Treadmill workouts
Written by Jamie Miller, Founder & EditorLast checked
The two things a treadmill gives you that the pavement does not are exact pace and exact incline. A good treadmill workout uses both deliberately rather than just running until bored. The three sessions below are structured around that, not around a calorie number we cannot verify.
Incline walking intervals
For building fitness without running. Warm up 5 minutes flat at an easy walking pace. Then alternate 3 minutes at a incline your machine's incline rangeallows against 2 minutes flat, repeated 5 to 6 times. Finish with a 5 minute flat cool-down. The incline minutes should feel genuinely harder than the flat ones — if they do not, raise the incline rather than the speed.
Pace-controlled tempo run
For runners who want to train at a specific pace rather than by feel. Use ourpace chart to set the treadmill to your target race pace exactly, then hold it for a set duration rather than a set distance — 15 to 20 minutes is a reasonable starting block. The treadmill holding the pace for you, rather than you having to police it yourself, is the entire advantage over running the same session outside.
Classic HIIT intervals
Short, hard efforts against longer recovery. Warm up 5 minutes. Then 30 seconds at a speed noticeably faster than your comfortable pace, against 90 seconds at an easy walk or jog, repeated 8 times. Cool down 5 minutes. The 1:3 work-to-rest ratio is a common HIIT structure; adjust the work interval length and speed to your own fitness rather than a fixed target we would be guessing at for you.
What we are not going to tell you
How many calories any of these burn, precisely. Ourcalorie calculator gives a population-average estimate for steady-state effort; intervals vary speed and effort constantly through a session in a way that estimate does not capture well, and we are not going to dress up a rough number as a precise one.
We also have not run any of these sessions ourselves and are not claiming results from them. They are structures built around what a treadmill's controls actually let you do, not a record of our own training. How we review.
Before you start
If you have not exercised in a long time, have an injury, or have any health condition that affects exercise, talk to a doctor before starting any structured session, this one included. See what a treadmill is actually good for for the wider context.