A treadmill is a fairly one-dimensional piece of fitness equipment, right? Hop on, set a steady pace and pound out the miles for hours on end. Not exactly, because in your quest to get fitter, stronger and leaner in 2021, it pays to mix things up. Read on, compadre, and ingest some science.
While gentle jogging and other forms Low Intensity Steady State training (or LISS for short) has been proven to achieve positive health results, improve cardiovascular fitness and burn fat, these workouts take a long time and, unless you want to occupy your mind with a book or film, can get immensely boring where treadmills are involved.
High Intensity Interval Training (HIIT), on the other hand, is scientifically proven to burn more calories – and continue to burn calories long after the workout – meaning participants can cram more effort into a short period of time and see the same results as, say, two hours spent light jogging on the best treadmill you can lay your hands on – or feet, strictly speaking.
While we suggest that newcomers to fitness avoid overly intense HIIT sessions to begin with, we do think that mixing up your treadmill routine is a great way of keeping things fresh and, ultimately, keeping you coming back for more.
With that in mind, using the treadmill as part of a wider circuit of exercises can be an excellent way of livening things up. After all, online workout studio Peloton has done exactly that with its latest Peloton Tread product. Essentially a treadmill and a few pieces of light equipment, it creates a mini fitness eco system that allows its online trainers to target every muscle group in the body, leading to fitter, more toned and stronger participants.
But even if you’ve got a standard, non-connected treadmill stashed away in the garage, you can make the most of these workouts to add some variety, as well as tone up areas that would otherwise be neglected during a gentle jog.
It seems ridiculous saying this, but you’ll need a treadmill. On top of that, it’s best if you have a treadmill set-up where you have a bit of space around to be able to hop off and get down for some press-ups, burpees and other bodyweight exercises.
Aside from that, we’ve detailed the format in the workouts themselves, so follow along be prepared to work up a sweat. We’ve also ranked this in order of difficulty (1-5), with some of the earlier workouts likely best for beginners, as they don’ rely on too much exercise knowledge and won’t leave you in tatters for days afterwards. After all, you need to want to come back for more, otherwise it’s pointless.
A quick word on safety: make sure you have a large bottle of water and/or isotonic sports drink nearby and keep a towel handy for mopping up sweat. A slippery treadmill deck is not what we are aiming for here people.
Above all else, take things at your own pace and be your own judge when it comes to treadmill deck speed and the amount of inclination. If it feels uncomfortable or out of control, slow it down a little. The same goes for any unusual sensations or pangs of pain: if anything hurts, cancel the workout and address the issue before coming back for more.
The ultimate treadmill workouts
1. Run/Walk with Inclines
This is a great workout for beginners, as it breaks a tedious 30-minute sessions into small blocks and offers a challenge without proving over-strenuous. Your treadmill will need to have an incline adjustment feature but don’t worry if it doesn’t, try one of the other workouts instead.
Top tip: to make this workout harder, simply increase the incline over the stated figure until you are essentially running up a hill.
0-3 minutes: warm up with a fast walk, slowly increasing to a gentle jog
3-5 minutes: Crank the incline up to 1% and walk at a steady pace. Avoid using handles
5-7 minutes: Reset the treadmill deck and increase speed to a gentle jog
7-9 minutes: Increase incline to 2% and walk at a steady pace. Avoid using handles
9-11 minutes: Reset the treadmill deck and increase speed to slightly faster than a gentle jog
11-13 minutes: Increase incline to 4% and walk at a steady pace. Use handles if you need to
13-15 minutes: Reset the treadmill and slow speed down to your original gentle jogging pace
15-17 minutes: Increase the incline to 5-8% and walk, using the handles for stability
17-19 minutes: Lower the treadmill and return to your jog
19-21 minutes: Increase the incline to 2% and walk avoiding any handle use
21-25 minutes: Lower the deck and jog for this last phase, increasing the pace gradually.
21-30 minutes: Cool down by slowly decreasing the speed until you are at a slow walking pace.
Rehydrate, stretch and relax. That’s the first of the treadmill workouts completed.
