Why do most people hate the treadmill? Is it boring, painful, ineffective? Is it because people use it for mindless miles with boring intervals? Can someone tell my why people think the treadmill is the same as running outside? Let me give you a tip. Track is for track workouts, the road is for distance and tempo, the treadmill is for treadmill workouts.
Don’t run for a set period of time at the same pace : boring!!! Don’t do a bunch of sprints as fast as you can with short recovery, to get it over with. You will and end up bored with aches, pains or even worse unnecessary injuries.
What if you could build endurance, get faster, burn fat and not be bored? Sounds like a myth, right. Well it’s not.
Let’s start with the basics :
1. Don’t run too close to the front of the treadmill
2. Keep your arm swing parallel to your body
3. Maintain a slight forward tilt from the angles
4. Remember to slightly shorten your stride for hills
5. Focus on landing mid to forefoot
And yes there are style points so make sure you look good and your shoelaces are tied
properly.
The Workout :
Incline : Using the right amount of incline can greatly reduce impact on your body while increasing muscle work. Think of it as a hill; when it is very steep you compromise your joints by shortening the angle between your knee and chest. That is why your legs and joints hurt going up and down steep hills. However, when you have a small hill, say 0-5% you have less stress on your body, you reduce pressure on your knees and get overall better conditioning. NOTE: a 1% change in incline is worth +/-0.2mph
Speed : Dialing back your top speed back just a bit and slightly increasing your recovery speed spreads out the workload, keeps up interval training and keeps you from feeling the pain of your workout the next day. Base treadmill interval starting speed on your 1 minute personal best is "on the treadmill", you should not feel out of control, but it should be challenging. Your personal best will change as you get stronger and more treadmill fitness.
Duration: Saving the short stuff for track and long stuff for the road means the treadmills sweet spot is 30 seconds to 2 minutes. Remember it can take 5-15 seconds to get up to speed so if you start changing your speed 10 seconds before the start of an interval so you won’t miss the work.
Recovery: Almost half your time on the treadmill is doing active purposeful recovery. As a rule your recovery should be at a minimum 50% of your fast speed. Recovery when done perfectly should leave you feeling in control just as the next interval starts.
Now let's put it all together using David Siik’s BITE method (Balanced Interval Training Experience) It uses the perfect amount of incline with proper speed, with the perfect interval length, the right amount of active recovery and teaches you how to increase speed safely and effectively.
So what does all this look like when made into a BITE method treadmill workout?
PB=1 minute personal best
Warm Up : 5 min easy jog include butt kicks, high knees, arm swings
Speed -1.5 mph from PB 0% incline 1 minute
Recover 50% of PB 0% incline 1 minute
Speed -1.5 mph from PB 1% incline 1 minute
Recover 50% of PB 0% incline 1 minute
Speed -1.5 mph from PB 2% incline 1 minute
Recover 50% of PB 0% incline 1 minute
Speed -1.5 mph from PB 3% incline 1 minute
Recover 50% of PB 0% incline 1 minute
Speed -1.5 mph from PB 3% incline 1 minute
Recover 50% of PB 0% incline 1 minute
Speed -1.0mph from PB 2% incline 1 minute
Recover 50% of PB 0% incline 1 minute
Speed -0.5 mph from PB 1% incline 1 minute
Recover 50% of PB 0% incline 1 minute
Speed PB 0% incline 1 minute
Cool Down
Using these type of workouts means when you have to go inside and run on the treadmill you can keep getting fitter and stronger without dreading the boredom.
