Treadmill workouts have gained massive popularity since 2020. When everybody was locked in their homes, there were little activities, and the digits on the scales kept on rising.
Parks and public places weren’t the most healthy places to work out, and gym memberships could often end up resulting in you paying a higher price than the gym membership itself with the spread of the virus that the world was seeing.
At that stage, most people had to resort to either ‘hitting the streets’ or to buying a treadmill to shed some pounds to get back in shape whilst the ‘normal world’ was put on hold.
And for most new buyers, the treadmill turned out to be a great decision. They were able to revive their muscles and commit to regular training once again, but there was a problem.
Despite regular training, the weight wasn’t reducing; and therefore it served as a demotivation. Most users thought of giving up on their treadmill workout routine or taking their chances by going to a gym again.
Were you one of them?
If any of this is something you’ve encountered then you don’t need to look any further for advice on how to burn calories.
In this blog, we will talk about various techniques that can help you lose that extra weight on a treadmill and answer your query about ideal treadmill time. Let’s go
Contents
So, how much should I use a treadmill?
For simplicity, professional trainers have described one pound as 3500 calories, so if you either consume or burn 3500 calories, your weight should rise or fall by 1 pound. The treadmill usage is fairly dependent on your fitness goal. If you are looking to lose up to 5 pounds within a month, understandably, your workout session would need to last longer.
Let’s understand how many calories does a treadmill burn. According to experts, an average 80-kilogram male can lose up to 1000 calories within an hour of a HIIT treadmill workout. The weight loss would vary depending on your body type and gender, but it would still be significant considering that all it takes is one hour.
For instance, if your goal is to lose up to 5 pounds of your weight, your calories burned count should be around 18000 based on our above conclusions. However, weight loss isn’t that simple; it has several external interferences, such as your workout timing, calorie intake, and heart rate.
Most treadmills have a calorie and heart rate monitor to help you enjoy great results and keep your workout goals in line.
Setting a running goal, taking on board professional medical advice
Hence it all comes down to how you set your fitness goals. It is essential that you set SMART goals. They should be measurable, specific, realistic, and time-oriented. The treadmill will never bring the best results if you don’t clearly recognize your goal.
Similarly, you shouldn’t have unrealistic goals because extreme marks are hard to achieve and lead to demotivation.
Make sure you are timing your workout to have a good understanding of your progress over time. In the latter section of the blog, we are going to talk about eight different challenges that you can set to quicken the pursuit of your fitness goals.
Professional medical advice is necessary before you begin your workout to avoid having to face unwanted problems later on.
Here’s a breakdown of some potential challenges you may have set and the subsequent time usage involved.
Goal 01 – Run non-stop
High-intensity interval training is a modern way of losing weight rapidly. It involves running at a high pace using the incline feature to boost your heart rate. The incline isn’t an expensive feature restricted to high price treadmills only, and you can enjoy it on a relatively cheap treadmill too. It raises the slope of your track so that running or walking requires greater effort.
When using HIIT workouts, it is crucial to understand the fat-burning zone so that you can increase the efficiency of your workout. It is marked when your heart rate is between 40 to 70% of the maximum. At this level, your body would increase your metabolism, which in turn would enhance the calorie burn.
Non-stop running is an excellent way to enter the fat-burning zone. Usually, you will notice that your heart rate doesn’t rise too greatly in the first half of your workout, which means that your calories-burnt is low during this interval.
Running non-stop would increase the sweat exertion and increase your heart rate within a minute or two. You should keep up with the same pace for about ten minutes to ensure that substantial benefits can be availed.
However, treadmill users have often complained that they can’t run faster for longer intervals consistently. There are two common reasons behind it. Usually, starting with high-intensity interval training means that your body doesn’t get enough time to ready itself for the increased strain, which increases the workout’s difficulty.
Your body would start feeling tired within a short interval, and you will have to quit. The other reason could be a poor quality folding treadmill and its lack of stability. Folding treadmills can provide unwanted bumps that create a tiring effect, which eventually makes your workout more challenging. You need to purchase a good quality smooth running option to allow your body and running style to function efficiently.
