Treadmill sessions don’t need to be hour-long slogs to have an impact.
Just 10 minutes on the belt can be enough to boost your calorie burn for the day and give your cardiovascular system a quick workout.
“In addition to being a low-impact way to maintain weight and burn calories, studies have shown [walking]’s also effective in improving mood and reducing symptoms of anxiety and depression,” says NASM-certified personal trainer for REP Fitness US, Rosie Borhcert.
She shared a 10-minute treadmill walking workout, which uses a mix of incline and speed to make it challenging.
“This quick treadmill walking workout will get your heart pumping, your blood flowing, and have you ready to tackle the rest of your day,” she says.
10-minute treadmill walking workout
Borchert has suggested pace and incline settings for each of the eight stages in the workout, but you should adjust these to match your ability. Just try to follow the shape of the workout, following the increases and decreases, but not necessarily by the exact amount Borchert has outlined.
“Pump your arms rather than resting them on the treadmill’s handles,” advises Borchert.
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1. Warm-up
Time: 2min Speed: 2mph-3mph Incline: 1%
Begin at an easy pace to gradually warm up your body and gently increase your heart rate.
2. Ramp up
Time: 1min Speed: 3mph-4mph Incline: 4%
Take things up a notch by increasing the speed and incline.
3. Hill work
Time: 1min Speed: 3mph Incline: 8%-10%
Push the incline up, and reduce the speed slightly if you need to. When selecting the incline, keep in mind that section five will ask you to add another 2% incline—make sure you’ve left enough headroom to do that. You should feel like you’re working hard for the minute, but not at your absolute maximum.
4. Recovery
Time: 1min Speed: 3mph-4mph Incline: 4%
Reduce the incline and take the minute to recover, letting your pulse come down.
5. Hill work
Time: 1min Speed: 3mph Incline: 10%-12% incline
Increase the incline, potentially adding another 2% to the incline setting you chose for section three.
6. Recovery
Time: 1min Speed: 3mph-4mph Incline: 4%
Reduce the incline and recover.
7. Speed walk
Time: 2min Speed: 4.5mph Incline: 1%
Reduce the incline even further but pick up the pace.
8. Cool-down
Time: 1min Speed: 2mph Incline: 0%
Don’t skip this part! Give your body the chance to wind down gently from the session.
Lou Mudge is a Health Writer at Future Plc, working across Fit&Well and Coach. She previously worked for Live Science, and regularly writes for Space.com and Pet's Radar. Based in Bath, UK, she has a passion for food, nutrition and health and is eager to demystify diet culture in order to make health and fitness accessible to everybody.
Multiple diagnoses in her early twenties sparked an interest in the gut-brain axis and the impact that diet and exercise can have on both physical and mental health. She was put on the FODMAP elimination diet during this time and learned to adapt recipes to fit these parameters, while retaining core flavors and textures, and now enjoys cooking for gut health.
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