Do you use your treadmill for walking? If so, you may benefit from varying your pace depending on your ultimate fitness goals. In order to monitor your pace, however, you will need to obtain a treadmill that allows you to monitor your Maximum Heart Rate (MHR) so you can make certain you are elevating your heart rate to the proper place.
Building Long Term Health
If you are interested in building long-term health, you should walk 30 minutes each day at a comfortable pace that elevates your heart rate to 50-60% of your MHR.
Burning Fat
If you are trying to burn fat with the help of your treadmill, you should increase the length of your walk to 45 to 60 minutes per day and your heart rate should be elevated to 60-70% of your MHR. For fat-burning results, you should walk at a brisk pace that will create a noticeable change in your breathing while still allowing you to easily carry on a conversation. By engaging in this type of walk for a longer period of time, you will burn calories while also giving your body the opportunity to draw upon its fat stores to use as energy.
Improving Endurance
To increase your endurance, you should walk 5 to 10 miles with your heart rate elevated to 65-80% of your MHR. You should only engage in this type of walk once per week and, if you are training for a marathon, you should train at a distance that is greater than the actual marathon in order to make certain you are properly prepared.
Increasing Aerobic Fitness
If you are interested in increasing your level of aerobic fitness, try walking at 70-80% MHR for 20 to 60 minutes every other day. You can fill in the empty days by doing a long term health walk or a fat-burning walk instead.
Becoming an Athlete
In order to improve your athletic performance, you will need to walk at a pace that puts you at 80-92% MHR. Therefore, you may need to jog in order to achieve this heart rate. In addition, you should not go at this pace for more than 50 minutes at a time and should limit these walks to one to three times per week.
