High Calorie-Burining Treadmill Workout

Winter blues screwing with your workout routine?? Yeah... me too.  I love to workout and run outside, but the cold weather here in the Northeast has been disastrous to my workout routine.  I have been forced to stick to the stationary bike and treadmill to get my cardio on, and I have NOT been happy about it.  Doesn't it seem like time goes so much slower when you are checking out the same scene for a good half and hour?  You can only look at the same meat head benching triple your body weight for so long.

I decided it was time to switch things up a bit.  I developed a treadmill routine that allows for a mix of speed and incline training that will increase your heart rate and improve your calorie burning efficiency, while simultaneously creating a more "interesting" workout.  Switching up your speed and incline will allow you to burn more calories than just running at the same moderate pace and incline.  Here's the deal:  if you stick to the same pace and incline all the time, your body becomes more efficient at the workout, thus burning less calories.  Think of it this way- your body is in cruise control mode- when you stick to the same pace and incline, you begin to flat line the energy needed to keep going.  When you fluctuate your speed and incline, your body will become less efficient and will burn more calories.  Make sense?

The below workout starts off with a warm-up, works into speed training, followed by a quick cool-down and amps your body back up with incline training.  Lastly, there is a sprint at the end to reach your peak, and slowly decreases in speed to get your heart rate back down at a healthy pace.  This part is crucial because you do not want to just stop, especially after a sprint.  If you do so, you could pass out.  Your heart needs to stay elevated to allow your blood to flow properly. Restricting blood flow can cause a lack of Oxygen to your brain- thus causing you to pass out.

Anyway, follow this routine to switch up your cardio routine.  This workout is for moderate runners.  If you are a beginner, I would suggest decreasing the suggested pace and incline by at least 1/3. The entire routine is 25 minutes and you will probably burn between 175-275 calories.  Enjoy and happy running :-)