Treadmills offer all the benefits of running, jogging and walking without requiring you to leave the indoors, making them an ideal piece of exercise equipment during cold and rainy months. Work out on a treadmill at least three times a week to maintain and improve your cardiovascular fitness. If you're just getting started with a treadmill, there are a handful of beginner exercises you can do that will vary your workouts and make the most of the machine.
Fat-Burning Workouts
Cardiovascular exercise is the best way to burn calories and trim fat from your body. To make the most of it on a treadmill, choose a pace that keeps you within your target heart rate zone. Many treadmills have a feature that will help you determine your target heart rate, or use an online heart rate calculator, such as the one at MayoClinic.com. If your treadmill has sensors that track your pulse, you'll have an easy time monitoring your heart rate and staying within the specified range. Spend five or 10 minutes warming up on the treadmill before increasing to a pace that will keep you within that target range. When you're just beginning, try to maintain that pace for about 30 minutes, and aim to gradually increase your time spent in the target heart rate zone up to 60 minutes.
Interval Workouts
Interval workouts are another effective way to burn fat and calories, as well as serving to help increase stamina. If your treadmill features a digital readout with pre-programmed workouts, it will most likely have one for interval training. Start on the lowest setting and work your way up. If your treadmill doesn't have a programmed interval setting, you can still achieve the same effect manually. After warming up, find a pace that is somewhere between easy and challenging for you, and run at that pace for two minutes. After two minutes, increase your pace so that you are running significantly faster, and stay at that pace for 30 seconds. After 30 seconds, return to your initial pace. Continue this progression for 20 to 30 minutes when just starting out, and gradually work your way up to longer sessions.
Incline Workouts
Most treadmills offer incline adjustments, which will give you the same effect as walking, jogging or running uphill. Using the incline feature is an effective way to add some challenge to your treadmill workout and to help you isolate different muscles, including your calf muscles and your gluteal muscles. For beginner treadmill workouts, use the incline feature as a type of interval exercise, switching to the incline for a set period of time and then returning to a flat base. After warming up and taking care to stretch your leg muscles, particularly the ones you're about to isolate, start out with two minutes on incline followed by two minutes on flat ground, and alternate back and forth for 20 to 30 minutes. Work your way up to longer stretches on incline and shorter stretches on flat ground until you're able to do the entire time on the incline setting.
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