Healthy Living

The Right Way to Use Your Treadmill

The Right Way to Use Your Treadmill

The treadmill is one of the most popular workout equipment in the country. Yet, many people find the treadmill to be a monotonous and ineffective piece of equipment for workout. Some still wonder how they can use this equipment in a very efficient way to improve health. Calorie burning can be enhanced when the treadmill is used in a planned, challenging way.

Experts are of the opinion that instead of using it in the same pace for the whole duration of exercise, including different speeds and floor exercises at intervals in the plan helps to burn more calories. This differential plan makes it more interesting. Intensity of the treadmill exercises also improves by including interval exercises. The difference from your daily routine is that you will alternate between walking, jogging, weights and floor exercises during the duration of exercise. This interval training helps to improve the endurance and fitness at a faster rate. A simple way to include intervals is to use regular pace for about four minutes and then increase the speed for a minute.

Another school of thought is that combining treadmill with stretch exercises is the most efficient way. These experts recommend up to 10 minutes of moderate level exercise to be combined with stretch exercises. If you want to improve the calorie burning by about 5% to 10% percent, pumping your arms is helpful. Using pre-programmed workouts on the treadmill are also effective in meeting the goals. For building the endurance, programmed cardio workout are the best options.

To increase the calories burned, use the fat-burning workout program in the treadmill. To burn them at a faster rate, use the incline feature effectively. To improve the fitness level, increase the length and intensity of the exercise sessions and only use the best gym equipment. To make the run more effective on the treadmill, try to increase the number of strides in a minute. Taking short and quick strides helps to improve the stride count effectively.

If the goal is to improve the muscles, raise the incline of the treadmill. This will help to improve the muscle tone of thighs and calves. One can also look at taking wider steps than usual. Pumping the hands during the walking or running on the treadmill is effective in toning up the biceps, triceps and shoulders.

Remember to gradually increase the speed of the workout so that the body gets ample time to warm up to the new speed. If you are not looking at intervals or increasing the speed, you can also do a longer run at a speed you are most comfortable with.