2. The Pace Curve
Gallery: How to burn belly fat and get in shape (T3)
HOW TO BURN BELLY FAR AND GET IN SHAPE
If you’re trying to lose weight fast, it can be easy to get caught up with fad diet or other “quick fixes” that promise a flat stomach in days. Don’t worry about it though, as there are ways to lose weight that are tried and trusted. Not easy and quick weight loss maybe, but doable.
If you’re serious about losing weight, you’ve come to the right place. We won’t promise a six pack in as many hours, but we can guarantee expert advice and key tips for losing weight quickly, but in a healthy and sustainable way. We’ve also got the lowdown on the best exercise for losing weight fast, and all the gear you’ll need to get started.
IS THERE A “BEST” WAY TO LOSE WEIGHT FAST?
The best way for you to lose weight fast will depend on your starting point, your end goal, and your lifestyle. In this article we lay out ten strategies that are applicable to everyone, whether you’re a fitness novice looking to shed several stone, or you simply require motivation to keep going.
Generally speaking the best way to lose weight quickly, and maintain that weight loss, is to follow a steady, manageable plan. Don’t try to take on more than you can reasonably fit into one day, unless you’re willing to make the sacrifice. Most likely sleep or your social life.
The NHS recommends that you aim to lose no more than 2 lbs (1kg) per week; anymore than that and you risk burning out and giving up. With that in mind, here are ten strategies to get you losing weight quickly.
1. ACHIEVE A CONSISTENT CALORIE DEFICIT
The short answer to the question of how to lose weight fast is to achieve a consistent calorie deficit. That is, burn more calories than you consume.
If you eat 2,500 calories a day – the recommended daily amount for a man, although of course this can vary wildly depending on your height, weight and frame – and burn 3,000, you are in a calorie deficit.
If, however, you burn 3,000 but have consumed 3,500, you’re not in a calorie deficit, even though you’ve almost certainly been working out a lot have burned that much energy.
What you need to do is ensure you’re eating the right food and doing the right exercise so that you’re sufficiently full and satisfied even when consuming fewer calories than you burn. Here’s how…
2. DECREASE CALORIE INPUT THROUGH DIET CHANGES
As we alluded to above, a common pitfall that many people experience when trying to lose weight is that as they start exercising more, they feel like they need to eat more to keep their energy levels up and consequently fail to see results. Instead, we recommend adapting your diet to get the most out of your calories.
All foods have different energy densities. Foods like fruits, vegetables and whole grains have low energy density, which means you will get fuller faster when eating these than you would high energy density foods.
Nutritionist Jenna Hope explains: “Proteins and healthy fats promote more stable blood glucose levels, keeping you fuller across a time period and less likely to crave sugar or over eat,” and so these are the kinds of foods you should get the majority of your calories from.
Consuming the same amount of calories as you are now (or fewer if possible), but getting more nutritional value from them will help you feel fuller for longer and lose weight more quickly as a result.
3. DON’T CUT OUT ALL OF ANY SINGLE FOOD GROUP
We all know that some foods – and some food groups – are healthier than others, and that we need every type of food in our diet. The problem is that many of us aren’t getting the right balance.
Spoon Guru nutritionist Isabel Butler (MSc, ANutr) recommends that “the best way to reduce weight and maintain the weight loss is by simply eating a balanced and healthy diet, without refusing yourself particular foods… If you do cut out foods, you need to make sure your diet is still balanced and you are getting the nutrients your body needs from other sources.”
For example, unless you’re training to become a weightlifter, there’s nothing wrong with carbs per se, but the biggest food culprit when it comes to hindering weight loss is the simple carbohydrate.
Compared to complex carbs like beans, whole grains and vegetables, which break down and release energy slowly, thereby keeping you full and energised, simple carbs such as sugar and starchy foods which break down into sugars – such as pasta and spuds – give you a shorter boost of energy, then leave you wanting more.
The likelihood is that the more simple carbs you eat, the more you’ll end up eating overall, harming the balance of your calorie deficit.
