Last Updated 3 years ago
HIIT (which stands for high-intensity interval training) involves alternating sets of high-intensity exercise and rest. HIIT workouts are an effective way of burning calories and body fat in a shorter amount of time.
They’re also a great way to break up the monotony of a steady-paced, long-distance run.
Your heart rate increases significantly, which leads to increased calorie burn (especially from fat), improved endurance, maintenance of lean muscle mass and increased metabolism.
Not only does HIIT burn major calories but it also produces an after burn in which your metabolism remains elevated for a little longer than normal after the workout.
See if you can incorporate HIIT workouts on the treadmill into your weekly exercise routine and you’ll soon see the great benefits of these hard and fast workouts.
Before you go ploughing in though, be sure to assess your current fitness level. Not everyone will be at a level where they can smash out multiple periods of high intensity exercise.
If you’re not quite there yet, or are recovering from an injury, then try building up with walking and jogging, then throwing in the occasional run before moving on to sprints.
When you’re first getting set up it can take a little experimenting to find the right settings. Aim to find a setting on your treadmill (or at the gym) that you can sustain for no more than one minute.
For HIIT newbies this may be a 8kmh/5mph jog with no incline.
At the end of those 60 seconds you should be breathless and needing to slow things right down. This is your high-intensity setting.
To find your rest interval or ‘easy’ setting, drop down to around half of your high-intensity speed. Generally your recovery intervals will be the same as your warmup effort.
Another useful rule of thumb is that the recovery interval speed should be 4-5 kmh (circa 3mph) less than the speed needed for your work interval.
At this speed you should be able to get your breath back within a minute and be rearing to go again after two.
A widely-used gauge for HIIT workouts is the Rate of Perceived Exertion scale (RPE). An RPE of 1 means very easy, while an RPE of 9-10 means you’re out of breath, cannot speak and can hardly continue.
Beginner work intervals should be around a six or a seven out of 10 and athletes can shoot for an RPE of up to 10.
Any format in which you work extra hard for short, high-intensity bursts and then rest in between will do the trick. But to get you started we’ve got some example workouts down below.
Just remember to warm up first, stretch to decrease your risk of injury and aim to bring your heart rate up to about 70 to 85 percent of your max during the intense bursts.
Your high-intensity intervals on a treadmill can be with a higher incline, a faster pace or a combination of the two. For ease we would recommend keeping the incline at zero and changing the speed when you’re just starting out.
The most common type of HIIT workout on a treadmill is sprints. This simply involves alternating between jogging and sprinting to get your heart rate elevated and help burn calories.
Beginner’s jog/sprint HIIT:
- Warm up with five minutes of light walking or jogging.
- 30-second intensity interval at 70% of your maximum running speed/effort.
- Two-minute rest interval, jogging or walking at a decreased pace.
- 30-second intensity interval at 80% of your maximum running speed/effort.
- Two-minute rest interval, jogging or walking at a decreased pace.
- 30-second intensity interval at 90% of your maximum running speed/effort.
- Two-minute rest interval, jogging or walking at a decreased pace.
- 30-second intensity interval at 100% of your maximum running speed/effort.
- Two-minute rest interval, jogging or walking at a decreased pace.
- Cool down with five minutes of walking or jogging.
Sprint HIIT for athletes:
- Complete a 10-minute warmup. It is important to do this in full before moving into sprints. If desired, in the last few minutes of your warm-up, you can do one or two cycles of increasing the speed for a minute but still working below your maximum level.
- One-minute interval of running at your maximum setting.
- Two minutes of recovery at your warmup setting.
- Aim for five to eight cycles, up to 25 minutes.
- Cool down by jogging for five minutes at an easy pace.
Some people may choose to move to intervals of one minute on, one minute off.
The other option is to do a HIIT workout with a changing incline. In addition to alternating between jogging and sprinting, you might opt for a workout that incorporates higher inclines.
The bonus of doing a HIIT workout that changes incline as well as speed is that it uses 10% more of your leg muscles, helping to burn more calories and even increasing muscle mass.
HIIT with an incline
- Once again – start with a warm-up. Briskly walk on the treadmill with the incline set to 2.0. Walk at this pace for three to five minutes (or longer if needed to get your muscles warmed up).
- Increase speed to a moderate jog and raise the incline to 3.0.
- Jog for two minutes at this pace, aiming for a 5/10 exertion.
- Raise the incline to 5.0–6.0 as you increase your speed to a fast jog. Jog at this increased incline for one minute.
- Reduce the incline back to 3.0 and reduce your speed to a moderate jog and continue for another two minutes.
- Repeat this cycle seven times for a 21 minute workout.
- As before, cool down with a brisk walk on a totally flat incline for five minutes.
Note that you shouldn’t go beyond a fast jog/run. Sprinting on a steep incline can cause poor posture and form and will lead to accidents or injuries.
Many treadmills have HIIT available as a pre-programmed workout, allowing users to simply adjust the intensity for the work interval to match their own abilities.
Depending on how serious you want to get with your training you may consider purchasing a heart rate monitor.
Using your heart rate to gauge the intensity of your exercise as you get fitter is a great way (and significantly more accurate than your RPE) to make sure you’re pushing yourself hard enough and dropping the speed/incline low enough during rest intervals.
There are a variety of heart rate monitors available (including the ones that are built into the handles of treadmills).
You can have a smart watch or a band that you wear around your chest, most of which can be synced up with the running machine for real-time info.
That said, you will only be able to reap the benefits if you know your target heart rate zone and maximum heart rate.
During the rest intervals or moderate-intensity bouts of a HIIT workout, your heart rate should fall on the lower end of the target zone.
When you’re going flat out in the high-intensity bouts you should be at the higher end of your target heart rate zone.
And as a final note – as amazing as HIIT workouts are, you should only do one or two days of HIIT each week.
Sustained moderate aerobic exercise (typical cardio workouts like swimming, cycling, running, cross-training, etc.) improves endurance, has better and quicker muscle recovery, maintains lean muscle mass and also has a higher likelihood you’ll stick with it long-term.
Building in too many HIIT workouts will leave your body fatigued and over worked.