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You invested in the best treadmill for home, now what? It’s easy to get overwhelmed when trying to figure out a good running workout. After all, you need to factor in your goals, time constraints, current fitness level and more.
As a former competitive track athlete and current certified personal trainer, I have a good grasp on the best treadmill workouts for everyone from beginners to running athletes. I guarantee there’s at least one workout on this list that will help you out!
We Know Treadmills
At Garage Gym Reviews, we know treadmills. We have tested and reviewed some of the best treadmills for runners, like the ProForm Pro 9000. In fact, we put these machines through an extensive testing process that involves us actually doing running workouts on them. At the same time, I myself ran track competitively for years and have spent even more time learning about energy system development and how it can be expressed through running. What better place to start than crushing a workout on a treadmill?
Before You Start: Warm Up
Warming up doesn’t have to be complicated, but it is definitely necessary. We warm up to increase our core body temperature and prepare our tissues for impact and movement. This is good for your body whether you are going to hit some hard interval training or just go for a light run.
My go-to warm-up before I start any kind of running includes:
- 20-30 toe raises
- 20-30 heel raises
- 20 each single leg pogo hops
- 20 high knees in place
- 20 butt kicks in place
- 10 leg swings each side
Once the exercises are done, I like some light jogging for 2-3 minutes to loosen up and feel ready to go.
RELATED: HIIT Treadmill Workout
Terms To Know
Describing how you feel when you run can be tough. Any daily run could range from “happy, on top of the world, I’m literally Usain Bolt,” to “My legs are on fire and someone stole my lungs.”
I get it.
With that in mind, descriptions help us all keep track of our effort levels. Here are a few terms I like to use to describe my effort when I run or walk, listed from least to most intense:
- Stroll: Casually walking, no pace in mind
- Power walk: long strides, arms moving deliberately, definitely can’t do this forever.
- Easy jog: just picking the heels up, starting to get the heart rate up but still very relaxed. If you can’t have a conversation with someone next to you then you’re going too hard.
- Conversational pace: moving with a purpose, but I could still talk to somebody running next to me. Your heart rate should be a little under 1.5-times faster than your resting heart rate.
- Tempo pace: picking up speed and finding a rhythm. No more talking. That pace right before the legs start to burn and demand more oxygen (also known as the aerobic threshold)
- Hard effort: running at about 85% of your absolute maximum effort. This can’t be sustained very long.
- All-out sprint: maximum effort that can’t be sustained more than 10-15 seconds.
Use these terms to help you follow the effort guidelines in the following workouts!
Best Treadmill Workout for Endurance
25-minute Tempo Run:
- 5-minute easy jog
- 10-minute conversational pace
- 5-minute tempo pace
- 5-minute easy jog cool down
If you’re looking to build your endurance with treadmill running, give this workout a try:
How to Progress From Here:
We can always make progress by covering more distance in the same amount of time, meaning we’ve upped the intensity of the workout. For example, if I covered 2.7 miles in this workout last week, I’ll try to get up to 3 miles total when I repeat it this week. I’ll do that by pushing the pace a bit more in the conversational section (which should feel like a comfortable pace).
However, with the goal of endurance and maintaining speed, I’ll eventually want to increase the duration of the workout. This can be as simple as adding 2.5 minutes to the tempo section and an extra 2.5 minutes to the cool down.
To make sustainable progress, I recommend alternating weeks when you change variables like intensity and duration. To lay it all out:
Week 1: Follow as written and record distance covered.
Week 2: Follow as written and aim to increase distance covered by 10% over week 1 (increasing intensity)
Week 3: Add 5 minutes to the workout (in the faster sections if you’re feeling good!) and record distance (increasing duration)
Week 4: Follow week 3’s structure and aim to increase distance covered by 10% (increasing intensity)
Best Treadmill Workout For Walkers
5 rounds consecutively:
- 3-minute high incline walk, emphasizing long strides and upright posture
- 2-minute high incline backward walks, making sure to hold onto side support until you find a rhythm with it. This will burn those quads!
A high incline should be, well, high, so try to start at around 10%. If your treadmill can’t go that high put it at its maximum setting.
Sometimes a walk on the treadmill is a great way to unwind, cool down, and just be at peace with yourself while moving at an easy pace. Other times, you turn it into a workout that kicks your glutes. Either way, walking is an excellent form of movement we should keep up with every day. Here’s my go-to for that:
We can all benefit from more movement. Heck, we even launched the Garage Gym Review’s One-Month Walking Challenge to promote more walking!
How To Progress From Here:
To make progress on this, you can take a few different approaches:
- Add more rounds
- Add more time to each section, starting with adding just a minute in each section
- Walk at a steeper incline
Best Treadmill Workout For Sprint Intervals
Here’s an example of a 1:2 work: rest HIIT treadmill workout:
- 5-minute conversational pace warmup
- 4 rounds:
- 1-minute hard effort
- 2-minute rest (step off the treadmill or go down to a walking speed)
- 30 seconds hard effort
- 1 minute rest
- 15 seconds maximum effort
- 30 seconds rest
- 5-minute easy jog cool down
Intervals are an effective way to jack up the heart rate and test your ability to recover quickly. A good running program should have a balance of the longer, steady-state runs and short burst high-intensity interval training sessions.
