Treadmill running for beginners – 11 tips on how to start running on it

“No more sitting abound. It’s time to change and implement more movement. I’m going to start running on a treadmill!” It’s what you decided? Congratulations! It’s best to start right away, until your enthusiasm passes. If you wait and do not start running on a treadmill right away, then it will be harder to start. 

However, before you do the first step on a treadmill, read the following tips on how to run on a treadmill. Beginners will love it! Start your journey safe and with enthusiasm and willingness. A lot of people think that it’s a very boring activity. It’s not true, and you should prepare your body properly to start using the treadmill. You are wondering about treadmill running for beginners? We have your back! 

Treadmill running for beginners

II. SET YOURSELF A GOAL AND MINOR GOALS

Without this, it will be hard for you to overcome the hardship of training. You won’t be able to push forward. If you don’t know what you want to achieve and at what time, then you are not motivated at all. What is more, the goal is not enough! You have to give yourself a deadline, by which you want to achieve it.  

Do you want to lose belly fat?

Write exactly, that, for example: “I have 4 months to have such and such weight and measurements. 

Do you want to become a REAL sportsman and run the Boston Marathon?

Give yourself a particular deadline, ex. at the end of the year. 

The main goal will be your driving force during your many hours and days of intensive training on a treadmill. However, if you do not give yourself minor goals, and don’t set a path to your goal, you can lose the sense of direction and lose motivation quickly. Small goals will be a guideline for you. They will also help you know if you are going in the right direction. 

For example: 

• You want to be a runner and run a marathon in a year. Set a goal that after a month of initial training, you will run a brisk jog for 40-50 minutes without stopping. In the next month, introduce regular outdoor training, at least once a week. After this, another two, assume that you will run 7-9 km in an hour without rest. 
• If you want to lose 8 kg in 4 months – break your goal into parts. Set a mini goal that after one month of running on a treadmill, you will lose 2 kg, and after the second month another 2 kg. 

Write everything down, break the big goal into small goals, and write what you have to do each month. Thanks to that, you will know what are your achievements and what goals you have managed to meet. You will see what your future, as a runner on a treadmill, will look like, and what, if anything, you have to change. 

II. ALWAYS START WITH A WARM-UP

This is what you should do before running on a treadmill. Running for beginners should be safe and this provides a warm-up. Without a warm-up, do not start running on a treadmill. Even when you see that other people in the gym do something like that – they treat running on a treadmill as a warm-up. It’s not the best way. Even a quick march or job on a treadmill requires warming up your muscles. Marching and jogging are good ideas for the rest of the warm-up, before a long run and when you are already a more advanced runner. 

In this case, you should remember that:

In the beginning, you can do a 5-10 minute warm-up that covers practically most of the muscles. Below, you will find easy exercises and short workouts. You should do them in that order: 

• pulling your head to the left and right shoulder, 
• swings of the left leg, then the right leg to the side,
• head circles, 
• jumping jacks,
• lunge,
• foot circles,
• inward and outward knee circles (put your hands on your knees for this exercise),
• arm exercises (swinging arms), 
• loop the loop back and forth,
• circles of the wrists and elbows,
• circles of the hips to one side and the other,
• bipedal jumps with a twist of the torso (keep hands raised to the side),
• toe clenches,
• light jogging in place.

To these exercises, it is good to add additional mobilization of the Achilles tendon. 

Stand facing a wall at a stride distance. Keep one leg behind and the other in front. Extend your arms in front of you and lean toward the wall, keeping your legs straight. Hold the position a few seconds, then change legs.

III. How to start running on a treadmill? – START WITH A MARCHING

Have you been a couch potato for 20 years?

Your body needs to adapt to the movement, which is a great challenge for it. So our goal is to tame your body, adapting your cardiovascular and respiratory system to the effort. 

How to do it? 

In the first 2-4 weeks, focus on workouts in which you march. During the march, you should cover about 5-10 km. So as you can see this is a lively pace, and you will feel the effort. 

Regular marching is a great way to develop a workout habit. During it, it will be easier for you to focus on maintaining the right posture and practice your breathing rhythm. It will be the basis for the later running. 

March in the right way: 

• be upright, 
• look straight ahead, 
• tighten your abdominal muscles, 
• use your hands. Don’t keep them on the treadmill handles. This way you minimize the effort. Your hand should move normally. By engaging them, you will be able to march and run properly. More muscles will also work, 
• learn to control your breathing and find your rhythm. For example: may you inhale the last 3 steps and exhale another 3. 

NOTE! Treadmills are made for running, and not marching. Marching workouts break them down and wear them out faster. The more expensive commercial machines you find at the gym will be more resistant to such training than those designed for home use. Therefore, if you are planning to exercise on your treadmill at home, your first workouts, which will just consist of marching, are better done at the gym, that way you are saving your equipment. 

IV. GIVE YOURSELF A INCLINE ON A TREADMILL

You are wondering how to start running on a treadmill properly after you start marching? In the field, the surface you walk on is rarely completely flat. If you don’t set the incline on a treadmill, the tread will be just flat. The body should adapt to what is natural. After all, sooner or later you will start running outside. 

This is why you will feel confident in marching (you will not have any problems with breathing and with a proper posture) set the incline on the treadmill to about 1-1,5% This will certainly add to the difficulty, and it will also be your next step for running. 

A 0% incline will allow you to focus completely on proper walking techniques. Once you master the proper technique, add an incline that will better prepare you for workouts done outside. 

V. TRY JOGGING

When you can march continuously for around 50 minutes, start adding running to your workouts as well. Move on from marching to trotting and then to running. Slowly move to a higher and higher level.  

