The Corey Story

Each week I make sure to do one day of heavy cardio as part of my weight lifting routine. For this workout, I do leg machines, run a few miles on the treadmill and do some stretching afterwards. When using a treadmill, they are a few important rules I follow to ensure that I get a strong workout:

1. Vary speed setting every 60 to 90 seconds - When running in a natural setting, you change pace throughout your jog even if you don’t know it. The average person seems to move a bit quicker in the beginning and slow down towards the end. When jogging on a treadmill, it is important to vary the speed at which you are jogging to mock natural running. I typically vary speeds from 6.3 to 8.3 on the treadmill. I end up running different speeds all throughout my workout and the quick speed switching allows for some interactivity during the workout.
2. Vary incline from 0 to 1 - My girlfriend recently had some training sessions at her local gym and was told by her trainer to never set the incline on a treadmill above 1. The level 1 threshold works your body as hard as an incline of 2 or 3. The only thing inclines above 1 work harder is your knee joints, which is not a good thing. I generally flip between 0.5 and 1 for most of my jog with 1 or 2 minutes spent on 0 incline.
3. Do a cool down when finished - When doing a cardio workout such as this, it is important to have a cool down session when finished. The workout definitely brings your heart rate up, so you want to make sure you finish with some light jogging to get your heart rate back to a normal level.
4. Stretch before and after - It is important to stretch your muscles before and after your jog. It prevents lactic acid build-up and will prevent you from feeling sore the next day. It also helps your body to feel better after a grueling workout.

Follow those rules and you will definitely enjoy your treadmill workout greatly. Hope everyone out there enjoys it as much as I do

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This entry was posted on Thursday, February 7th, 2008 at 6:36 am and is filed under Health/Fitness. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.