Treadmill Workout
Flexible Indoor Exercise Machine
Treadmills offer an ideal way to burn calories,
reduce weight, and strengthen the cardiovascular system. A typical treadmill
permits a variety of walking, jogging or running workouts, and exercise
intensity can be easily varied by adjusting speed or incline. Treadmill
walking works the glutes, quadriceps, hamstrings and calf muscles, while
jogging or power-walking also works the upper body. But how effective
is a treadmill compared to other indoor exercise apparatus?
A Treadmill Workout Burns More Calories
According to research, a treadmill is the
best type of gym exercise equipment for calorie burning. A treadmill fitness
routine is more aerobic and more effective for fat loss than stationary
bicycles, stair machines, rowing devices, and cross-country ski machines
by a significant margin.
Treadmill Fitness Research
The study into treadmills and other fitness
apparatus, published in the Journal of the American Medical Association,
involved eight men and five women who completed exercise tests on a treadmill,
a stair stepper, a rowing ergometer, a cross country ski machine, a regular
exercise bike, and a dual-action exercise bicycle equipped with moveable
handlebars. Subjects were about 30 years old, fairly lean, and moderately
fit (with average VO2max - oxygen intake - of about 50 ml/ kg.min).
Treadmill Walking/Jogging Provides Good
Calorie-Burning
The test results indicated that running or
walking on a treadmill offers a more effective cardiovascular and fat-burning
workout than several other indoor exercise devices.
- Exercising on the treadmill produced much
higher rates of calorie burning. At high resistance levels, treadmill
walking/running burned about 850 calories per hour, compared with around
700 calories/hour for the stair stepper, rowing ergometer, and dual-action
bike. The cross country ski machine clocked 650 calories/hour, while
the regular stationary bike averaged about 600 calories.
- At 'reasonably hard' resistance levels,
treadmill walking/jogging expended 700 calories per hour, while stair
stepping averaged 627, rowing 606, skiing 595, dual-action cycling 509,
and regular biking 498.
- At 'fairly light' resistance levels, the
treadmill workout used up 550 calories per hour, compared with 500 on
the stair machine, rower, and ski device - and 350-380 on the two bikes.
Why Treadmills Offer More Effective Exercise
Workouts
One reason why treadmill training is more
effective, is because walking and jogging are very familiar types of exercise
- more so than (say) stepping, cycling or skiing.
All the Exercise Equipment Helped to Burn
Calories
Even though the treadmill came out on top,
the exercise tests showed that all the gym machines offered significant
levels of calorie expenditure, and consequent cardio benefits.
Source:
Energy Expenditure with Indoor Exercise Machines: Journal of the American
Medical Association, vol. 275(18), pp. 1424-1427, 1996).
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