The jogging craze of the 70s and 80s didn’t just come around because of clever advertising but because it provided an intuitive, easy-to-use method to stay in shape as our foods became more and more sugar and fat loaded. The increased weight from our new diets skyrocketed the rates of heart attack, stroke and diabetes in the western world. Treadmills are so genius because they take what humans are naturally designed to do and turned into a tool to put us back on the path to healthy living. However, recently, all of the craze has died down and people have begun doubting the effectiveness of these machines. Well, to tell the truth, there are some who gain back the weight right after losing it but that’s because people are not fully invested and give up too easily. If you constantly keep exercising and never give up, you’ll be able to maintain your physique and once again feel good in your own body.
What are the best treadmills for the best price?
If you’re the type to look for good value on your investments, you can look no further than the NordicTrack 6.5S Treadmill. This treadmill is available on Amazon for $789.99 and still packs a lot of punch for its price tag. It features a 22 by 55-inch tread belt, the ability to adjust your incline levels up to 10% to make your running better simulate the outside and finally a fully interactive touchscreen. That fully interactive touchscreen gives you the ability to access any one of 20 built-in workouts that have been designed by a certified personal trainer so that you can attain the goals that you aspire to reach. Do you want to improve your sprinting capabilities or are you the marathon runner type? There’s always going to be an option for you. Some of the treadmill reviews for this product highlighted how intuitive and quiet the treadmill is so that it doesn’t affect anyone or anything else. On top of that, the treadmill reviews repeatedly praise the plugging in of an iPod or any other Mp3 device to listen to your personal playlist while working out and that it really helps them to concentrate. Several other of the treadmill reviews talk about how easy it is to assemble and how they were able to put it together in just 2 hours! However, the best part is that the device is offered with a 30-day free membership to iFit coach which offers thousands of on demand workouts from a virtual studio and with trainers to modify your settings to fit the workouts. A few treadmill reviews highlighted how they had owned the device for a year and have had no issues so far. Finally, if you want to know how your running on the treadmill would translate into you running to somewhere outside, the treadmill can use Google Maps so that you can create your very own custom workout sessions. All of that makes it a great holiday gift which as shown in the treadmill reviews, is delivered very quickly, usually within a 2-week span.
Losing Weight on Treadmills
Yes, you can certainly lose weight on treadmills. As we all well know, losing weight requires us to burn more calories in a certain period of time than we consume. To do that while not going crazy in our running sessions is to figure out for how long and for how long should we be going to achieve the progress we desire. In order to figure out for how long you should be running, it depends on you. If you are just now considering losing weight by using treadmills, it’s safe to say that you are a beginner runner or haven’t run regularly for quite some time. For beginners, it’s recommended to take 20-minute runs at 0% incline about every other day for a month. The one-day break in between workouts is to allow the body to recover so that it’s able to adjust to the stress and come back stronger next time. After a month of this routine, you’re safe to move onto more challenging regimes with longer runtimes and greater inclines.
The second part to losing weight equation is effort. How much force should you be exerting in your 20-minute workouts so that you’re actually making progress. That is a matter of measuring your heart rate. There are two different factors you should focus on for the purpose of losing weight: your maximum heart rate and the fat burning zone which is calculated as a percentage of your maximum heart rate. Your maximum heart rate is the fastest rate at which your heart can beat for it to still be safe. Surpassing the maximum heart rate means that you can be putting yourself at a medical risk. To calculate your maximum heart rate, take your age and subtract that number from 220 for men and 226 for women. For example, if you’re a 22-year-old female, your maximum heart rate will be 204 beats per minute. The fat burning zone for most people is between 75 and 90% of your maximum heart rate. This range is dependant on your working out history so if for instance you are a beginner, your goal should probably be at the lower end of that range while if you are already experienced, your number might be at the higher end of that range. All of this crucial because you don’t want to overwork yourself and get injured or likewise waste your time doing something that won’t give you what you want.
Losing Belly Fat by Walking on Treadmills. Is It Still Effective?
A study by Syracuse University’s Department of Exercise Science showed that running a mile in comparison to walking would burn off an additional 35 calories per mile(1.6km). That might not seem significant but over a period of 10 miles, that turns out to be an additional 350 calories which is quite significant. However, in light of all this, there’s nothing wrong if you have to start out with walking. The hardest part of anything that you will ever do in your life is the beginning. Once you’ve already started down the path of healthy living, you just have to keep going and you’ll eventually get to where you want to go. Of course, you can lose belly fat by walking on treadmills while still in your beginner phase and then transition to faster and faster speeds with greater inclines over time as you get better. As stated before, you shouldn’t overburn/overexert yourself because that might just end up doing more harm than good. If for instance you are a beginner, but your workout is pushing you to 90% of your maximum heart rate, you have to slow down and take it a bit easier. Once you’re capable of running at those speeds and only being at 75% of your maximum heart rate, that’s when you know the time has come for you to transition. With walking, it’s suggested to do 30-minute long workouts and since you’re just brisk walking, it’s okay to go a bit below the fat burning zone of 75-90% and exercise at say, 60-70% of your maximum heart rate. First-time goers at the gym might feel uncomfortable when paired up with everyone else around them but what they fail to realize is that all those people used to be just like them before they got to work.
The Almighty Debate Between Treadmills and Ellipticals
As always when there are two sides to a debate, there will never be a clear winner or loser because each side offers its own unique advantages and drawbacks. Treadmills are the heavy favourite when it comes to race training since they better simulate running outside than do ellipticals. That means that if you’re currently training and planning to transition to running outside in the summer, treadmills are the best option for you. Treadmills are also better for tracking progress since treadmills are quite uniformly designed so a mile on one treadmill will eb pretty much the equivalent of one mile on another. That’s not the case with ellipticals which have greater variations between manufacturers which results in a mile on one machine requiring less work than on another. Finally, treadmills are the solution for you if you’re concerned with how many calories you’re burning. Treadmills are higher impact than ellipticals since you have to take your foot off of the ground to get moving unlike for an elliptical. This means it’s harder to keep going on treadmills than ellipticals which at the same time builds your leg muscles more effectively. However, there’s another side to this story.
Ellipticals are the best choice if you want to get a full-body workout to evenly disperse your efforts instead of only concentrating on one specific section of your body. This particular includes your upper body such as your chest, shoulder, upper back and triceps. These are advantages that you won’t get from treadmills. Another reason to purchase an elliptical over a treadmill is if you have sustained an injury in your legs, then it’s easier to exercise using an elliptical while you fully recover. This is because of the same reason that treadmills burn more calories and build your leg muscles more, you have to lift your legs and therefore use more of your strength and exert more force on your joints to keep yourself moving. The final verdict though is that both can be more effective than the other in terms of achieving your weight reduction goals. If you want to at the same time work out your whole body and save a bit of money, an elliptical is the choice for you, yet if you want to burn off more with each workout and strengthen your legs for running outside in the future, you should buy a treadmill.
