Everyone gets bored with their treadmill workouts eventually. It has nothing to do with your drive or determination. It’s simply a sad truth about exercise. Variety is the key to making a typical treadmill workout more engaging and much less boring. So here are 8 ways you can spice things up on the treadmill to banish boredom.
Treadmill Moves For Strength
Cardio exercise like running is very taxing on the cardiovascular system. Your blood is pumping, your lunges are heaving, and together they’re working to supply your body with the right tools to endure bursts of physical activity. But strength and muscles are also elements that can be built with a treadmill. For all of these movements, you’ll want to set your treadmill to a very low speed (0.5-1.0 mph).
- Inclined side shuffle
- Squat Jumps
- Walking lunge to glute raise/kickback
- Side squat walk
Treadmill Moves For Running Agility
Running drills are a great mode of training for any runner or athlete. The purpose of these running drills is to train your body to engage the best form when running but they’ll also come in handy when you’re facing treadmill boredom. These drills focus on foot placement being directly under the center of mass (your body) to avoid overstriding. They also help you to reduce ground contact time. You can view these drills (and more) in the video below.
- Skip A/High Skipping
- Skip B/High Skipping with leg extension
- Butt Kicks 1
- Butt Kicks 2
Combine your running workouts with floor training
Using the treadmill can be worked into any training routine. Instead of focusing a large chunk of time on treadmill cardio, work it into interval training with floor workouts. (Incline levels and speed are not specified in these workouts. Adjust the incline and speed to your level of ability).
Interval 1
- 1-minute pushups (floor)
- 20s hill sprints (treadmill)
- 10s active rest
- 1-minute squat jumps (floor)
- 20s hill sprints (treadmill)
- 10s active rest
- 1-minute alternating side lunges(floor)
- 20s hill sprints (treadmill)
- 10s active rest
- 1-minute plank (floor)
- 20s hill sprints (treadmill)
- 10s active rest
- 1-minute situps (floor)
- 20s hill sprints (treadmill)
- 10s active rest
- Repeat x2
Interval 2
- 40s incline run
- 20s active rest
- 40s burpees
- 20s active rest
- 40s jump rope
- 20s active rest
- 40s incline run
- 20s active rest
- 40s ski jumps
- 20s active rest
- Repeat x2
