Robust Treadmill Workouts for Weight Loss

Won’t you love a weight loss program that helps you to shed those extra kilos and get a slimmer and fitter physique? Treadmill workouts provide an effective way of losing weight while improving your cardiovascular fitness.

Doing weight loss workouts on a treadmill not only helps you to burn excessive calories but also provides various other benefits.

These workouts improve your heart’s health and brain functions. These treadmill workouts help you to sleep better and beat stress.

You can perform the indoor workouts at any time of day round the year.

You can easily watch your favourite shows or listen to your favourite music during treadmill workouts. You can take the support of handrails for added safety.

High-Intensity Interval Training (HIIt)

High-intensity interval training (HIIT) comprises alternating sessions of high-intensity workouts and intervals of the resting period. These workouts serve as a powerful way of burning extra calories and melting body fats quickly.

HIIT treadmill workouts provide rapid weight loss by burning a significant amount of calories during short-duration bursts of high-intensity exercises. This is followed by a rest period that allows your body to recover.

The basic premise of the HIIT treadmill workouts lies in working extra hard for short periods and taking proper rest during the rest period for ensuring robust recovery.

Our body tries to metabolize the body fats and return to a normal state during the rest period. This metabolism results in the consumption of extra fatty tissues resulting in quick weight loss.

How to Do HIIt on a Treadmill?

• Do warm-up or stretching exercises for a few minutes so that your body muscles get warmed-up and blood circulation increases
• Adjust the treadmill settings to a minimum incline and slow pace
• Begin by walking for 5 minutes at a speed of 2 mph
• Now increase the pace gradually up to 9 to 10 mph and run for a short period of 30 seconds
• Adjust the pace of running back to 3 to 4 mph and walk for 60 seconds at this speed
• As per your fitness level and stamina, repeat this exercise cycle at least 5 times
• Do cool-down routine by slow pace walking at 2 mph for 5 minutes
• Ensure that your rest intervals are twice as long as your high-intensity workout periods
• If you would like to perform more intense workouts, you may alternate between jogging (during resting intervals) and sprinting (during high-intensity intervals)
• If you feel comfortable, you can increase the duration of high-intensity intervals.

Hill Interval Training

If you have developed good stamina and muscular strength with HIIT workouts, you can challenge yourself by adding hill interval training to your treadmill weight loss workouts.

The hill interval training involves walking briskly or sprinting on the steep inclines. It requires you to put in more effort and work harder, resulting in burning more calories.

The hill interval training workout is an advanced level treadmill workout that helps you to lose weight rapidly and achieve toned abs. It develops robust leg musculature and a slim waistline.

This treadmill workout builds more lean muscle mass by activating more muscle groups. Thus, it helps in losing weight by burning more calories.

Steps for Hill Interval Training

• Do warm-up or stretching exercises for a few minutes so that your body muscles get warmed-up and blood circulation increases
• Adjust the treadmill settings to a minimum incline and slow pace
• Begin by walking for 5 minutes at a speed of 2 mph
• Increase the incline to 1% and run or jog at a speed of 4 to 6 mph for 1 minute
• After every one minute, increase the incline by 1% until you reach 8 % to 10% incline
• Now decrease the incline after every one minute by 1% until you reach 0% to 1% incline
• Do cool-down routine by slow pace walking at 2 mph for 5 minutes

Depending on your stamina and comfort level, you may increase or decrease the intensity of your hill workouts.

• Keep your jogging or running speed in the range of 4 to 6 mph. However, if you wish to do a more advanced and intense hill workout, you may add more minutes and increase the running speed as per your comfort level and stamina.
• Also, if you want easy hill workouts, you can adjust the increment in incline by 0.5 per cent every one minute. Do this until you’ve reached 4% to 5% incline.

Exercise at Your Fat-Burning Heart Rate

For effective and consistent weight loss, you should do treadmill workouts at your fat-burning heart rate. In this zone, you are likely to burn the most calories every minute.

To discover your fat-burning zone, begin by calculating your maximum heart rate. It refers to the maximum number of times your heart beats while exercising for one minute.

You can find out your maximum heart rate by subtracting your age from 220.

You can arrive at your fat-burning zone by calculating 70% of your maximum heart rate. This gives you an idea about the efforts you need to put for achieving effective weight loss.

• Begin by wearing a heart rate monitor on your chest or wrist.
• Do warm-up or stretching exercises for a few minutes so that your body muscles get warmed-up and blood circulation increases
• Adjust the treadmill settings to a minimum incline and slow pace
• Walk for 5 minutes at a speed of 2 mph
• Increase the incline to 2% and run at 4 mph for 60 seconds
• Increase the pace of running to 8 to 10 mph and ensure that your heart rate reaches your fat-burning zone. Run at this heart rate for 15 to 30 minutes
• Decrease your running speed to 4 mph and run for 1 minute
• Do cool-down routine by slow pace walking at 2 mph for 5 minutes

The fat-burning zone varies from one person to another. It depends on various factors such as fitness levels, age, sex, and any associated medical conditions. For some, it may be 55% of their maximum heart rate while for others it may be 80%.

Speed Intervals Workout

Doing pre-programmed speed interval workouts on a treadmill is another effective way of achieving weight loss. The speed intervals workouts involve running or walking at high-speed for short periods and slowing down to recover for longer periods.

Most of the treadmills have in-built speed intervals workout programs. You can choose any such program or create your speed intervals program.

If you find it hard to run, you can practice alternate sessions of jogging for your speed interval and slow walking for the recovery interval.

For rapidly burning calories and fatty tissues, you should perform this speed intervals workout for a period of 30-45 minutes including about 20-30 minutes of intervals.

Ensure that your speed segments score 15-18 on the RPE scale. It is equivalent to running hard at 80%-90% of your maximum heart rate. While your recovery segments should score 10–12 on the RPE scale.

Moderate Intensity Walking Workout

The moderate-intensity walking workout involves walking at a comfortable pace for a period of 60 minutes or more on the treadmill.

You may consider watching your favourite show on TV or listen to a podcast for entertainment during workouts.

Depending on your speed and weight, you can burn up to 300 or 400 calories per session with this treadmill workout. If you find it uncomfortable to walk for 60 minutes, you can break this workout into two 30-minute sessions.

• Begin by wearing a heart rate monitor on your chest or wrist
• Do your normal warm-up routine by walking at an easy to moderate pace for 10 minutes
• Gradually increase your speed to brisk walking until your heart rate reaches 60%–70% of your maximum heart rate (your heart rate monitor helps you to track your heart rate or you may check it on your treadmill)

The treadmill workouts provide an effective weight loss routine and burn extra calories if you do it with high intensity for long periods. These workouts provide excellent cardiovascular fitness along with burning excessive calories.

If you find it difficult to choose between treadmill workouts, you can take guidance from a certified personal trainer. You can also design your customized treadmill weight loss program.

For quick and effective results, you can combine treadmill weight loss workouts with strength training exercises. Performing these exercises in tandem leads to rapid weight loss and helps you to achieve a toned body and slimmer waist.