How To Use A Treadmill Correctly | GTN'S Guide For Beginners

Treadmills can seem a little bit daunting, especially if you go into a gym and they’re all lined up in a row, and there’s people pounding away on them. But don’t worry, we’re here to help and we’re going to guide you through using a treadmill for the first time.

Before you get started, it’s important to come prepared. So, make sure you bring some water ’cause it does get pretty hot, and if you want your phone or your headphones, there’s a pocket on the treadmill to place them. Also, if you’re running indoors, you’re gonna naturally get hotter, so make sure you’ve got less layers on than you have if you’re outside. And with that in mind, it’s quite often a good idea to bring a towel just to mop up any extra sweat. A lot of treadmills will actually have their own headphone port so you can listen to the TVs or the music. Or otherwise, you can just use your own and then pop it down in front of you. All of this will help the time go that much quicker.

Before you start, you do actually need to know how to stop. This button here is vital if you’ve got an emergency or you suddenly want to get off, then if you hit this, the treadmill will slow down and then eventually stop. And another safety measure is this little clip here. You can just clip this onto your clothes if you’re a little unsure of using a treadmill for the first time. And then when you’re running, if you do go too far back or you fall off, it’ll pull this button and that also will stop the treadmill.

Most treadmills actually have a heart rate capability. You can see this one here. So if I did have my Polar heart rate belt on when I’m running, I would see my heart rate on the screen, and if you don’t have a heart rate belt you can use these little pieces here. They’re not as accurate, and I wouldn’t recommend using them whilst running, but if you’re doing intervals, or you want to just step off, you can pop your hands on here and you get a rough idea of your heart rate.

Well, we’re ready to get started. And every treadmill can be a little bit different, so just familiarise yourself, but pretty much all treadmills will have a quick start button. So I’m just gonna press that. It turned it on, and then to start moving, I need to increase the speed just a little bit. Nice and slow to start with so you’ve got a little bit of movement, and then you can add in the incline. Now, as a rule of thumb, it’s good to have a 1% incline as that roughly replicates the same amount of effort as if you were running on the flat outdoors, ’cause obviously inside you don’t have the wind resistance.

The next step is to increase your pace, and the best way to do this is gradually using your arrows on your treadmill, so just slowly start to move the numbers up. There is a bit of a lag, so don’t get too carried away as you’ll suddenly find yourself sprinting without realising. But when you’re comfortable with that, move it up to a fast walk until eventually, eventually, you have to start into a jog.

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Categorised in: Treadmill Workouts