I don’t know about you but I can’t just straight-up walk or run on a treadmill because it is BORING! So, I designed this 30 minute + 5 minute cooldown uphill, walking only treadmill workout.

That’s right, I said walking only! 

However, don’t let that fool you, it is a kick-ass cardio workout because you are walking uphill, at a steep incline, for a long time.

Here’s what you do:

First determine what the steepest incline is on the treadmill you are using. Most treadmills, including my LifeFitness treadmill, use a 1-15% incline option. So note that is what the workout/numbers below indicate.

Set the treadmill for Manual Mode, put in your weight, and choose 0.0 for the incline and 3.5 for the speed. Push Start.

Below is a chart showing when to up the incline and the speed. It also shows my heartrate at certain points and the calories burned when I did the workout the other day. (Both heart rate and calories burned are for the beginning of the time period) Note that calories burned depends on your weight,  and also that treadmills are not known for being accurate, so use the calories burned as an estimate. The speed shown below is for when you doing this workout for the first time. As you get better, you can work your way up a max speed of 4.0 or 4.1. But remember, keep it at maximum a fast walk, no running.

If you look at the chart carefully, you will see that at the 22 minute mark my heartrate actually starting going down as my body adjusted and got more warmed up. This is when you want to up the speed. Note that by the 24 minute mark after I upped the speed to 3.7 my heart rate is back up to 151.

 Remember this is made for walking only, not running! Good Luck!

Click here to print out the workout above with blank spaces for heart rate and calories.