Treadmill workouts
Treadmill workouts at the gym or local health club will provide exercisers will a fantastic base of aerobic fitness and stamina. This article aims to provide a number treadmill workouts to use at your local health club or gym.
Treadmill workouts: The basics
In order to improve aerobic fitness treadmill workouts should include some form of continuous exercise for between 20 to 60 minutes. I use the word 'continuous' loosely as research has shown that one of the best ways to improving fitness is to perform short, sharp high intensity sprints of between 10 - 30 seconds separated by periods of 'active' recovery (say 45 - 90 seconds of lower level exercise). But more about this later.
Exercise guidelines also suggest that to improve their aerobic fitness levels, people should aim to perform 2 to 5 aerobic workouts per week, with each session varying in intensity - some performed at a lower intensity and others performed at higher, harder levels.
In order to improve aerobic fitness treadmill runners should aim to work as between 70 and 85 percent of their Age Predicted Maximal Heart Rate.
Treadmill workouts: Age Predicted Maximal Heart Rate
All treadmill workouts should take the Age Predicted Maximal Heart Rate (APMHR), or some other form of intensity grading method, into consideration. The APMHR looks at the age of an exerciser and predicts their maximal heart rate based on this figure. The APMHR then suggests the target heart rate needed to improve aerobic fitness using a treadmill.
The APMHR suggests that the maximal heart rate is 220, Thus, someone aged 40 years old would have a predicted maximal heart rate of 180 beats per minute.
Therefore to work at between 70 and 80 percent of their APMHR a 40 year old exerciser should exercise at 126 to 153 beats per minute for 20 - 60 minutes.
Treadmill workouts: High Intensity Interval Training (HIIT)
Traditionally people looking to increase fitness and lose weight were encouraged to exercise at a steady state / continuous level during their workouts. However, times have changed. These days the very best way to increase fitness quickly and burn more calories within the 24 hours after exercise is to complete a high intensity interval training (HIIT) session.
This will see exercisers working at near maximal levels for short periods of time during an exercise session. For example, when using an exercise bike your workout may look something like this
- 0 - 5 minutes: Warm up
- 5 - 25 minutes: Sprint for 15 seconds on a high level, moving your legs as quickly as possible followed by 45 seconds of cycling at a lower level whilst maintaining a good yet lower then maximal cycling cadence. Repeat as many times as possible for 20 minutes.
- 25 - 30 minutes: Cool down
During such a workout exercisers would work maximally for a total of 5 minutes. Also, as they change between active rest and maximal sprints, their heart rate would jump and spike throughout the session. Varying the heart rate in this way during a workout means exercisers will be pushing the boundaries of their current fitness levels to such an extent that their body would be forced to improve their stamina in order to cope in future.
Treadmill workouts: Steady state exercise
Steady state or continuous treadmill workouts should still feature in people's aerobic fitness programming. Steady state treadmill running is useful to separate high intensity interval training sessions. Steady state treadmill workouts allow exercisers to develop fitness without experiencing overtraining, something which could happen if they performed more than 2 HIIT treadmill workouts a week.
Treadmill workouts: Training programs
The following treadmill workouts have been planned to help improve not only overall fitness but also speed, running power and 'race pace'.
|
| Time |
Workout 1
|
Heart rate
|
| 5 minutes |
Slowly build to to 50% of your sprinting level.
|
70%
|
| 5 minutes |
Perform 30 seconds sprints at close to your maximal rate followed by 30 seconds active rest working at your warm up pace. Repeat 5 times.
|
80 - 95%
|
| 5 minutes |
Cool down - Reduce your speed to a little less than your warm up pace.
|
70%
|
|
|
| Time |
Workout 2
|
Heart rate
|
| 5 minutes |
Slowly build to to 50% of your sprinting level.
|
70%
|
| 20 minutes |
Perform 15 seconds of near maximal sprints followed by 45 seconds active rest working at your warm up pace.
|
80 - 90%
|
| 5 minutes |
Cool down - Reduce your speed to a little less than your warm up pace.
|
70%
|
|
|
| Time |
Workout 3
|
Heart rate
|
| 5 minutes |
Slowly build to to 50% of your sprinting level.
|
70%
|
| 20 minutes |
Perform 1 minute intervals of fast running followed by a 1 minute slower jog or walk. Repeat for the desired time.
|
75 - 85%
|
| 5 minutes |
Cool down - Reduce your speed to a little less than your warm up pace.
|
70%
|
|
|
| Time |
Workout 4
|
Heart rate
|
| 5 minutes |
Slowly build to to 50% of your sprinting level.
|
70%
|
| 30 minutes |
Jog or run at a constant pace for the desired time.
|
85%
|
| 5 minutes |
Cool down - Reduce your speed to a little less than your warm up pace.
|
70%
|
|
|
| Time |
Fartlek workout
|
Heart rate
|
| 5 minutes |
Slowly build to to 50% of your sprinting level.
|
70%
|
| 20 minutes |
Change the pace as and when you like. However, make sure you perform a good number of short sprints and fast paced runs as well as lower level recovery jogs.
|
75 - 95%
|
| 5 minutes |
Cool down - Reduce your speed to a little less than your warm up pace.
|
70%
|
|
These treadmill workouts are by no means the only treadmill workouts available. These ideas have been written to give you a flavour of the type of treadmill workouts that can be created. By all means create your own treadmill workouts based on the suggestions above.
Latest health and fitness news
All news stories
Latest quizzes and tests
All quizzes &
tests
|
Home