One easy trick if you’re a carb fan is to swap out white pasta or rice for courgetti, or noodles made from other vegetables like butternut squash. This can make an arrabiata, curry or stir fry much lower in calories. You’ll hardly notice the difference when you’re eating it, but you’ll be fuller for longer despite consuming fewer calories.
4. TRY A FOOD SUBSTITUTE
Sometimes it’s a real struggle to reduce the calories you take in, or even just to track them. If you’re constantly on the move and don’t have the time to count calories, or you have the best intentions and are cooking fresh with ingredients that aren’t all labelled with their nutrition info broken down, then accurately tracking calories can be a nightmare.
To ensure you’re getting a good mix of nutrients, as well as all-important protein, you could try a food substitute such as Huel.
This is not marketed as a dietary aid, but it is highly nutritious, and makes calorie counting a lot easier. A word of caution though: Huel may replace meals from a nutritional standpoint, but slurping a cool, slightly slimy milkshake instead of getting your teeth into a warm, healthy paella isn’t for everyone.
5. TRY INTERMITTENT FASTING
Some people thrive on intermittent fasting, which means significantly cutting calories – or completely fasting – for a portion of the day or week, and then eating normally for the rest.
The most popular form of intermittent fasting is the 5:2 diet, where you eat normally for five days a week but then eating no more than 600 calories two days a week.
There’s also the 16:8 diet, which is a bit different. With this diet you can eat anything for 8 hours a day, but can only drink water during a 16 hour fast. The recommended time to eat is between 10am and 6pm, although this can be flexible depending on what time you’d prefer to start or end eating (as long as you stay within an eight hour window).
The benefits of intermittent fasting is that during the fast period the body will run out of carbohydrates to run on, and so start to take energy from the body’s fat stores, thus starting to burn that belly fat once and for all.
6. DRINK MORE WATER AND LESS ALCOHOL
Drinking more water – especially before a meal – can help us to feel fuller, thereby helping us to stop eating sooner and consume fewer calories than we otherwise would have.
What’s more, few of us consider what we drink when we total up our daily calorie count and so potentially hundreds of extra calories can sneak into our bodies. Replacing fruit juices, fizzy drinks and even tea and coffee with water means we can save up our calorie allowance for the good stuff: the food that fills us up.
Top tip: keep a reusable water bottle with you at all times and restrict what else you drink. This can feel like a hard habit to break at first, but is surprisingly easy to maintain once you have a zero calorie drink to hand 24/7.
Reducing the amount of alcohol we drink also comes with benefits. Most obviously, alcoholic drinks are often very calorific, so drinking less alcohol means consuming fewer calories. Simple.
Secondly, drinking alcohol increases our appetite, so we’re more likely to eat more than usual – and more of the bad stuff – when we’ve been drinking. Cheesy chips, I’m looking at you.
Lastly, we all know how we feel after a night of heavy drinking. Ready for a session and the gym and a day eating fruit, veg and simple carbohydrates? We didn’t think so. Drinking alcohol not only means we take in more calories at the time, but can affect our ability to function well and make healthy choices the next day.
7. INCREASE CALORIE OUTPUT THROUGH EXERCISE
Now we’ve tackled diet and nutrition (calories in), it’s time to look at exercise (calories out).
Even if you’re eating healthily and are reasonably active in your daily life, it’s unlikely you’ll be able to lose weight quickly without additional exercise, whether that’s running, gym, crossfit, team sports, cycling or any of the other myriad activities available.
What’s more, working out will make you look and feel better and in our view, once you start looking and feeling better, it gets a lot easier to find the will power needed to improve your diet.
When it comes to choosing what type of exercise you do, the most important thing is that it’s something you enjoy and will stick to. Don’t force yourself to run if chances are you’ll be walking ten minutes in.
8. FOCUS ON WEIGHT TRAINING IN ADDITION TO CARDIO
There are two main types of exercise: cardio training and weight – or resistance –training.
Both burn calories, the difference is that whilst cardio burns a lot of calories upfront, weight training continues to to burn calories post workout.
This is because weight training builds muscle, and muscle burns more than fat as you carry out day-to-day tasks. In short, the greater your muscle:fat ratio, the more calories you burn even when you are standing still.
