10 Treadmill Exercises Suitable For Everyone
There are plenty of fun treadmill workouts that are smart and efficient, designed to help you lose weight and build strength, stamina and endurance. Ready to level up? Let’s get to it!
10 at-home treadmill workouts for all fitness levels
These at-home treadmill workouts are designed to help you hit serious goals. If you are exclusively interested in treadmill workouts for beginners, simply adapt the timing, speed and incline suggestions. For the more advanced ones, start at your level and then increase the numbers as you progress.
1. Incline treadmill workout
Let’s start with one of the most popular treadmill exercises — the incline treadmill workout. Training at an incline helps build leg strength while working on your quads, glutes, calves and challenging your breathing.
Here’s how to time your incline treadmill workout:
- 5 minutes: Warm up at a leisurely pace
- 1 minute: Set a 2% incline and increase your pace
- 1 minute: Increase your incline to 4% but hold your pace
- 1 minute: Increase your incline to 6%
- 1 minute: Hit 8% incline
- 2 minutes: Now drop down and return to an incline that helps you maintain an easy pace for recovery.
- 1 minute: Increase pace and incline to 2%
- 1 minute: Hold pace and raise incline to 4%
- 1 minute: Keep a steady pace but raise incline to 6%
- 1 minute: Hit an 8% incline
- 2 minutes: Return to an active recovery pace
- 1 minute: Increase your incline to 2%
- 1 minute: Increase incline to 4%
- 1 minute: Hit 6% incline
- 1 minute: All out at an 8% incline
- 2 minutes: Return to a flat level and a brisk pace
- 5 minutes: Cool down to an easy pace
2. Treadmill workout for beginners
If you are new to the game, here’s a great treadmill workout for beginners. It focuses on switching between a brisk jog to an active recovery pace:
- 5 minutes: Warm up by walking or slowly jogging
- 2 minutes: Hit a brisk pace, whatever that is for you
- 1 minute: Easy walk to recover
- 2 minutes: Add one more speed level to your pace and jog
- 1 minute: Walk again to recover
- 1 minute: Add one level from your last interval. This is your fastest pace for the treadmill workout
- 1 minute: Walk again to recover
- 45 seconds: A final burst at your fastest pace
- 1 minute: Walk to recover
- 5 minutes: Walk or jog to cool down
3. Best 30-minute treadmill workout
If you can commit to taking just 30 minutes of your time and devote it to your fitness every day, you’ll be in fantastic shape in no time.
This is one of the best 30-minute treadmill workouts out there:
- 4 minutes: Walk at a 1% incline and then switch to a jog for 3 minutes
- 13 minutes: Alternate between a run for 1 minute and an all-out sprint for 30 seconds. Repeat this for 8 cycles. Then, cool down with a walk for 1 minute.
- 13 minutes: Begin with a jog for one minute. Then, run at a 1% incline for 30 seconds. Next, increase the incline 2% after each 30-second round until you hit 9%.
- Then, decrease the incline by 2% every 30 seconds until you’re back at 1%.
- Next, go way up to 9% again and run for 30 seconds. Finally, walk at a 1% incline for 1 minute.
4. 10-minute fat-burning treadmill workout
Maybe, before you hit and commit to a 30-minute workout, you want to start things off slower. In that case, a 10-minute fat-burning treadmill workout is perfect for you.
Follow this regimen until you’re ready to switch it up for something longer:
- 1 minute: Hit a speed of 7 with an incline of 2%
- 1.5 minutes: Slow to a speed of 5 at a 0.5% incline
- 1 minute: Increase your speed to 6.8 and a 3% incline
- 1.5 minutes: Head back to a speed of 5 and a 0.5% incline
- 1 minute: Increase the speed to 6.5 and hit a 4% incline
- 1.5 minute: Decrease your speed to 5 and a 0.5% incline
- 1 minute: Hit a speed of 6 and a 5% incline
- 1.5 minute: Head into active recovery with a 5 speed and a 0.5% incline
5. HIIT treadmill workout
You don’t necessarily need to be on a mat for high-intensity interval training workouts. Instead, use the following HIIT treadmill workout to switch between a sprint pace, a recovery and a run pace and get your heart rate going.