If you are thinking of taking the challenge of non-stop running, you must use it to enter the fat-burning zone and train in this zone for the best results. Nevertheless, it is essential that you pay the required heed to the warm-up, which would otherwise impact the longevity of your workout.
Goal 02 – Lose weight through your treadmill workout
As our above stats might have suggested, running is probably the best exercise that can help you lose that extra weight. Combine it with pre-programmed sessions, and the results can be enriched even further. Many treadmills now have a series of multiple workout modes that range from low to moderate intensity. Higher-priced treadmills also contain HIIT pre-programmed workouts.
The goal of these settings is to ensure that you have the flexibility of focusing solely on your session while the machine changes the speed and incline on its own. Nevertheless, if workout modes are the only reason you want one of the higher-priced Proform treadmills, it might not be the best decision.
Cheap treadmills also allow the alteration of speed and incline to fit your goals. Learning about the workout routine isn’t a challenging task, and you can check our blogs to find more about them.
Losing weight through running is a practical challenge but you’ll need to stay persistent with your goals. Once you start monitoring your weight regularly, you will be motivated to keep working out without taking cheat days. It’s staying consistent with your workout routine that will help you lose weight rapidly.
Goal 03: Run regularly.
Regularity is the most crucial part of your exercise routine. Regardless of the workouts, if they aren’t consistent, they will never bring the desired benefits, so even if training isn’t that intense, practising it regularly would still give you results. Weight loss isn’t an easy process, and sometimes it takes a lot of sacrifices to stay committed. You need to make sure that you are determined not to miss any session.
Nevertheless, sometimes we convince ourselves we have no other option than to give up for the day. For instance, when your motorised treadmill stops working because of a power cut or is in need of repair or you can’t find your training joggers. Now, these are issues and inconveniences but in reality only mere concerns, as you can still of course run or walk in a park for that particular day.
You could even use these ‘inconveniences’ as variations in your workouts which would help you enjoy your exercise more and avoid you being bored.
Goal 04 – Aim for specific running distances
A target-oriented approach is another critical challenge that can help you move ahead in your journey. Once you set a target, your body is motivated to achieve it without giving up. A goal will give you the direction to aim for, and even if you can’t accomplish the goal, it will give your body and mind a positive mental effect.
According to psychologists, our brain is oriented to perform fixed tasks; it isn’t motivated to complete objectives that have a vague definition. For instance, thinking that you need to run ‘a lot’ has a confusing meaning; it can mean an hour, two, or something in between. On the other hand, if you fix the distance to run 5 km, your body would have a precise aim, and it won’t feel tired until you have achieved it.
Similarly, an important point to note is the realisticity of your goal. If you are setting a goal of running 12 kilometers in an hour, you will most probably fail. It isn’t because you aren’t committed to the plan or lack self-confidence, but the goal isn’t achievable for most trainers. It requires you to run at 12 km/h consistently, which is quite demanding.
Goal 05 – Enter a race
The race has a similar physiological effect to the fourth challenge. It provides a goal for your body to aim for. Once you are preparing for a race, you have the motivation to train at high intensity and build endurance. The training session should include a broader range of workouts that target different muscle groups, as it would help in your on-road running.
As I mentioned above, high-intensity interval training also helps train your body and lose weight. However, it can often be difficult to find a race to take part in regularly, but you can use your social media links and local park runs are now extremely convenient in most of the UK.
Visit: https://www.parkrun.org.uk/ to find out more.
There are also multiple Facebook fitness groups that focus on various competitions that test your strengths. You can sign up for these groups to take part in the race. Usually, they will include a joining fee of £5 or 10, but it is worth it to give you that incentive.
And remember to not let the passion for winning get over your head, as it may end badly. Whilst it is good to be competitive, for many it really is just about taking part and simply challenging yourself based on your own personal goals.
Goal 06 – Enjoy your running
Regardless of how motivated you are to lose weight, if you don’t enjoy your workouts, you will eventually feel like giving up. Hence, it is essential to enjoy every minute of your exercise. A popular technique is to distract your mind with television or music. Once your mind is distracted, you will be able to cope with excessive strengths without going through physical strain.
