Interval training on treadmill????

[gr8kids]

Is there anyone out there who has had good results from doing interval training on a treadmill? At the moment I'm doing pilates once a week and interval for 20 minutes on a treadmill 4 times a week. Have only just started this. Does it really help you lose weight and tone your legs?

Yes, great for improving fitness and burning fat - apparently interval training triggers your body to increase its metabolic rate even after you stop exercising (for 48hrs, unfortunately not indefinitely!) Something to do with the fight or flight responses in your body - so if you were a cavewoman having to run from a sabretoothed tiger every so often your body becomes primed for that ? Whatever - IMO it works.

There are 2 good interval training programmes for treadmill in this new magazine - may also be available on the website, I haven't looked through it yet. Have a look www.womensrunninguk.co.uk

Thanks I'll have a look

Anyone else please??

If you want to lose fat, then you really should be doing Resistance training, manageable weights high reps. Regular Cardio is good, but if you do too much your muscle fibre tends to breakdown and the fat remains behind.

bump

yes but you need to make the intervals challenging enough. you need to be at the top of your cardio capacity for the 'slower' interval and go into anaerobic for the 'fast' interval.

these are the times i do with warmup currently 6kmph, cardio 12kmph and anaerobic 14 kmph...they need to be challenging enough that you can't complete them on the first few attempts then once you are achieving them with relative comfort make them harder again.

4 mins warm up
4 mins cardio interval
1 min anaerobic interval
4 mins cardio
1 min anaerobic
4 mins cardio
4 mins cool down

Thanks kepler I'll give that a go. How long have you been doing it and have you seen any results? Or what was the reason you choose to do interval training?

i've been interval training for a couple of months now. started on bike and now on treadmill. it was suggested to me by a trainer at the gym. i wanted to lose a bit of weight and generally get more fit. i've lost about 3kg (also been doing weights and stuff) but didn't have much to lose really -was more fitness i wanted. another 2 kilos and i'll be at my target weight.

the good thing is it doesn't take that long to do for the results you get.

Thanks kepler I'll be in the gym first thing tomorrow. It must just be me but I already feel better for it. My body feels toned and I have soo much more energy.

bump

I did internal training on treadmill yesterday, started off jogging at 8.5km an hour, then after one minute put it up to 13km an hour for a minute, then back to 8.5km for a minute, then kept speed the same with an 6.5% incline for a minute etc, kept on repeating for 15 minutes. But I also do lots of other things in gym so can't isolate the benefits of this. Was totally knackered at end if that counts?