More Than Walking: Alternative Treadmill Workouts

Alternative Treadmill Workouts

We hope you all are staying active, healthy, and safe during these difficult times! Check out this article on some unconventional and safe ways to utilize your treadmills.

Treadmill workouts to try today

Many people think that treadmills are solely for running, but I’m here to tell you that they can be used for a lot more than just that.

Below are some unique treadmill workouts and exercises.

Core work

For this exercise stand on the treadmill facing away from the controls.

Grab the handrails with each hand. Using your core, lift yourself up so that your body and legs are hanging slightly above the treadmill.

Bring your knees to your chest while continuing to hold yourself up. If you need to come down in between reps that’s totally fine.

More Than Walking Alternative Treadmill Workouts Try TodayAlso, if you are not able to lift yourself up at this time, you can totally lift one knee to your chest at a time until your core is strong enough to lift yourself up.

For obliques, you can lift your legs on a diagonal across the body in each direction.

A modification of this oblique exercise would be to lift one knee at a time diagonally across the body.

Tubewalking

Have the side of your body facing the controls of the treadmill. You can do this exercise on an incline if you wish and if it’s safe for you to do so.

Start the treadmill at a very slow walking pace. Feel free to increase speed as needed. However, remaining at a walking pace is totally fine too.

Squat low and take lateral steps while remaining in the squat position. This can be done for reps or time.

For higher-level folks, this can be done as a plyometric (which would mean increasing the speed of the treadmill).

Pike-Up

This is a more advanced move. Place your feet on the treadmill and go into a high plank (the type of plank where your hands are on the floor or mat).

Using your lower abdominals, drag the belt of the treadmill towards you. Your body should land in an inverted V formation.

After this, place the feet back into a high plank position and repeat the exercise.

HIIT Treadmill Workout

Another way to make the treadmill exciting is to play with time and incline. My go-to HIIT treadmill workout follows a 30-60-90-60-30 pattern.

This can be done at a sprint, run, jog, or walk. Please assess what is going to be best for you.

For example:

  • 30-second run
  • 30-second recovery
  • 60-second run
  • 30-second recovery
  • 90-second run
  • 30-second recovery
  • 60-second run
  • 30-second recovery
  • 30-second run

Make sure you give yourself enough time to recover as well as an adequate warm-up period (before attempting this workout) and cool down (after completing this workout).

You can modify the time working and recovering. You can increase or decrease the speed and/or incline as well.

This workout should be challenging, but you should not feel completely out of energy or breath by the end of it.

Wrap-Up

I hope this has redefined the treadmill for you! Please feel free to reach out with any questions (alexismallery121@gmail.com).

As always thanks for reading and stay tuned!