If you want to burn calories through indoor exercise, hitting the treadmill proves a solid choice in fitness regimens. A treadmill allows you to walk, jog or run -- activities that get your heart pumping and help you lose weight. You can create the workout of your choice depending on your objective, strength, fitness level and energy.
Muscle Strengthening
Although the treadmill earned its reputation as a cardiovascular workout, exercise on the treadmill can do more than help you lose weight and burn fat. You can also tone your muscles, The treadmill does not promote bulk, but can increase muscle strength if you regularly spend 45 minutes working out regularly on this piece of equipment. Your lower body will derive the greatest benefit, particularly your quadriceps and calves. You can also strengthen your hamstring muscles by using the treadmill on an incline.
Memory Boost
Consistent 45-minute workouts on a treadmill can provide emotional and mental benefits associated with the release of feel-good endorphins during cardiovascular exercise. Treadmill workouts may also help prevent memory loss; Sung-Eun Kim and other South Korean researchers at Kyung Hee University found that treadmill workouts prevented memory loss in animals. Treadmill exercise improved both short-term and spacial memory, according to the report published in the May 2010 issue of "Experimental Gerontology."
Calories Burned
The number of calories burned during a 45-minute workout on the treadmill depends on various factors including your age, gender, body weight, height, metabolism and the speed and the incline at which you are walking or running. Typically, for someone that weighs 150 lbs., jogging on the treadmill at a moderate speed would burn about 10 calories per minute. This means you would burn about 450 calories in 45 minutes if you continue the same level of exercise throughout the 45 minutes.
Sample Routine
Maintaining the same level of workout for 45 minutes is not recommended. Include a warm-up and cool-down period. For the first five minutes of your workout, walk at a leisurely pace on a level treadmill. You can spend the next 15 minutes walking on an inclines and another 15 minutes running. Ease off by walking on an incline for five minutes and end with a five-minute level walk. If you want to burn additional calories, you can try interval training. This is a workout in which you run at an extremely high speed followed by a minute of leisurely walking to catch your breath before you start again. Interval training, however, best suits people that use the treadmill regularly and are confident about running at high speeds.
References
- Weight Loss for All: Benefits of Using a Treadmill to Lose Weight
- Great Treadmill Workout: Benefits of Treadmill Exercise Fitness
- FRS Health Energy: The Benefits of Walking on a Treadmill
- Diet Health Club: How to Burn Calories on a Treadmill
- Exercise with Treadmill: 45 Minute Treadmill Workout Routinel
- "Experimental Gerontology"; Treadmill Exercise Prevents Aging-Induced Failure of Memory Through an Increase in Neurogenesis and Suppression of Apoptosis in Rat Hippocampus; Sung-Eun Kim et al; May 2010
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