Weight training may seem daunting, but you don’t have to join a gym and face up to the squat rack right away. There are so many weight exercises you can do at home with simple bits of equipment from dumbbells to kettlebells, and balls to ropes.
All of this aside, don’t neglect cardio, as cardio workouts are important for fitness and stamina, and will still burn calories.
9. VARY THE INTENSITY OF YOUR WORKOUTS
As well doing both cardio and weight training, if you want to lose weight it’s also important to vary the intensity with which you exercise.
In any given week, and within any given workout, you should exercise both aerobically (a little out of breath but not gasping) and anaerobically (going flat out, like when running for a bus).
Aerobic exercise needs oxygen to give muscles energy and generally requires moderate exertion. Examples include gentler running, cycling and swimming.
It’s a crucial part of losing weight quickly because it uses both sugar and fat as its energy source, but to burn fat you need to do it for long enough that you’ve burned through your sugar stores first.
Anaerobic exercise, on the other hand, primarily uses sugar as its fuel. This doesn’t mean that it’s not good for weight loss, though. Anaerobic exercise helps build muscle, and as we explained above, this will help you burn calories even when you’re resting. Anaerobic exercises are generally high intensity, for example sprinting and weight lifting.
A running watch or fitness tracker will help you to know what intensity exercise you’re doing. As they either have built-in heart-rate trackers or pair with ones you strap to your chest, they can show you how hard you’re working out and let you know when you need to push it harder.
10. TRACK YOUR INPUT VS. OUTPUT (THAT ALL IMPORTANT CALORIE DEFICIT)
It’s important to decide how you want to measure your success and keep track consistently, understanding that you will see daily fluctuations due to things like digestive contents and water retention.
Running watches are the easiest way to track your progress, remain motivated and keep weight off. Depending how fancy you go, you can track pretty much any metric that works for you, certainly way beyond whether you’ve achieved your 10,000 steps. Whether it’s weight, BMI, resting heart rate, calories burned or activity level, the best running watch will track it all.
Many wearables branded as fitness trackers also have a stab at these more advanced metrics nowadays, but we’d always recommend a watch over a band.
Another way to keep track of your progress is the old fashioned method of weighing yourself. The great thing about modern bathroom scales is they don’t just tell you your weight; they also let you know your body fat percentage.
This is a much, much better metric to track than weight alone. If you’re working out while dieting you can easily put on weight, even when running a calorie deficit, just because muscle is heavier than fat.
Now, although the calculations of body fat percentage scales produce are based on sound science, accuracy can vary. The key thing to note is that if the overall trend is going down, you’re doing well.
We can’t stress enough the importance of giving your body time to lose weight. You can lose weight faster by using the right gear and having the right knowledge and attitude, but you’ll likely need to redefine what ‘fast’ means to you.
12/12 SLIDES
Picture the running pace of this workout as a classic upside-down U on a graph: that’s exactly what we are aiming for here, with running speed gradually building up to a flat-out sprint for a very short period of time, before relaxing back towards a waking pace.
Top tip: more experienced runners will be able to maintain a much faster pace for longer, so look to hit a genuine sprint at the very peak of the pace curve.
0-3 minutes: Warm-up by gradually increasing the speed to a fast walking pace
3-5 minutes: Gradually increase the deck speed until the walk feels like it’s about to break into a jog
5-8 minutes: Increase the deck speed until jogging. The heart rate should be rising now
8-10 minutes: Increase the rate again until you feel you have reached a quick pace
10-11 minutes: Crank up that speed for a very fast run. You’ll likely not be able to maintain a sprint for a minute, so keep the speed at an achievable rate.
11-15 minutes: Decrease the speed considerably to a manageable jog, allowing you to catch your breath
15-18 minutes: Start to slow the deck down to a quick walking pace
18-25 minutes: Keep decreasing the deck speed every minute until the treadmill comes to a complete stop.
3. Leg Strength Builder
This workout will require effort on the treadmill followed by the ability to hop off and perform squats nearby. If you have a kettlebell or dumbbell, that’s even better, as you can increase resistance on the squat to make it harder.
