Each week the Empire Tri Club will feature a Weekly Teadmill Workout that will kick your ass into serious shape. Spice up your treadmill workouts by varying the speed and incline to significantly reduce boredom and give you the most bang for your buck. You don’t need to spend countless hours at the gym to see results. A high intensity 30-minute sweat session can fire up your metabolism and help you burn extra calories for several hours after your workout too!
This week’s workout:
Warm-up: Jog for 5 min, slowly increasing your speed to a 10k race pace.
Main Set: Speed Pyramid
Running Workout
- 2 min – 0% incline – Level 4 (moderate pace)
- 2 min – 0% incline – Level 6 (a little faster – about .5 mph increase)
- 2 min – 4% incline – Level 8-9 (same pace w/ incline)
- 1 min – 0% incline – Level 2 (recover)
- Repeat 2 more times, but bring incline to 5% on 2nd interval & 6% on 3rd interval.
Cool down: 5 minute jog
Description:
- An example of this workout is:
- 2 min @ 6.5 mph, 0% incline
- 2 min @ 7.o mph, 0% incline
- 2 min @ 7.0 mph, 3% incline
- 1 min at @5.0 mph, 0% incline (recovery)
- 2 min @ 6.7 mph, 0% incline
- 2 min @ 7.2 mph, 0% incline
- 2 min @ 7.2 mph, 3% incline
- 1 min at @5.0 mph, 0% incline (recovery)
- 2 min @ 6.9 mph, 0% incline
- 2 min @ 7.4 mph, 0% incline
- 2 min @ 7.4 mph, 3% incline
- 1 min at @5.0 mph, 0% incline (recovery)
- For each set, try and start at a slightly faster pace.
- If you need a little extra recovery time between each interval, take it. You want to bring your heart rate & breathing back under control. Try and limit recovery time to 2 min.
- Repeat as many times as necessary to complete your desired time or distance.
- Level 1: I’m watching TV and eating bon bons
- Level 2: I’m comfortable and could maintain this pace all day long
- Level 3: I’m still comfortable, but am breathing a bit harder
- Level 4: I’m sweating a little, but feel good and can carry on a conversation effortlessly
- Level 5: I’m just above comfortable, am sweating more and can still talk easily
- Level 6: I can still talk, but am slightly breathless
- Level 7: I can still talk, but I don’t really want to. I’m sweating like a pig
- Level 8: I can grunt in response to your questions and can only keep this pace for a short time period
- Level 9: I am probably going to die
- Level 10: I am dead
Perceived Exertion When exercising, it’s important to monitor your intensity to make sure that your pace/effort is appropriate for the workout you’re doing. One way to do that is to use a Perceived Exertion Scale. In general, for most workouts you want to be at around Level 5-6. If you’re doing interval training, you want your recovery to be around a 4-5 and your intensity blasts to be at around 8-9. As you’ll see below, working at a level 10 isn’t recommended for most workouts. For longer, slower workouts, keep your PE at Level 5 or lower.
References: About.com Perceived Exertion Scale
