Treadmill Programs that Personal Trainers Use

Here are the basic treadmill programmes that personal trainer use to get you fit.  If you’re not sure how to set up the programmes ask a personal trainer at your gym.

Fitness Test: Your personal trainer may get you to do a fitness test program when you start with him/her to asses your level of fitness. The treadmill will keep making the test progressively harder by increasing the speed of the belt, increasing the elevation or both.  This is a program that everyone should do every 3-4 months to track their fitness and ensure they are getting fitter. Your personal trainer should do regular fitness test to measure your improvement.

Fat Loss:  Fat loss program is designed to get you body working in its optimal "fat burning zone" (65% of you predicted maximum heart rate) this is normally calculated on treadmill by measuring you age, weight and heart rate. So at the beginning when you are setting up the program make sure your personal trainer enters these details correctly or the program may not work properly! Personal trainers use Fat Loss programs for anyone looking to lose a significant amount of weight.

Intervals: Interval programs are designed to give you a short intense burst of exercise followed by a short rest.  For example the treadmill will take the speed up to a fast run/sprint for 1-2 minutes and then drop the speed back down to a fast walk/slow jog for 30 secs-1 minute to allow you to recover. The process will then repeat itself.  You will often see personal trainers training people using intervals who play sports that involve lots of short bursts of energy over a prolonged period such as football, rugby, hockey etc.

Hills: Get your personal trainer to put you on a Hill program, it is similar to intervals because they give you a more intense burst of exercise for a given period of time, but rather than the treadmill belt moving faster the elevation will increase giving you a bigger gradient to run against. Personal trainers use Hill programs for people who do a lot of outdoor distance running as this program mimics the effect of running up all the hills you would encounter outdoors.