Specific benefits:

Walking is an excellent form of exercise that can improve your general health. On a treadmill the incline is variable and you control the speed, which means people of all ages and fitness levels can benefit. Walking or running on the treadmill can be performed in the safety of your own home – eliminating hazards from traffic, road / track conditions, stray dogs, inclement weather and other undesirables.

The fitness benefits to be gained from walking or running on a treadmill are mainly improvements in cardiovascular fitness, depending on the type of training you do. Weight bearing exercise (You bear your own bodyweight when walking or running), can also help to maintain bone density. The health benefits of regular exercise include:

• Increased cardiovascular fitness
• Increased muscle strength and flexibility
• Improved joint mobility
• Decreased stress levels
• Improved posture
• Strengthened bones
• Decreased body fat levels

Best Practice Techniques:

Always warm-up before you exert yourself. Cool down at the end of your workout and consider stretching.

Dress appropriately for the ambient temperature and make sure you don’t have any loose clothing (or longhair) that could become caught in any moving parts.

Ensure you drink enough water before, during and after exercise.

Start your exercise programme slowly and build it up progressively.

If you are over 35 and not currently taking regular exercise, consult your doctor before beginning an exercise programme.

Before you get on the treadmill, make sure you know how to work all the controls, such as speeding up, slowing down, changing the incline and emergency off.

Place your feet on the side rails before starting or stopping the treadmill, hold the rails while stepping ontothe mat.

Use correct posture when walking, with shoulders back, head and chin up and slightly forward, and tighten your abdominal muscles. Look forward, not down.

Use the same stride you normally use when walking.

Stay in position - don’t go off to the side or the back.

Exercise Options

Some treadmills have various pre-programmed options eg. Cardio, Hill, Random, Fat Burn etc. You can use the manual setting to control your workout intensity for yourself or just do a “steady-state” workout (at a constant pace & resistance). Some have heart rate monitors to assist you in keeping within your target heart rate zone.

Heart Rate Training:

• Subtract your age from 220 to get your Maximum Heart Rate (MHR). Eg. for a 35 year old 220–35 = 185MHR. In general, your target zone should be between 60 percent and 75 percent of your MHR, so for a 35 year old this would be 111bpm to 138.75bpm.

Method to check heart rate if you don’t have a heart rate monitor:

• Stop exercising.
• Take your pulse at your neck, wrist or chest, wrist recommended. Place the tips of your index and middle fingers over your vein and press lightly. Take a 60-second count of heartbeats or a 30-second count and multiply that by 2 to work out your bpm (beats per min).

Basic Exercise Programme:

Perceived Exertion Scale (RPE):

When exercising, it’s important to monitor your intensity to make sure you’re working at a pace that is challenging enough to help you reach your goals, but not so hard that you pass out. One way to do that is touse a Perceived Exertion Scale. In general, for most workouts you want to be at around Level 6-7. If you’redoing interval training, you want your recovery to be around a 4-5 and your intensity blasts to be at around 8-9.As you’ll see below, working at a level 10 isn’t recommended for most workouts.

Before you start, it’s important to understand intensity levels. A heart monitor will help you stay within the recommended 60-75% of your target heart rate but using a rate of perceived exertion (RPE) scale may be easier for beginners. The scale goes from 0-10 with 0 being no effort and 10 being maximum effort but fitness experts have simplified it as follows:

Level 3: very low intensity

Level 4: easy, warm-up level,

Level 5: still fairly easy, low to moderate intensity

Level 6: moderate intensity, working and breathing a little hard

Level 7: moderate to high intensity, breathing harder, more challengingLevel 8: high intensity, very challenging, breathing very hard, difficult to talk

Level 9: very high intensity, busting your butt to keep up, breathing seriously hard

Level 10: maximum intensity, feels like your heart will burst out of your chest.

Basic Exercise Programme: (This assumes a moderate level of fitness.)