Do you want to get fitter faster, burn more calories and noticeably improve your fitness, without having to train for hours? Then interval training on a treadmill is a smart choice. You alternate pace and intensity, continuously challenging your body. That makes it not only effective and efficient, it also stays motivating because you're always working with short blocks.
Whether you're a recreational runner, just starting to run or specifically training towards a better performance, with a good speed schedule you get a lot out of every training.
What is interval training?
Interval training is a training form where you use alternating speed. You combine short, intensive sections with recovery periods at a calm pace.
During the fast intervals your heart rate rises and you demand more from your endurance, while during recovery you let your body drop in intensity again so you can execute the next block strongly again.
You can set up interval training in different ways, for example by time, distance or feeling. Many athletes work with heart rate zones or with an exertion feeling, also called RPE. The idea remains the same: accelerate, slow down, repeat, and thereby progressively stimulate your fitness and fat burning.
Why interval training on the treadmill?
Interval training outside is great, but on a treadmill you have extra control. You determine speed and duration very precisely, so you train goal-oriented and are less dependent on wind, traffic or traffic lights. That helps you to really keep your pace consistent, especially during short, challenging intervals where you would otherwise deviate more quickly.
In addition, you can measure and monitor more easily on a treadmill. Think of tracking pace, time and often also heart rate, so your performance and tracking stay clear. That makes it easier to adjust your training based on progress, or to follow fixed programs and programmable intervals if you like structure.
Benefits of interval training on the treadmill
Interval training is popular because it can support multiple goals simultaneously. It suits athletes who want to improve specifically, but also people who mainly want to train more efficiently in a busy week. Below you'll find the most important benefits.
- Efficient calorie burn: through the variation in intensity you increase your energy expenditure during training, which makes interval training attractive if you want to burn more calories.
- Afterburn effect (EPOC): through the alternation between high and low intensity, your body continues to use energy longer after training to recover, so you can still burn extra calories afterwards.
- Improved fitness: you train your heart and lungs dynamically, making your endurance grow and allowing you to maintain your pace longer.
- Increased fat burning: the combination of intensive blocks and recovery can stimulate your body to use fat as an energy source, especially if you build this up consistently.
- Cardiometabolic benefit: with HIIT and other interval forms you stimulate processes related to your fitness and metabolism, which many athletes experience as a noticeable advantage.
- Personalized settings: you can easily adjust speed, duration and repetitions to your level, from building calmly to training intensively with short sprints.
The interval training schedule for the treadmill from WalkingPad
Do you want to do an effective interval training on the treadmill that's maintainable, and still gives real results? Then this interval training schedule is ideal. You alternate a brisk pace with a calm recovery pace, building your fitness, stimulating your fat burning and keeping your training nicely varied. On a WalkingPad you can easily adjust speed, so you stay tight in your rhythm and make progress step by step.
| Phase | Duration | Pace | Focus |
|---|---|---|---|
| Warming up | 5 minutes | Calm walking or light jogging | Warm up your body and increase heart rate calmly |
| Interval (brisk) | 1 minute | Firm pace, your breathing accelerates | Stimulate fitness and improve pace |
| Recovery (calm) | 2 minutes | Calm pace, you can talk more easily again | Recover and let heart rate drop |
| Repeat interval cycle | 15 to 20 minutes | Repeat 1 minute brisk, 2 minutes calm | Build endurance and train consistently |
| Cooling down | 5 minutes | Calm walking | Cool down and support recovery |
Want to make the schedule heavier? Then you can extend the brisk blocks to 90 seconds, or shorten your recovery to 90 seconds. If you want to start calmly, you can begin with 30 seconds brisk and 90 seconds calm. This way you make interval training on the treadmill accessible, motivating and matching your level.
Common mistakes with interval training on the treadmill
Interval training is effective, but precisely because of the intensity, execution sometimes goes wrong. With small adjustments you make your training safer, more pleasant and often also more result-oriented.
- Starting too hard: if your first interval is immediately maximal, you take the quality out of the rest of your training. Start goal-oriented and build intensity.
- Skipping recovery: the calm part isn't time lost, it ensures your heart rate drops and you can execute the next repetition technically well.
- No warming up or cooling down: starting cold increases the chance of complaints and makes your body less ready for intensive intervals. Calm cool-down supports recovery.
- Doing interval training too often: Interval training is more intensive than calm endurance training. If you do it too often consecutively, your body gets too little time to recover, making you tire faster and your progress may decrease.
Tips for effective interval training
With a few smart adjustments you get even more out of your interval training on the treadmill. These tips help you train safer, recover better and make progress faster.
- Add a light incline: set the incline at 1 to 2 percent to make your training more realistic and just a bit more challenging, without having to run much harder immediately.
- Monitor your heart rate: by monitoring your heart rate you see if you're training in the right intensity zone, this way you prevent staying too calm or going too heavy for too long.
- Drink sufficient water: make sure you're well hydrated before, during and after your training, especially if you train inside or sweat a lot.
- Vary your schedule per week: don't do the same interval schedule every time. For example, alternate a training with short blocks with a training with longer intervals, so your body keeps improving and your progress doesn't stagnate.
Interval training with WalkingPad
Interval training on a treadmill is about alternating speed, smart repetitions and good recovery. You train efficiently, work on improved fitness, support fat burning and you can set up and monitor everything very precisely.
With WalkingPad, interval training also fits perfectly in a busy life, because the treadmills are compact, foldable and designed for home or office, so you move more often accessibly.
Whether you're starting with calm interval training or ready for intensive HIIT, WalkingPad treadmills are perfectly suitable to follow your interval cycles tightly, improve your pace and build your performance step by step.