Here’s how a simple HIIT treadmill workout goes:
- 5 minutes: Walk or jog to warm up
- 1 minute: A fast pace run, whatever that is for you. It could be a 4, 5, 6, or even a 7 on the speed counter.
- 1 minute: Decrease your speed for an active recovery pace.
- Complete the entire circuit 10 times before a final cool down for 5 minutes.
6. Walking treadmill workout
Who says you can’t get fit doing walking treadmill workouts? Definitely not us. In fact, one of the most popular streaming treadmill workouts began as a TikTok trend called 12-3-30.
Why not try it for yourself? Here is what to do:
- Warm-up with a brisk walk on the treadmill with no incline for 5 minutes
- Next, set the treadmill to a 12% incline and increase the speed to 3.
- Walk this way for 30 minutes.
- Finally, cool down for 5 minutes by bringing the incline back to 0%.
7. Treadmill and strength interval workout
If you’re planning to do a treadmill and strength interval workout, you’ll need to set up two stations — one with your treadmill and one for your strength moves. You can pick any strength moves you’d like, from squats and lunges to presses and kettlebell swings. Mix it up and keep it fun. Here is a circuit for you to follow:
- Start with a dynamic warm-up that includes jumping jacks, hip openers, shoulder pass-throughs and even a side-to-side banded squat walk.
- Next, get on the treadmill for an easy jog of 1 minute.
- Increase your speed by either 1 or 1.5 for another minute.
- Then, sprint for 1 minute.
- Hop off the treadmill and perform your chosen strength moves for 1 minute, each doing as many reps as possible.
This circuit counts as one round. After you’ve completed this, rest for a minute and restart the circuit for a total of 3 rounds.
8. Treadmill core workout
If you think planks and leg raises are the only way to build those abs, think again. Follow this highly effective treadmill core workout to start seeing results:
- Start with a 5-minute warm-up jog.
- Next, turn the incline up to something challenging for you and sprint as hard as you can for 20 seconds.
- As you progress, tighten and squeeze your abs.
- Hit a rest period for 20 seconds by grabbing the handrails and lifting yourself up and out to the side of the treadmill deck.
- Alternate through this cycle of 20 seconds on and 20 seconds rest 10 to 12 times.
- Finish with a 5-minute cooldown jog.
9. Treadmill workout for weight loss
If you want to know how to work out on a treadmill to lose weight, try this treadmill workout for weight loss:
- 3 minutes: Walk at a speed of 3.5 and an incline at 0%.
- 2 minutes: Increase the speed to 4 but hold the incline steady.
- 3 minutes: Reduce back down to 3.5 and increase the incline to 4%.
- 3 minutes: Increase the incline to 6%.
- 2 minutes: Jog at a 4.5 speed and a 4% incline.
- 2 minutes: Walk at a 3.5 speed and 0% incline.
10. Treadmill workout for runners
Treadmill workouts for runners are focused on building speed, stamina and endurance. Use this one if you’re trying to improve your pace and speed:
- 3 minutes: Warm-up drills with high knees, leg swings, and butt kicks.
- 4 minutes: Run at a pace slightly faster than a jog at a 1% incline.
- 90 seconds: Fast pace run at 1% incline, with a 45-second recovery walk/jog.
- 90 seconds: Fast pace run at 2% incline, with a 45-second recovery walk/jog.
- 90 seconds: Fast pace run at 3% incline, with a 45-second recovery walk/jog.
- 2 minutes: Set a 5% incline, run, then follow with a 45-second recovery walk/jog.
- 7 minutes: Same as above.
- Next, set the incline to 4% and run for 2 minutes, 3 minutes, and 4 minutes, following each round with a 45-second recovery walk or jog.
- Finally, set the incline at 3% and perform the 2-3-4 minute runs with a 45-second recovery walk or jog for each.
