Treadmills are an effective way to burn calories and tone your lower body at the gym or in your home. If you are new to working out, you may be intimidated by the idea of beginning a running program and wonder where to start. By using the treadmill for strength and cardiovascular exercises, at least three times a week, you can burn fat and build muscle on the treadmill to help you reach your fitness goals.
Uphill Walks
Using incline treadmills for uphill walks is an effective cardiovascular exercise that also tones your lower body. Walking at an incline targets your glutes, hamstrings, calves, and will burn calories and fat.
To start an hourlong uphill walking workout, warm-up walking at 3 mph for five minutes on an incline of 1, then increase your speed to 3.5 miles per hour. Keep a constant speed but increase your incline to 5, and increase the incline by 1 every two minutes until you reach an incline of 15. Slowly decrease your incline by 1 every two minutes until you reach an incline of 5, then do cooldown walking for five minutes at an incline of 1.
Walking Lunges
Walking lunges on a treadmill to strengthen your butt, hamstrings and thighs, while increasing your heart rate to burn fat. Perform walking lunges on the treadmill by taking a large step forward and lunging down toward the ground until your front thigh is parallel to the ground. Push up out of the lunge with your front foot, then take a large step with your other foot to repeat the lunge.
After warming up for five minutes, do one minute of walking lunges, then recover with one minute of walking on the treadmill. Repeat three to five sets of walking lunge intervals. As you get stronger, increase the incline on the treadmill to increase the difficulty of this exercise.
Jogging Intervals
Jogging intervals on the treadmill will allow you to build your muscular endurance and cardiovascular fitness to help you start a running routine. After warming up by walking on the treadmill for five minutes, increase your speed to 5 or 6 mph and jog for 60 seconds. Decrease the speed and walk for 90 seconds to recover. Repeat jogging intervals for 20 minutes. Cooldown by walking for five minutes.
As you get stronger, gradually increase the jogging time and decrease the recovery time, until you are able to jog or run continuously for your workout. Increasing the speed of jogging, the length of your workout, or the incline of the treadmill will increase the difficulty of the workout, so you can burn more calories.
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