How to run on a treadmill

This is an overview of the basics of how to run a treadmill. We will go into the different programs, how to set the treadmill up and what the best way is to lose weight.

How to treadmill run

Running on a treadmill can be pretty straight forward. However, there are also several points to take care of to avoid a face plant. These things might be common sense, but I have been there and share how you can avoid hurting yourself.

Shoes
Phone and keys
Treadmill
Program
Emergency stop
Footstrike

The first thing to take care of is your shoes. Make sure that you have shoes that fit. Tie the laces properly and tuck them away. If you have your laces flying around they can get caught in the treadmill and you will face plant. When this happens the treadmill is a lot less forgiving than the great outdoors as it keeps going while you lose your balance. Pick good running shoes with cushioning. If you want to run mainly on treadmills you might even go for a shoe with more cushioning than other running shoes for outdoors. Talk to your local running shop if there is one. Don’t go to footlocker if you can avoid it. Look for a shop run by a scrawny marathon runner that sells outdoor trekking and running shoes. They know what they are about.

Most people will have their keys and phone on them when they go to the gym. Place them in the tray which most treadmills provide. If there is no tray, put the phone somewhere nearby where you can see it, but directly around the treadmill. Someone will step on it eventually. If you want to listen to music try to get wireless earphones. These are not that expensive anymore and worth the investment if you train regularly. Avoid holding the phone in your hand.

Check the treadmill before you start using it.

What rails are available?
Does it have an incline function?
Which programs are available?
How does the emergency stop work?
If you had to exit, which direction would be best?

Even though this might look silly at first, it only takes five minutes and will prevent that you hurt yourself. When I am in a new gym when I travel I always check these things out. I went flying one too many times because I did not do my due diligence. If you are really new and also a bit that used to treadmill running, let the staff give you an induction.

Familiarize yourself with the programs. The usual suspects are

Free run
Interval
Hill
Run for time
Run for distance
Run for calories

Free run is the simplest program. You adjust the speed and run however long you want. Any changes in speed or incline will be made by you instead of the treadmill. Free run is great for a warm-up when you are waiting for a class to start or to test the treadmill out.

Interval training chains sprints with active rest times. You can determine the speed and duration of the intervals. Once set up the treadmill will run the program for you. Some treadmills also have preprogrammed interval training sessions. When you do interval training on a treadmill be very sure about your baseline speed. Do some free runs and runs for distance and time before going for intervals. It is better to first have a feeling at which pace you are going on this particular treadmill before going into intervals.

If you have signed up with a fancy gym the treadmills also will have hill programs. Treadmills with incline capabilities are more expensive and usually found in gyms where the subscription cost is a little higher. Hill programs are predefined and keep you at the same pace you set. At certain distances or times, the incline will set in and make the workout harder. Running uphill at the same pace is harder than on a flat surface. This is a great option for more experienced runners who want a closer experience to running outdoors.

Run for time is a simple program that lets you run for a certain amount of time. Check with the team whether cooldowns and warmups are part of the time you type in or added to the total workout time.

Run for distance is also simple. You type in a certain distance of 3km, 5km or 10km and the treadmill will inform you once you hit the goal. Be aware that adjustments in pace during the run how to be made by yourself.

Running for calories is the same idea as distance and time. The only difference is that the goal you set is measured in calories rather than other indicators. Running for calories is great to adjust your training to your weight and age.

Overall treadmills are a great tool when the weather is too hot or cold outdoors or when you want to train your pace. Pacing is important for long-distance runners and treadmills can deliver the same pace for hours on end.

How treadmill works

Treadmills work on a pretty simple idea “put someone on a conveyor belt and make them run until they collapse”. There are different ways of making the mechanics work. The two main ones are

Electrically propelled treadmills
Self-propelled treadmills

Electrically propelled treadmills will need to be connected to a socket and consume energy. If you are buying for a commercial establishment where they are plugged in all day and you have a row of 10 to 100 treadmills you want to check energy consumption. Otherwise, you might regret hitting the buy button on a particular model. A little electromotor drives the conveyor belt. To maintain the treadmill it needs to be oiled regularly. The most likely component to break is the electromotor itself.

The main advantages of electrically-propelled treadmills are the low cost compared to self-propelled models and the wide arrange of providers. You also have a bigger market for used models if you want to get something on the cheap. The main disadvantages are that they tend to break more easily and are not the best option to train sudden stops and acceleration.

Self-propelled treadmills are basically glorified hamster wheels. The belt usually rests on bearing balls which make it possible to move the belt with your own bodyweight. Generally, this design seems to be less error-prone than electrically-propelled options. Prices for self-propelled treadmills are usually higher as the build is more complex. In return, they are often better quality than their electric counterparts.

The advantages of self-propelled treadmills are that they do not need to be connected to a socket and that you can do start and stop drills. The main disadvantage is the higher purchase cost. Especially when you buy in bulk, calculate energy consumption over 3 to 5 years into the equation to see whether it makes more sense to buy self-propelled treadmills.

Whether you get an electric or self-propelled treadmill, both take up quite a bit of space. An air bike can be a good alternative with a smaller footprint for cardio training.

How the treadmill helps to lose weight

Losing weight mainly depends on two factors.

The number of calories you take in
The number of calories you burn

Let’s look at both separately.

The number of calories you burn

Burning calories is the main goal in the gym when you are aiming for weight loss. The strategies for burning calories are:

Strength training
HIIT
Cardio

Strength training is one of the activities in the gym which burns the most calories per second. A heavy deadlift or squat will needs a tremendous amount of energy to be completed. The challenge is that this does not last very long. Therefore strength training is better than doing nothing to lose weight, but not the best use of your time. You just don’t collect the calorie burn for long enough.

