Maximize Your Treadmill Workout

The true joggers are usually against the treadmill. However, there are some situations when this is the only option that they have and in cases like these people have to make sure that they make the best of what they are offered.

Maximize Your Treadmill Workout

Preparations

Although you might think that there’s not much you need for using the treadmill, you have to make sure that you are wearing high quality pants, T-shirt, and running shoes. It is a good idea to have a sweatband and wristbands too. Also have some cold water at hand to keep yourself well-hydrated.

Warming Up

In order to warm up before jumping on the treadmill, you should walk for 3 minutes and then jog for 3 minutes. Then jog very fast for 20 seconds and have a recovery time of 40 seconds. As a result you will increase your heart rate and you will be able to make the most of your training session.

Pace

Running indoors is quite different from running outdoors because you basically stay in place while the ground is moving. In order to increase your speed you will have to increase your stride or make more frequent strides. Start at 180 foot strikes in a minute.

Improve Your Cadence

In order to make the workout more effective, you have to improve your cadence. The target should be of 90 strikes per minute, meaning 15 strikes per second. Count the number of strikes for 15 seconds and multiply it by 4 to get the current number of strikes.

Fitness Test

As it has been mentioned before, running indoors is different from running outdoors. To test your fitness level, run a 3 mile test run. Evaluate your state after every half a mile after the first mile. This way you can track your tiredness and you can track whether this form of working out really works for you or not.

Incline

Running on a flat surface isn’t the same as running in the park. Usually the runners start with a 1 degree incline. As you get better you don’t really have to increase the speed, but rather increase the incline of the treadmill. The point is not to gain speed but to increase your resistance.

Running on the treadmill isn’t as easy as it may seem at first. The truth is that you won’t know what it is like until you actually try it for a short period of time.