Many people have their own opinions when it comes to treadmills and weight loss. It can be a very good way of losing weight and it can also be one of the worst. Confused, right! Let me explain it a bit.
Every one of us is a different being when it comes to fitness levels, some people can easily walk for miles while others are left gasping for breath in a short distance so one fixed set of rules just cannot be applied to everyone as it won’t be effective.
I think the first rule of treadmill workouts is to do it in the right way. I don’t know how many gym trainers do not even pay attention to this but I find most of the people having a wrong posture or techniques which makes all the difference. For eg – Many people would just hold the sidebars or hand rails during their treadmill exercises and lean over in front. This is a wrong posture and will do more bad than good. What you are doing is training your body to walk in a bad posture. This will affect you in a wrong way if done over a reasonable period of time. Exercise techniques and movements are extremely important and the same rule applies here.
However, I will assume that you have average fitness levels and know about the right techniques as well. So what should be the best treadmill workouts which can help you in losing weight fast?
The answer is to do some intense interval training.
As a beginner you keep yourself in an easy zone (no inclines – low speeds) for jogging and running. You don’t expect to step into high intensity cardio right away. This also gives your body to open up and adapt to the exercises routine. Once you get comfortable with this you start to increase your intensity (more incline and speed). The trick is to combine high and low intensity workouts in the same session, these intervals can be of 30 sec. You can push yourself into a really high intensity zone and then get to more comfortable levels before repeating it again. Comfortable levels would mean a state of rest to your body. You also call this HIIT (High Intensity Interval Training). A 20 – 30 minute workout should be good enough for such training.
Also, when you are doing your treadmill workouts, never just start running right away. You warm up, stretch and then cool down after your sessions. This should be a very important part of every workout session. As a beginner if you need some equipment for home use you can always start with something cheap and get onto more professional equipment as you form a habit or routine of your workout. There are plenty of cheap treadmills available for under 500$ to start with
Do this 3 or 4 times a week and you are good to go. You will start to feel the difference. But remember the other important part of weight loss which is not to be ignored and that is diet.