Top tip: Have a timer nearby, set-up for 60 second intervals, as that’s how long you will be squatting for
0-3 minutes: Warm up by gradually increasing the speed on your treadmill. Aim for a jogging pace
3-4 minutes: Safely exit the treadmill and perform air squats for 60 seconds
4-8 minutes: Jump on the treadmill and build speed back up to a fast running pace
8-9 minutes: Safely exit the treadmill and perform air squats for 60 seconds or add a light weight to each hand
10-13 minutes: Jump on the treadmill and build speed back up to a fast running pace
13-14 minutes: Again, exit the treadmill and perform controlled squats for 60 seconds. Increase the weight if you can
14-18 minutes: Jump on the treadmill and build speed back up to a fast running pace
18-20 minutes: Gradually slow the deck down to a walking pace and then set it at a speed where you can comfortably lunge
20-26 minutes: 3 x sets of 60 seconds walking lunges followed by 60 seconds normal walking.
26-30 minutes: Cool down with a regular walking pace, slowing to a stop
4. Fartlek Sprints
Stop sniggering, fartlek means “speed play” in Swedish and it’s a form of interval training favoured by runners looking to increase cardiovascular fitness, build muscular strength and get faster with random sprint intervals.
It works best out on the open road, where you pick a landmark and run towards it at a fast pace, before slowing back down to a gentle jog or power walk. It can also be performed on a treadmill but we have to get a little creative.
Top tip: Set your fartlek training to music with a good set of fitness headphones. Pick a point in a song (a chorus for example) as your sprint period and go guns blazing until it ends. Or, wait for a bass drop in a dance tune and speed the run up here, slowing back down when the song mellows or your legs give out.
0-10 minutes: Warm up with a walk, gradually increasing to a jog and then staying steady at a solid running pace
10-11 minutes: Crank the pace up to a fast run (or a 5K race pace if you know what this is) and hold for around 100-200m – or around 30 seconds. You could also time this to music (see tip above).
11-15 minutes: Slow the pace right down to a fast walk
15-16 minutes: Again, increase the pace to your fastest possible and hold it for around 30 seconds
16-30 minutes: Continue this random speeding up and slowing of pace, making sure you don’t stay walking and jogging for too long. The key is to spike the heart rate with short, sharp sprints and then recover for as long as you need before going again.
5. HIIT monster
This one is for the freaks out there that like to get the pulse positively racing and lungs busting, as it requires short, sharp intervals on the treadmill, as well as strength training techniques for a full-body blaster.
Top tip: A Curved Manual Treadmill (CMT), like Assault AirRunner and Technogym SkillMill, are both fantastic for a workout like this, as you won’t have to wait for a traditional treadmill motor to speed up when carrying out the punishing sprints.
0-10 minutes: Spend the first few minutes with an active warm-up, stretching and activating the chest, shoulder, back and leg muscles. Jump on the treadmill and increase the heart rate by increasing speed gradually.
10-11 minutes: Safely exit the treadmill and perform 40 seconds of slow and controlled push-ups. Allow 20 seconds to recover
11-13 minutes: Jump on the treadmill and gradually increase the speed until you are at flat-out sprint pace
13-14 minutes: Safely exit the treadmill and perform 40 seconds of burpees, making sure to include the jump. Allow 20 seconds to recover
14-15 minutes: Sprint on the treadmill
15-16 minutes: Exit the treadmill and perform 40 seconds of air squats. Allow 20 seconds to recover
16-17 minutes: Sprint on the treadmill
17-18 minutes: Exit the treadmill and perform 40 seconds of mountain climbers. Allow 20 seconds to recover
18-19 minutes: Sprint on the treadmill
19-25 minutes: Gradually decrease the speed of the treadmill until you come to a complete stop. Remember to cool down properly and stretch after this one.
This is part of T3’s Fit for 2021 programme, which will be running throughout January. We aim to bring you tips on diet, lifestyle and exercise that will help you shape up for what is certain to be a difficult year. One thing we can guarantee: it WILL be better than last year. And hopefully we’ll help you get the most out of it.
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