The goal of trotting is to further prepare you in terms of fitness and your body’s capacity for running. During such a trot, you should cover about 7-9 km in an hour. So, as you can see, it’s not just anything! 

For the next 2 weeks, try a workout like this: 

• 4 minutes of march alternately with, 
• 3 minutes of jogging.

At first, your goal is 20 minutes of walking-trotting. If you feel that this is beyond your strength, increase the walking time. Do not force yourself. Be understanding of yourself and your body. You’ll see that with successive workouts you’ll be able to gradually reduce the walking time, and increase the jogging time. Before you know it, you will be able to jog all the time, without rest for 40-50 minutes. 

Once you’ve become a runner, you’ll treat trotting as a warm-up before a long run. Then you’ll see how much you’ve progressed and how far you’ve come.

VI. MEASURE PULSE

Measuring your pulse is easier when training on a treadmill than in the field. Just don’t do it through the touch sensors on the treadmill handles. Doing so puts stress on your muscles, and makes running no ergonomic. Use a chest strap, headphones, or a clip worn on the ear to measure. 

What is the maximum heart rate?

It’s a heart rate that you calculate from the formula below. 

Men’s maximum heart rate → Tmax=202-(0.55 x age)

Women’s maximum heart rate → Tmax=216-(1.09 x age)

What do the different ranges of maximum heart rate mean?

• 50-59% Tmax – it is the heart rate when you are marching. This is to prepare you for jogging or running,  
• 60-69% Tmax – it is the heart rate of the beginner runner during jogging. The goal is to increase your fitness and performance, 
• 70-79% Tmax – it is the heart rate of a runner, who is running at a relaxing pace, that is, in the so-called “first zone”,
• 80-85% Tmax – if you are preparing for a marathon in the future, exercising in this range will help you prepare for a maintain the pace you should have during the competition, 
• 85-100% Tmax – such a heart rate is during intervals or the competition.

You (as a beginner) should focus on the first 3 sections when it comes to heart rate. 

If your goal is to lose weight and burn some calories, then your heart rate should be between 60-80% Tmax. 

Why measure your pulse? 

With this information, you can run in appropriate peace. What is more, you can also be a runner, when it’s raining. How to be a runner. 

With this information, you will be able to run at the correct maximum rate range. By monitoring your maximum heart rate and the interval in which you are exercising, you will determine whether you are doing your running at the right intensity.  

VII.  GO FOR A RUN

After a few weeks of walking, marching, and trotting, it’s time to try running. You don’t have to immediately run for 50 minutes non-stop. You can implement a march run for a start. 

Start with 20-30 minutes of such training: 

• march – 1 minute,
• trot – 3 minutes,
• running – 1 minute.

And just as you did with the trotting, as your strength increases, increase the running time. 

Once you can run continuously at a steady pace for 30-40 minutes, then introduce workouts in which you run fast for a minute at a heart rate of 85-95% Tmax. Interspire this with walking and a 5-minute jog. 

You have become a runner! Congratulations! 

Now take care of other aspects of running as well, such as: exercising your running strength. During the week, do workouts in which you incorporate running uphill. On a treadmill, this is very easy. Just set the incline to 305 degrees, and set for how many meters you want to do a run-up. Start with 20 meters and gradually go up to 50 meters. Repeat each run-up 5 times. 

VIII. TRAIN 3 TIMES A WEEK 

This is a minimum – if you want to see good results. Whether it is losing weight or getting fit. In addition, your body will have plenty of time between workouts to recover. 

IX. SUPPLEMENT YOUR WORKOUTS WITH OTHER EXERCISES.

This is very important. You should strengthen the body, abdominal muscles, and back muscles, and build leg strength. Also, focus on general development exercises.
Running on a treadmill neglects the biceps and thigh muscles somewhat. This is because part of the work of this muscle is taken over by the roller moving backward along with your leg. Therefore, to avoid muscle imbalance, you must take care of this muscle during additional strength exercises.

X. DON’T FORGET ABOUT STRETCHING AND RECOVERY 

Do you know what is very important in training? Recovery and also what you do immediately after the workout. You are warmed up and tired after a workout. You need 5-10 minutes to calm down. This is the time for static stretching and rolling. This will make your muscles more flexible, and prevent or reduce the delayed muscle soreness, which is mistakenly called soreness. 

Regeneration. Your body and muscles must have time to rest. Besides, muscles grow during rest, not during the workout itself. Give them time to rebuild their glycogen stores and repair micro-injures in muscle fibers. 

XI. DO YOUR WORKOUTS OUTSIDE

While at first, you can run all the time only on the treadmill, over time, when you gain the minimum basic fitness needed for exercise, you should do at least one workout a week outside. This is caused, among other things, by the fact that the treadmill works the biceps of the thigh to a lesser extent, the feet work differently, and the body gets a little lazy.

Are you planning to take part in one of the many famous marathons or competitions? 

To properly prepare for the start, all the more you should do your training outside, as close as possible to the field conditions that await you on the course.

And behind, before you sign up for the start you need to know this thing:

It should take about a year for your body to adapt to large efforts and runs where your body will be subjected to significant overload and tremendous exertion.

The treadmill is a great way to start running from complete zero. You can easily control your speed, and heart rate on it, which gives you the right incline, or run completely flat. You can easily adjust it to your fitness level. Therefore, if you have spent many years mainly in a chair, this treadmill will help you safely change that. 

Now you know how to run on a treadmill. Beginners should try running at a low pace and prepare their bodies for more demanding workouts in the future. Put these tips into practice!