Similarly, you can also go out jogging in a public park, which has a positive mental effect. The fresh air and green sights will produce positive hormones in your body that will help you feel better. However, you need to make sure that this option is a safe one.
If you like to watch television, there are a few things to take care of. Firstly, you must note that the position of the TV should be right in front of your eyes. It shouldn’t be positioned at an angle; otherwise, you could lose your balance and that never ends well.
Secondly, watching TV is only advised when you are in a warm-up or rest interval because when running at a high pace or incline, and as just mentioned, losing concentration can be immensely harmful. These are some necessary steps that you must take before starting on your home treadmill.
Believe it or not, another popular method to enjoy your running is trying new attires for your workouts. Clean or new outfits positively affect your body and help you work out for longer intervals.
Goal 07 – Run a personal best
When I started training, I decided on a day where I would beat my distance record. In my case, the day was Saturday, and every Saturday, I aimed at bettering my previous distance covered. I remember years ago about how pleased I was that the distance rose to as high as 8 km in one session. The motivation to beat my record helped me become a better runner, as I had a clear goal in my mind.
You can also fix a day where you try to beat your personal best. It isn’t necessary to determine the best in terms of distance; you can try any variant of your run or workout (incline increase / greater consistent speed etc).
The motivation to beat your record every time will help you run longer and eventually boost your results. Raising the bar is a popular technique to improve your health and fitness.
Goal 08 – Run for charity
https://runforcharity.com/ is a website that aims at raising funds for various charities and health care. You can enrol in the charity program from the main website and run for it. Finding a cause to run for, will also help you focus on trying to achieve your goals.
However, before you start running in the marathon, you need to ensure that you have trained your body for the required endurance. You can build endurance by trying a HIIT workout that requires more power for extended periods.
Another important tip for building endurance is ensuring longer workouts. Instead of trying multiple workouts for shorter intervals, you need to make sure that you select one exercise and practice it for an hour or more.
The result of your treadmill depends highly on your regularity. A workout once in a blue moon will never bring any substantial results. You must be regular in your workout routine. Also, try to have multiple sessions at top speed as it effectively builds endurance.
Conclusion
We have finally come to the end of the blog. I hope it helped you learn how much treadmill you need to do. As I said, the overall treadmill usage is dependent on your desired objective. If you are looking to intensify the fat loss, you need to run more than usual.
Treadmill workouts are great for starting your weight loss journey; however, it might be challenging to adapt to strict routines, so it is better that you gradually increase the intensity levels.
A treadmill is an excellent machine with a wide range of detectors such as a pulse monitor and calories count that can be great at determining the intensity and effectiveness of your workouts. Everything can bring positive results if it is done with consistency and commitment towards the goal. The best time to start training is today. If you can’t take the high strain straight away, remember it is better to train at low intensity than not to train at all.
FAQs
How long should I use the treadmill to burn 1 pound a week?
As per the rules of thumb, you need to run about 5 hours on a treadmill in a week to get the desired burn. However, we still have other external factors that are difficult to account for.
Can treadmill walking bring good results?
As I said above, it is better to train than not to train. However, walking doesn’t get your heart beating into the fat-burning zone, which means the overall fat burn will be lower.
Is it healthy to use my treadmill at the college?
Well, it depends on how frequently the gym is used. If it’s a crowded place with low hygiene, then it might not be a good idea, but given all the focus on keeping equipment clean nowadays, it’s more than likely an excellent alternative to a paid gym membership.
Is running 10 kilometers a good workout routine?
If you are running 10 kilometers, it is indeed an impressive performance. However, it is always essential to keep on progressing forward. Set up goals to try beating your best during your monthly plan. It will give you a good boost and confidence in achieving more significant aims in the future.
Should I buy a home treadmill or sign for a gym?
Both of the choices are worthwhile and have their benefits. However, for the flexibility and cleanliness, I would recommend a home treadmill. Nevertheless, if buying one isn’t affordable, it is better not to think twice before joining a gym as doing neither should never be an option.
