You guys. Incline walking is no joke.
My typical cardio machines of choice (at least lately) are the elliptical, rowing machine, or spin bike. I like the treadmill too when I’m in the mood to run (and when my injuries aren’t acting up). However, when I work out at the Waltham branch Y, there’s only one rower and one spin bike available in the cardio room. Last Sunday, neither machine was available, and I had absolutely no desire to hop on the elliptical. Instead, I decided to make up a walking treadmill workout on the spot before hitting the weight room.
Here’s what my walking workout ended up looking like:
Doing this workout was completely humbling. I was hauling some serious you know what on those steeper inclines! I had to hold on at a couple of points, and I honestly felt like I wanted to take the incline off and start running at a flat road to make it easier. Ha!
I really felt this in my legs the next day. I thought it was from increasing the weight on my squats (I’m up to 105 pounds now), but I quickly realized that this incline was the actual culprit. Just goes to show how doing something DIFFERENT can really affect your body.
This workout can certainly be adapted to your own inclines and speeds of choice, just make sure you follow the same pattern of slight incline, moderate incline, and heavy incline. That can be whatever it means to YOU. It also can be done for however long you want… or however many times you want to brave the inclines! 😉
–Let’s chat–Do you ever do walking workouts? What about incline workouts? What is your cardio machine of choice at the gym?
For more cardio machine workouts, check out my cardio page.
I will definitely try this incline workout. You are so right about changing up your routine and what it can do for your muscles/body. Good reminder — and this is perfect for that! Thanks, Athena! 🙂
Let me know how you like it when you try it!
I am going to try this right now.
How did it go?!
Humbling is RIGHT! My treadmill only goes to 12% incline…and still it was the longest minute of my life. I only did it 4x’s through and then did sprint intervals for a break. Nice workout!!!
Glad you got a good sweat!
Humbling is right!!! I only got through it 4x’s and my treadmill only goes to 12% incline…longest minute of my life! Thx!
I love this. Inclines usually scare me, but I think I want to give this one a try. 🙂 Thanks!
Enjoy!
This looks awesome!!!
Thanks, Fiona!
There are times that I really want to get on the treadmill (usually to catch up on some of my DVRed reality TV) and my legs just aren’t up for a run so I walk with an incline. I agree – there are times that you can’t help but grab the handles for a couple seconds. My treadmill goes up to a 30% incline but to go that high I have to hold on so I don’t know how effective it really is.
I think holding on takes away some of the effectiveness, because whenever I realize I’m holding on and then let go, I can feel my abs engage so much more!
I’ve been trying to walk and run at an incline more and it totally changes the workout! There are definitely days where I don’t want to run or do the elliptical, so I usually turn to walking workouts, too!