The treadmill is an excellent tool. I only wish I had one of my own.
I have been doing treadmill workouts, with speed walking, sinc ethe Summer. I have extrememly well defined legs, a more pleasant looseness and flexibility in the hips, and better cardiovascular efficiency.
I start each workout with 5 mins warm up at 4.5 mph.
Then I plunge in and start the intervals. This is the best way to make the treadmill work for you and maximize cardiovascular improvement.
I do 4 intervals of high inclines to start. Inclines each at 15 %, speed at 4.4 or 4.3. If I wish to change it up, I may make the intervals differently: one at incline of 8, speed 5mph. another with incline of 12, speed 4.6 mph. In this way, I am repeatedly taken tothe anaerobic threshold with each interval, but what changes with the different inclines is the way in which it works the muscles, pulling more or less on the glutes.
I may do the interval for 2 mins or for a full quarter mile rotation on the read out. But if listening to music, like maddonna, good for this, I maintain the interval for the full length of the song.
Then, recover after each interval. I reduce incline to 3 or 4, reduce speed or increase speed to around4.5 or 4.6 for 2 or 3 mins recovery that still maintains cardio effect.
After this cycle of intervals, I then do a session for speed work for 2 miles or so: increasing speed to 5.6 mph, incline of 2 or 3%. Then I again reduce speed to 4.6 for a few minutes to recover.
Then I again do another round of intervals with maximum inclines, as before, and it is much more difficult second time around, so play it flexibly depeding upon how tired you are or are not. If you started the first round of incline intervals going down the pyramid (i.e., starting with 15% and gradually working your way dfown to 8%, while increasing speed), then this time work your way up the pyramid (start with incline of 8%, end with the 15%). I have to say, it is easier pyramiding up, then pyramiding down for the second cycle!!
Again, I strive to maintain the interval for the full length of each song. With the last 15% incline interval, if I am flagging, I make this interval a varied one, and gradually reduce the incline to 8% while increasing spoeed for this 3-4 song minutes.
Then, I cool down with a cardio walk, steady state of 4.6 for 5 mins or to complete a mile, depending upon where I am in it.
This usually takes me 70 mins, and is a distance of 6 miles or a little more, depending upon how long the intervals take.
In any walk/run cardiovascualr program, you want to make sure that you include workouts with a variety of focusses. Make sure you have one steady state cardio session, maintaining speed and incline, say for me this would be 5.2 to 5.4 at incline of 3 or 4. Make sure another workout is an interval one, as described above. Intervals, as described, can focus on either speed or increased inclines, for that hiking hard up a hill/mountain feel. Another workout should be a tempo session, maintaining an increased speed for the duration, so your body becomes acclimatized to maintaining speed over increased ditances. For me, this would be the 5.6 mph at incline of 2.
Yu can use these guidelines no matter what your walking speed is. This will inevitably increase your speed and cardiovascular fitness if you strive to gradually increase the inclines in your intervals and the speed of your tempo sessions. I have worked up these speeds since the Summer also. Check out race walking web sites if interested in learning proper technique which will really increase speeds and leg muslce strength!
Treadmills allow for all sorts of different workouts.
Clare
It keeps you going. Here's one little testimonial for you. I was going to do CardioCoach on the road (not the treadmill) and I knew the one I would be using was a 40 minute version, so I chose my 4 mile course, and due to Shawn's pushing, I completed the 4 miles, and CC wasn't over yet, so I had to start over. He pushed to run my miles in less time than I normally push myself.