High-intensity interval training or HIIT has gained a lot of popularity lately. Some forms of HIIT are Tabata, Crossfit, and intense spin classes. The goal is to push your body to the limit followed by rest. With this, you can get the body to bring calories even beyond the workout itself. While this works for losing weight it lets the injury risk skyrocket. Especially when the exercises are done for time and change often. High-Intensity interval training is more suited to someone who already has the experience and is fit. Not the best idea for beginners or when you have a lot of extra pounds to carry.

Cardiovascular training or cardio, in short, is sustained training at the same pace for a longer period of time. If you are looking to but the most calories in total this is the best option. While it isn’t the best option in terms of calories per second or minute you will always come out with more calories burned overall for a 20 minute 5k run than a 100m sprint. The only challenge with cardio is that it can become very boring. So brace yourself and maybe listen to a podcast on the treadmill.

Overall I have done all of these versions of the training. Strength training is great to build a tough body that doesn’t get easily sick and to gain weight in the form of muscle. Interval training is great to burn your recovery times up and to push your maximum speed up. Cardio for 20 to 40 minutes at a moderate pace is the best form of exercise to lose weight.

The number of calories you take in

The more effective way if you want to lose weight.

Technically the easiest way to lose weight is to stop eating. This is definitely not recommended as it will impact your health negatively and go hand in hand with psychological problems like eating disorders, anxiety, and depression. If you want to lose weight without exercising monitor your daily intake.

Many diets work with one of the following principles:

Cutting out an entire food group
Cutting out one of the macros
Portion control

Cutting out an entire food group runs along being a vegan, vegetarian or having a gluten intolerance. The reasons for these diets can be ethical or medical. When you deprive yourself of an entire food group it usually takes a lot more effort to make up for the deficit. Meal planning becomes more important and shopping can turn into a nightmare in terms of availability and price.

Cutting out a macronutrient runs along the lines of a low carb or low-fat diet. Here you shun certain macronutrients by controlling the labels in the fridge closely. While there are studies that these diets can be beneficial you run a risk that because of mislabeling and focusing too much on one thing you still eat unhealthily. Low-fat products often make up for the lack of taste by adding sugar. Low sugar products like to add fats and oils to make themselves more palatable.

The most reliable way of dieting is portion control based on peer-reviewed studies. Rather than avoiding specific food groups or macronutrients you only eat a predetermined amount of food. This leaves you open to foods that are rich in fats and carbohydrates and is less of a strain on the brain.

All diets work. Therefore the best diet is the one you can stick to. For many, the easiest diet to stick to is to control your portions. Best starting points for portion control are:

Beer
Chocolate
Fizzy drinks
Biscuits

How treadmill calculate calories

The amount of calories you burn on a treadmill depends on many factors. A good rule of thumb is that you burn about 100 calories per 10 minutes on the treadmill. Based on the data you provide at the beginning of the run the treadmill will calculate your calorie burn.

The factors which play a role are:

Weight
Age
Stride length
Intensity
Efficiency
Fitness
Handrails

The More input the software asks for, Th more accurate your statistics are. Still, the metrics will always stay crude and if you want to count calories you might want to go for 50 to 100 calories more just to make you have hot your goal.

The more you weigh the more calories you will burn. Keeping 100 kilograms moving is a lot harder than 50 kilograms. This is why most top-class marathon runners are not very heavy. What works against you on a treadmill works on your favor in weightlifting. The bigger you are the easier it becomes to move big weights. It’s physics.

Your age also plays a role in how you respond to physical stress. Generally, the older you are the fewer calories you need and the fewer you burn. This is based on an interplay of lower hormone levels, cell growth decrease and generally the effects of age. Of course, these can be counteracted by an active lifestyle and healthier choices. Ultimately we will all slow down. We can influence how fast and how early this happens in our lives.

The longer your strides the fewer calories you will burn. Stride length is one of the factors long-distance runners look into to be faster and run for longer. Some top models of Garmin measure your stride length so that you can improve it. Optimize your stride to be able to stay on the treadmill for longer or run faster for the same amount of time. Artificially shortening your stride to burn more calories is penny wise and pound foolish.

How fast you run also influences how many calories you burn to a huge degree. Beginners tend to run too fast to break in a sweat and then burn out after 5 minutes on the treadmill. Aim for 20 minutes where the sweat really starts pouring from 10 minutes onward. That is the sweet spot. The more experienced you get the faster you can run. Do one interval A week to improve and really push the limit. Keep the rest in fat burning areas.

How efficient you run has an impact on how many calories you burn. The more experience you gain with running the fewer calories you will burn given everything else is equal. This is why you should keep pushing to improve within means. Otherwise, the effectiveness of your cardiovascular training will decline over time. A very easy way to track this is to run more kilometers at the same time.

The fitter you are the fewer calories you will need to produce the same amount of force as someone else. While efficiency is related to technique fitness is related to your body and how trained you are. Someone who is a weightlifter and runs for the first time will probably do better than someone of the same height, age, and weight how does no exercise.

The handrails also have an effect on how many calories you burn. The more you use them the fewer calories you will burn per minute. I personally only use them for emergency exits.

If you have a very fancy treadmill it will also do inclines. The steeper the incline the more calories you will burn. If you want to simulate running outdoors on a treadmill use a 1% to 2% incline. If you are very fit and want to maximize calories burned per minute you can use the VersaClimber or Jacobs ladder.

The basics: How to run on a treadmill [Article, Video]