Walking on a treadmill for 30 minutes daily offers numerous benefits, including improved cardiovascular health, weight loss, better mental health, better sleep, and increased energy.
Thirty minutes on the treadmill is excellent exercise. Depending on the speed, you can easily burn calories, improve cardio fitness, or meet other goals.
Weight loss is one of the treadmill walk benefits. A simple 30-minute walking exercise routine can burn about 200 calories. How many calories you burn will rely on factors such as distance, speed, and your current body weight. The more calories you burn, the better for losing extra pounds.
Not only does using a treadmill burn belly fat, but one of the long-term effects of regular treadmill sessions is that visceral fat will go away for good. Plus, even if you end up gaining some weight down the road, treadmill running not allow the deep belly fat to return.
Ideally one should walk 300 minutes a week on the treadmill for extensive health benefits, including weight loss. One can reach this goal by walking 43 to 44 minutes each day. This will help your burn 1 kilo in a week. But if you have just embarked on the weight loss journey then start with 20 minutes a day.
Frequency: Once you are used to treadmill walking, you can do it every day of the week. Walking at a brisk pace for 30 to 60 minutes most days of the week, or a total of 150 to 300 minutes per week, is recommended to reduce health risks.
The American Heart Association recommends 30 minutes of moderately intense exercise, such as a brisk walk at about 3 mph on a treadmill, five times per week. If the exercise is vigorously intense — comparable to jogging — three times per week for 20 minutes is the recommendation.
Speed Matters When Walking for Fitness
If you're walking for your health, a pace of about 3 miles per hour (or about 120 steps per minute) is about right. That's a 20-minute mile. To walk for weight loss, you'll have to pick up the pace to 4 miles per hour (or 135 steps per minute), a 15-minute mile.
The 12-3-30 workout was coined by 24-year-old social media maven and YouTuber Lauren Giraldo. It consists of setting a treadmill to a 12% incline and walking at 3 miles per hour for 30 minutes. Sounds easy enough. Well, according to hundreds of commenters, it's actually "a lot harder than it seems."
You Don't Work as Many Muscles
You use your quads to push off, but your hamstrings aren't firing as much as they would if you were running outdoors. If you're only running on the treadmill, be sure you're also doing cross-training to work the muscles on the back of your legs, including your hamstrings and glutes.
All you have to do is set your treadmill to an incline of 12 (or a number that feels steep to you), set your speed to 3 miles per hour and walk for 30 minutes.
If you're new to incline walking, a good starting point is setting your treadmill to a 1% incline. This might not seem like much, but even a slight treadmill incline can increase the calorie burn. As your fitness level improves, you can gradually increase the incline to continue challenging your body.
Workout Goal: 10,000 Steps a Day
For instance, a 160 cm tall person walking at 4 mph would take 75 minutes to achieve 10,000 steps, with an average of 134 steps per minute. On the other hand, a 180 cm tall person would take around 80 minutes to attain the same result, with an average step count of 125 steps per minute.
According to a 2018 study published in the journal Obesity, walking 10,000 steps a day is associated with weight loss and weight management. Plus, it's a low-impact exercise, making it accessible for all fitness levels.
The noise from treadmills can be loud, potentially disturbing others if it's not in a gym. The motors, rotating belt, and the noise from you running can all contribute to the noise from a treadmill. Some people find treadmills boring since they provide a limited type of exercise.
The full body workout that you receive from a treadmill not only eliminates body fat it also tones your calves, glutes, hamstrings and even your abdominals. Running on a treadmill won't build bigger muscles but it will tone and create definition in the muscles you already have.
There are 7,700kcals (kcal=calorie) worth of energy in 1kg of fat. That means in order to burn 1kg of fat, you must have a calorie deficit of 7,700.
The bottom line about using a treadmill is that it will burn calories and help you lose weight when used regularly and correctly. There are other benefits to add to that. These include, Improving endurance.
Using the incline on the treadmill effectively burns belly fat, even if it's a 30-minute walking workout at a moderate pace.
Incline your treadmill either at 2 or 4 (whatever you are comfortable with), and walk at the speed of 6km/hr for 30 seconds, then run for a minute at 10km/hr, and then again walk for 30 seconds at the speed of 6 km/hr. Now repeat. You can do 5 to 7 sessions.
Generally, a 20-minute treadmill workout can help you burn the same amount of calories you would in a 50-minute session of continuous training. This is due to the greater afterburn effect of HIIT. Be sure to customize HIIT to meet your fitness goals and incorporate strength training throughout the week.