance for adults with arthritis is the same weekly target as for everyone: at least 150 minutes of moderate aerobic activity and two days of muscle-strengthening. It names brisk walking, cycling, swimming, dancing and tai chi as joint-friendly options, and notes that bouts of just 5 or 10 minutes count. For home machines, a sensible order:
- Exercise bike. Body weight rests on the seat. Set the seat so your knee keeps a slight bend at the bottom of the pedal stroke; a low seat forces deep knee bending under load.
- Elliptical. No landing, but Lu and colleagues (Medicine and Science in Sports and Exercise, 2007) found more knee flexion and larger knee-extensor moments than walking. Start at low resistance, which reduces how hard the quads push.
- Flat walking on a treadmill or walking pad, adding incline once flat walking is comfortable.
- Rowing machine. No impact, but the catch position bends the knee deeply; shorten the slide if that hurts.
- Stair climber, last.
Muscle soreness the next day is normal. Joint pain that is sharper during the session, or swelling afterwards, means the machine, resistance or range of motion needs changing. Pain that persists for weeks is worth a physical therapist’s assessment.
Best Low Impact Cardio Machines Compared
| Machine | Landing impact | Upper body | Compendium METs, moderate to vigorous | Best for |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Exercise bike | None | No | 5.0 (60 W) to 10.3 (151–199 W) | Bad knees, heavier users, hard intervals |
| Rowing machine | None | Yes | 5.0 (under 100 W) to 11.0 (150–199 W) | Whole-body conditioning |
| Elliptical | None | Moving handles | 5.0 to 9.0 | Running-like motion without landing |
| Treadmill or walking pad, walking | Low | No | 4.8 (brisk, flat) to 8.8 (11–20% grade) | Daily volume, walking under a desk |
| Stair climber | Low | No | 9.3 | Short, hard sessions on tolerant knees |
Incline walking deserves more credit than it gets: the Compendium puts walking at an 11–20% grade at 8.8 METs, nearly double flat brisk walking at 4.8, with no flight phase. For specific ellipticals, see our elliptical machine guide.
Frequently Asked Questions
What is the best low-impact cardio machine for home?
For most people, the one they will use: walking pads win on consistency, rowers on muscle worked per minute, bikes on ease of use, rebounders on enjoyment. If joints are the main concern, non-impact options — rower, bike, elliptical — take the shock out entirely.
Is walking enough cardio?
Brisk walking, especially with incline, is genuine cardio and the form most people sustain for years. Add intervals or a grade for intensity. It is not enough for someone training for a race, and it is more than enough for general health and weight management.
Is a mini trampoline low-impact?
Yes: the mat absorbs most of the landing, so joint load is far lower than running while heart rate climbs. It is not zero-impact, and heavier users should stay well under the trampoline’s rated capacity. Our rebounder roundup covers bungee versus spring models.
Can low-impact cardio help you lose weight?
Yes, in the same way any cardio does: it raises energy expenditure, and because it is easier on joints it tends to get done more consistently, which matters more than the machine. Diet decides most of weight loss; cardio supports it and improves fitness either way.
Is the elliptical low impact?
Yes. Your feet stay on the pedals, so there is no landing shock, and a 2007 study found lower loading rates than walking. It is not zero knee load: the same study found more knee bending and larger knee-extensor moments than walking. Lower the resistance and keep the stride smooth if your knees are sensitive.
Is rowing low impact cardio?
Yes. You are seated, your feet are strapped to the footplates and nothing lands. The Compendium of Physical Activities rates rowing from 5.0 METs at under 100 watts to 14.0 METs at 200 watts or more, so it can be very hard work. The catch position bends the knee and hip deeply, and poor technique loads the lower back.
How much low impact cardio should I do a week?
The WHO and CDC targets are the same as for any cardio: 150 to 300 minutes of moderate activity a week, or 75 to 150 minutes of vigorous activity, plus strength training on two days. The CDC notes that sessions of 5 or 10 minutes count, which helps if your joints prefer short bouts.
Is walking on an incline low impact?
Yes. Walking has no flight phase at any grade, and incline is the easiest way to raise intensity without running. The Compendium of Physical Activities rates walking at a 6 to 10% grade at 7.0 METs and an 11 to 20% grade at 8.8 METs, against 4.8 for brisk flat walking. Steep grades load the calves and Achilles, so add incline gradually.
Sources
- Kutzner et al., J Biomech 2010 — Loading of the knee joint during activities of daily living measured in vivo in five subjects
- Brown et al., J Strength Cond Res 2010 — Comparison of energy expenditure on a treadmill vs. an elliptical device at a self-selected exercise intensity
- Dalleck & Kravitz, J Sports Sci Med 2006 — Relationship between %heart rate reserve and %VO2 reserve during elliptical crosstrainer exercise
- 2024 Adult Compendium of Physical Activities — Conditioning exercise (elliptical, stair treadmill ergometer, rowing ergometer)
- 2024 Adult Compendium of Physical Activities — Bicycling (stationary cycling by watts)
- 2024 Adult Compendium of Physical Activities — full activity list (running, walking, stair climbing, active workstations)
- Lu, Chien & Chen, Med Sci Sports Exerc 2007 — Joint loading in the lower extremities during elliptical exercise
- CDC — About Physical Activity and Arthritis
- World Health Organization — WHO Guidelines on Physical Activity and Sedentary Behaviour (2020), executive summary
About This Guide
Written by Mike Callahan, AmericaLifts’s founder and editor. Our educational guides follow the same standard as our reviews — see the editorial policy. Nothing on this page is medical or personalized training advice; if you have an injury or health condition, talk to a qualified professional first.
Note: General guidance for healthy adults. Joint pain that persists, worsens with exercise, or follows an injury belongs with a clinician before any routine. Nothing here is medical advice.