To start off, I like intervals in a 1:2 work: rest ratio. This means that you rest for twice as long as you are working. Over time, we work toward more of a 1:1 (equal work and rest) or even 2:1 (double the work when compared to the rest).
How To Progress From Here:
Work toward a shorter rest – you don’t have to jump straight to 1:1. Just shaving 5 seconds off each rest time is progress!
Best Treadmill Workout For People With Limited Time
You’re in a pinch but still want to break a sweat. This is the time for quick intervals. Bust out your folding treadmill and let’s go to work! This is the best workout if you have just 15 minutes:
- 3-minute conversational pace warmup
- 5 rounds consecutively:
- 30 seconds hard effort
- 30 seconds easy jog
- 3-minute easy jog cooldown
How To Progress From Here:
If you’re looking for a workout on limited time, increasing duration probably isn’t an option. In that case, run faster! No need to overcomplicate things. Stick with the same 30:30 (30 seconds hard, 30 seconds easy) and aim to cover the same distance from round 1 to round 5.
Over time, that distance will be greater. You can also work with preset interval workouts that may be on your treadmill. Some are more extensive, such as the NordicTrack Commercial 1750 Treadmill which works with the iFIT app for on-demand programming!
Best Treadmill Workout for Targeting the Lower Body
Three rounds:
- 2 minutes walking forward, taking long and fast strides each step.
- 2 minutes sidestepping facing left, focusing on pulling yourself forward with the top leg
- 2 minute walking backward. Make sure you hold onto the side supports when you do this one!
- 2 minutes sidestepping facing right
- Rest 1 minute
One heavily overlooked aspect of the treadmill is its ability to make bodyweight movements more difficult. This primarily comes from the incline, which makes you work that much harder against gravity! To burn all the muscles in those legs from your calves to your hamstrings to your glutes, set the treadmill to a high incline and be ready to move in all directions:
How to Progress From Here:
We can always increase the duration and intensity of a hill workout. For example, you could increase each section to 3 minutes, or you can add more rounds to your workout.
To make things more intense, you can move at a faster walking pace. Or, consider holding a pair of light dumbbells or walking with a weighted vest for parts of the workout.
Best Treadmill
NordicTrack Commercial 1750
Product Highlights
- Spacious running deck
- Compatible with iFIT
- 14-inch touchscreen
- Incline and decline training
- Financing available
Pros & Cons
Pros
- Compatible with iFIT
- 3.5 CHP motor
- Free trial of iFIT subscription with purchase
- Treadmill with incline and decline training
- Foldable to save space (EasyLift Assist)
- Run that feels similar to road running
- Financing options available through NordicTrack
- Generous speed range
- Wide running deck
- Cooling fan
Cons
- Big footprint
- Heavy and not the easiest to move
- Price is around $2,000
- Warranty is voided if the treadmill is used/stored in a garage
Bottom Line
If you’re looking to add a workhorse of a treadmill to your home gym, we recommend the NordicTrack Commercial 1750.
Experts Who Contributed
How to Maximize Your Treadmill Workout
Whether you’re short on time or you’re looking to push yourself a little harder, there are several ways to maximize your treadmill workout to get the best results.
Go Faster
Increase your speed by 0.5 – 1.0 MPH to turn up the intensity a little bit. This won’t only help you reach your distance or heart rate goal a little quicker but will also help make you a bit faster. It’s the progressive overload equivalent of putting a 2.5-pound plate on the barbell as you’re trying to get stronger.
Pump Up the Incline
Increasing your incline by 0.5 – 1% is another sneaky way to maximize your treadmill workout since it will challenge your lower-body muscles and increase your caloric burn.
Do Other Exercises
Try to add exercises like windmills, biceps curls, or other upper-body movements to your treadmill workout.
Best Treadmill Workouts FAQs
How long is a good workout on the treadmill?
There’s no “magic number” for a good cardio workout. Generally, a good workout takes long enough for you to reach a heart rate or effort level that challenges you, then working to sustain that effort level. If you are hitting a high-intensity workout, you can sweat, burn calories, and really get your heart working in just 10 to 15 minutes.
Is 30 minutes on the treadmill enough?
Thirty minutes is more than enough, but it always comes down to your goal. I like to think less in terms of pure duration, and think more in terms of density. How much work are you getting done in those 30 minutes? Is this a low-intensity walk? Or is this 30 minutes of intervals? All this to say, 30 minutes is likely enough provided you are consistent with your workouts multiple days per week.
How do you lose belly fat on the treadmill?
So many people fall in love with the fat loss or fat-burning setting on home treadmills.
However, spot fat reduction is a myth, so nothing you do on the treadmill will necessarily target your belly fat. However, a consistent schedule of training three to four times per week, doing a balance of longer runs, short intervals, and walking will help change your body composition.
If you want to accelerate this process, work strength training into your routine. You can do this through adding in push-ups and squats to your treadmill routine, or incorporating days of just weight training.
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