Episode 249 – How to More Effectively Burn Fat Running on a Treadmill
Posted on March 13, 2017
It’s no secret that most people would like to lose fat, unfortunately many people go about it in an ineffective way, what I mean by that is that most people, who want to lose fat take the first step of walking or running on a treadmill at the gym for 30 minutes to an hour at a time doing low steady state cardio. Which isn’t necessarily wrong you will burn some calories and fat and there are lots of other health benefits associated with low steady-state cardiovascular activity and it is definitely, definitely better than doing nothing, but if you want to burn a lot of calories and a lot of fat you’ll have to increase the intensity of that cardiovascular style training.I personally think the treadmill is best but it can still be any piece of equipment, a bike an elliptical, the rower, the stairmaster, whatever it is it doesn’t matter what’s important is that you follow a few of the following strategies.
These strategies are incredibly simple but they’re not easy, they will require some willpower and more effort than most people are used to in that moment you’re doing the actual training.
Which brings us to the first strategy – you have to keep the intensity up, about 75% of the time. If you’re running for distance like 5 or 10 km, it needs to be race pace most of the time, where you give it your all and when you’re done you know you can’t go any further. If you’re doing interval training it has to be sprinting and walking, not jogging and walking, that being said if jogging feels like sprinting to you that’s close enough and you start there. I do have a couple of disclaimers here if you’re just starting out and walking is where you feel you need to start, start there, there’s nothing wrong with that, it’s where most people start. The other disclaimer is that this is not the best way to train for a race, if you’re training for a race more things need to be taken into consideration. I’m talking specifically about fat loss for this one.
This next strategy is closely linked to the intensity and that is you should have resistance, if you’re running on a treadmill that means you need to have an incline. Having an incline helps your muscles work harder and harder working muscles means more muscle development and more muscle development means more calories burned, which means more fat is being burned.
The final strategy I have for you today is that there has to be variety in your program, if you’re constantly doing the same thing your body will adapt to that and at some point that style of training won’t be as effective. If you would like to test this out the next time you’re doing a treadmill run try something different, if you put the incline up way high, but hold onto the handles or the front of the machine, try walking or running without holding on, if you normally walk without the incline, jack it up a couple of levels and you’ll notice it in your legs the next day, if you’ve never done sprints try it, if you usually go for 30 minutes and get 5k done in those 30 minutes try to go 5.2k in 30 minutes instead, it’s only about .5 km/hr faster which is substantial, but not crazy. There are all sorts of different ways to add variety into your treadmill workouts, don’t be shy, just dedicate yourself to the experiment of trying new things and see what you can do, I think you’ll be surprised at not only how different variation makes you feel, but you’ll also see and better yet feel that you’re capable ot a lot more than you realize.
Now are these three strategies for burning fat hard and fast rules, no. But they are very effective tools and strategies to burn more calories in 20 or 30 minutes then you would burn doing one hour of steady-state, low intensity cardiovascular training, which as far as I can tell is what most people do. If you really want to burn fat, 75% of the time you need to increase the intensity of your workouts to an uncomfortable level, get that treadmill on at least some of an incline no matter what type of day it is and don’t be afraid to put a little variety into your workouts, it’s not only the spice of life it’s the spice of your workouts too.
If you enjoyed this episode or found it useful please take a minute to leave us a review, leaving a review helps other people just like you to find us and we’re on a mission to help as many people as possible live longer happier and healthier lives and we need your help to get the message out.
