Incline Walking on the Treadmill
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High-intensity training has gained significant popularity in recent years. You’ll see group classes everywhere, all of which are high-intensity. The appeal of this style of training is that you come away from it feeling like you’ve had a hard workout, and can achieve that in a short amount of time. However, LISS (low-intensity steady state) training and exercise in Zone 2 have many benefits and are often a better option for most people.
This is where incline walking on the treadmill can come in. |
Incline walking on the treadmill
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What is Zone 2 Heart Rate Training?
Zone 2 training is training while keeping your heart rate between 60%-70% of your maximal heart rate. You’ll do this for at least 30 minutes at a time. This will feel painfully slow for most people, and people will often feel like it’s too easy, but there are many benefits to training in this zone.
What are the benefits of LISS and training in Zone 2?
Zone 2 training is training while keeping your heart rate between 60%-70% of your maximal heart rate. You’ll do this for at least 30 minutes at a time. This will feel painfully slow for most people, and people will often feel like it’s too easy, but there are many benefits to training in this zone.
- Zone 1: Very Light - 50-60% HR max
- Zone 2: Light - 60-70% HR max
- Zone 3: Moderate - 70-80% HR max
- Zone 4: Hard - 80-90% HR max
- Zone 5: Very Hard - 90-100% HR max
What are the benefits of LISS and training in Zone 2?
- Increase in the number of mitochondria and their efficiency
- Lowers your resting heart rate
- Decreases your blood pressure
- Lower risk of injury
- Improves insulin resistance
- Improves your ability to train for longer by improving your aerobic base
- Helps with recovery
- Improve your resilience and ability to deal with an increasing load.
- Improve your Zone 4,5 function/performance
Why do I recommend incline walking?
- It adds very little extra training stress: Unlike HIIT, or high-impact LISS such as running, incline walking adds little stress to the body. If you’re lifting weights, and you should be, doing HIIT or long-distance running while fitting in 2-4 strength workouts in a week can be very hard to recover from. It’s not unusual for your squat strength to go down if your running mileage is high. However, I could do incline walking for an hour every day, and it would still not affect my strength sessions at all, while I still get all the benefits of training in Zone 2 heart rate.
- Anyone can do it: Anyone can do it, as it can be adjusted for all fitness levels. If you’re unfit, you can start at a low incline and slow speed to ensure your heart rate stays between 60%-70%. It’s easy to adjust even if you’re in good shape and want to train in a higher zone than zone 2. Just raise the incline and up the speed.
- It’s low impact, and so is easier on your joints: Walking is very easy on your joints, making it a good option for everyone. I’ve had older clients who were obese do incline walking regularly without any issues. It has a very low risk of injury.
- It will increase your work capacity: You’ll find that you’ll soon be less gassed during sets, and you’ll recover quicker between sets and workouts. Lifting weights is important, but you should do some cardio for your everyday quality of life and your training. I’ve seen high-level lifters struggle to walk up the stairs without being out of breath.
- Helps with recovery from training and stress relief: Suffering from DOMS after a hard session? You might be thinking that sitting around and resting is the best thing to do, but you’ll be much better off moving and doing some low-intensity exercise. The increased blood flow will help, and you’ll feel much less sore than before. Walking is a great stress reliever. You’ll almost certainly feel better and more positive after a long walk.
- You can do other things while walking to pass the time: A lot of people find cardio boring. Incline walking is so simple, and if you’re training in Zone 2 heart rate is easy enough that you can do other stuff while walking. I can zone out and watch a TV show, listen to a podcast, listen to music, watch several YouTube videos, can even reply to work emails and text messages. Just now, I finished a 50-minute walk where I watched a bunch of YouTube videos and then replied to a couple of emails. The time was up before I realised, and it didn’t even feel like I was exercising.
- It's simple to do: It doesn't require any explanation. The one mistake that many make is to hold on to the handles. Holding onto the handles defeats the point of walking on an incline and makes it easier.
What are the disadvantages of incline walking?
- It’s time-consuming: This is one area where HIIT has incline walking beat. You don't have to pick one or the other if you can do incline work when time allows and HIIT when you're short on time.
- Monotony: For some people, it will be very boring, and time can drag. As mentioned above, you can do other things while walking, such as listening to music or podcasts, or watching TV/film. This can help solve this.
- It doesn't build muscle or strength: This isn't really a disadvantage, as building muscle and strength isn't the reason you do incline walking, but I've read so many articles that claim it builds and strengthens the glutes, hamstrings, quads, and calves that I wanted to include this. Apart from maybe in rare cases, it won't be enough to do either build strength or build muscle.
How to measure progress?
Try increasing the incline or the speed at which you’re walking while still in the same heart rate zone.
This is an easy way to monitor progress and show you’re getting fitter.
This is an easy way to monitor progress and show you’re getting fitter.
Give it a go and see if finding other things while walking makes doing cardio more enjoyable and if you're more likely to stick with it.
If you do stick with it and do it consistently, you'll feel the benefits
If you do stick with it and do it consistently, you'll feel the benefits