Treadmills allow people of different fitness levels to create different types of workouts to help them lose weight. You can walk, jog, run or sprint on a treadmill, and do more than one of these during the same workout. Whether you are new to exercise or looking to add another calorie-burning option to your weight loss program, a treadmill is an effective tool against the battle of the bulge.
Treadmill Programs
Treadmills let you do more than move at one monotonous speed. Depending on what type of treadmill you have, you can change speeds and inclines more than once during your workout. The incline is the level of the walking part of the treadmill. If you have a manual treadmill, you'll have to stop your exercise to change the incline. If you have a motorized treadmill with an electronic console, you can program different types of workouts into the machine. You can create moderately intense beginner workouts, more intense aerobic workouts, short sprints or a combination of more than one speed and incline.
Weight Loss Features
Treadmills with electronic consoles help you maximize your weight loss benefit by allowing you to tailor your workout to your personal level of conditioning. Machines with heart rate monitors ask for your age, weight, gender and sometimes other personalized data to create workouts that put you in your target heart rate range for beginner, intermediate or advanced workouts. Intermediate and advanced exercisers can select programs that automatically change the incline and speed of the treadmill during a workout to help raise and lower the heart rate several times. This helps you maximize your calorie burn without tiring you to the point that you have to stop.
Fat-Burning Workouts
If you are just starting an exercise program, use a treadmill to build your stamina while you burn calories. Do this by working at a pace that makes you breathe hard, but lets you continue walking for much of the workout. The American Heart Association recommends exercising at a tempo similar to a brisk walk for 60 minutes or more, several times per week. You can start at a speed of 2 mph for 15 or more minutes as you build stamina, raising your speed by .5 mph or your incline by 1 or 2 percent and adding more minutes to your workouts as you increase your endurance. Depending on your condition, you might add one-minute jogs to your workout every five minutes. Your goal in the beginning is to increase your cardio capacity so you can work out longer. You will still burn a substantial amount of calories at this pace.
Aerobic Workouts
The most efficient treadmill method for burning calories is usually an aerobic workout. Depending on your condition, you'll raise your speed to about 4 mph or faster, simulating a jog, but not a run. If you are in very good shape, you can increase your speed to a run. Whatever level you choose, you should be able to talk during the entire length of the workout and continue without stopping for a rest. Running on a treadmill becomes high-impact, because both feet leave the ground at once. This might cause joint pain or soreness, so work your way up to a running treadmill workout.
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