How Long Should You Run On a Treadmill?

If you have found yourself asking this question, you are not alone. And as simple and obvious as it sounds, it is a vital and wise question.

But before we get to answering this, we need to sanitize this question.

Are you wondering about the right duration of time to be running on a treadmill, is it the distance (or) is it the right intensity?

To answer how long you should ideally be exercising yourself on a treadmill, we need to consider three things-

1. Your goal
2. Your current fitness level
3. Your age and physical framework

Let us first analyze the goal. The majority of people are used to looking at a treadmill as weight-loss equipment, which is not correct way to look at it.

Treadmill For Fat and Weight Loss

Considering that you want to lose weight, the crux is to burn more calories than you consume in a day. Hence you need to make sure that each day you’re hitting your caloric deficit.

Usually, in order to lose weight, an average of 20-30 minutes of high-intensity interval training is recommended.

• Here you play around with your heart rate, taking it to its maximum excretion, giving it the time to settle, and then elevating again.
• 1 minute of sprinting, followed by 2 minutes of walk that slowly escalates to 1 minute of job and then again a minute of the sprint.
• Continuing this cycle for 5-6 times makes up for 25-30 minutes of cardio, ideal for weight loss.
• At the same time, if you are a complete beginner with no prior experience in running, you might want to follow the same circuit but with longer breaks in between.

Conclusion: Running alone on a treadmill can help you lose weight but overdoing cardio isn’t gonna be much help because over the period your basal metabolic rate can slow down. Hence it is advised to combine 20-25 mins of cardio with aerobic exercises.

Treadmill For Endurance and Stamina

What a beautiful goal to have. Usually, when people are done reaching their weight loss after working out consistently, they fall in love with fitness. Their focus shifts from immediate results to a bigger fitness picture like endurance, agility, stamina, and ease.

Endurance in this context is your body’s ability to endure a circumstance, which in this case is running and stamina is your body’s ability to go on for longer periods of time running without losing your posture, speed, or breath.

These definitions are subject to perceptions, but generally, they stand true.

If you are aiming for endurance and stability, I would assume that you are at least an intermediate runner who only needs to escalate their performance.

Try to run for about 45 minutes.

The catch here is not to accelerate or play around with your pace and intensity. Find a sweet-speed that works for you where your heart rate is increasing, but your posture is maintained and doesn’t cause discomfort.

Conclusion: If your goal is endurance, 40-50 minutes of the consistent pace of running on treadmill would really work. Again you can add some sort of resistance training along with cardio.

Treadmill For Marathon And More

• If you are training for a Marathon, take a bow!
• Training for a Marathon is a mix of every aspect of fitness from speed, endurance , stamina, and persistence.
• If you are training for a Marathon, you are trying to reach a point where you can run for 3-4 hours at a stretch.
• So if you have similar goals with training. Start smaller and build with time.
• But if you are already a runner, try to go for an hour without stopping. When you want to stop, switch to walking to cool down.
• Here, it is prescribed that you go slower than your best pace because the objective here is to last as long as possible.
• Unlike a sprint, you have to conserve energy and maintain posture. If you can reach the 2 hours benchmark, you are ready to go full-in for the Marathon training.
• One tip, if you’re into marathon running, then I would advise you to train with brooks running shoes as they provide a wide range of running shoes with affordable prices.

Conclusion: If you are training for a Marathon, aim to run for at least 2-3 hours on your treadmill at a very comfortable speed.

Treadmill For Nothing But Maintenance (Just Keeping Yourself Fit)

There are many people who only want to use a treadmill for convenient health maintenance.

If you have no goals at the end of it and need not hit a point of fitness level but just want to maintain your current fitness level and want to keep your heart moving, read ahead.

• A 15-minute jog on your treadmill will do the job for you.
• This is an ideal duration for someone with medical conditions and is prescribed to maintain some level of physical activity.
• A 15-minute run divided between 7 minutes of running and 8 minutes of walking as per convenience is ideal.

Conclusion: If you are running for general health maintenance, 15 minutes is good for you.

Wrap Up

Before you make a note of these time durations, remember that the goal is to run the longest without compromising on a decent posture and causing any injury.

Remember that motivation is a two-edged sword and can sometimes convince you to jump ahead of yourself and expose yourself to more physical tension that you are capable of handling. Be patient, be slow and be kind to your body.