Treadmill workout: how to set it up, three sessions for beginners, and what the trials measured

A treadmill is three workouts in one machine: walking, running and walking uphill. This page covers the first two: how to set it up, three sessions for a beginner, what weeks of treadmill training did in the trials, the honest answer on weight loss, and where it fits beside lifting. Walking uphill has its own page, the 12-3-30 workout. The pace that keeps any session steady is on zone 2 cardio.

How to use a treadmill

1. Clip the safety key to your clothes if the machine has one. Stand on the side rails, start the belt at a slow walk, then step on.
2. Stand in the middle of the belt, close enough to reach the buttons without leaning forward.
3. Hands off the rails. Swing your arms the way you would outside. The section below is why.
4. Change the speed in small steps, a tenth or two at a time, and give each change a minute before the next.
5. Look ahead, not down at your feet or the console.
6. Finish easy. Two or three minutes at a slow walk, then stop the belt before you step off.

Walk, jog or run

All three count; your breathing decides which one today is. If you can still speak a sentence, it's a moderate session. If you can only manage a few words, it's a hard one. A brisk walk is a full workout for someone starting out, and a jog becomes the easy option later.

The treadmill also asks a lot for the effort it feels like. At the same rated effort, the treadmill used the most energy, or tied for it, in all three studies that compared machines (13, 19 and 30 adults).^1,2,3 That doesn't make it the best machine; it means the same feeling of effort costs more on it than on a bike.

What weeks of treadmill training did

In 22 moderately active women, average age about 29, assigned to treadmill running, an elliptical or a stair climber three days a week for 12 weeks at matched heart rates and session lengths, maximal oxygen uptake rose in all three groups, from 40.7 to 43.4 mL/kg/min in the 7 who ran on the treadmill (measured in a test on an exercise bike), with no significant difference between the machines.⁴ The sessions started at 30 minutes and built to 40.⁴ One small trial, in women only; the fitness gain is the finding, and no machine pulled ahead.

The treadmill for weight loss

One long trial tested close to this directly. In 141 sedentary young adults with overweight or obesity, average age about 23, supervised exercise five days a week for 10 months, mostly walking or jogging on treadmills, was set at 400 or 600 kilocalories a session, and everyone was told to keep eating as usual. The participants who completed at least 90% of their sessions lost about 3.9 and 5.2 kg on average, while the control group gained about 0.5 kg.⁵ Those sessions took about 31 to 63 minutes each, depending on sex and dose, five days a week.⁵ It's a measured result for the people who did nearly every session, not a forecast for anyone else.

Two more results belong beside it. In a 2017 meta-analysis of 31 studies, interval training and steady cardio reduced body fat by similar, modest amounts.⁶ And in five trials that followed adults with overweight or obesity for a year or more, programs that combined diet and activity lost about 6 kg more at 12 to 18 months than activity alone.⁷

So the treadmill is a good place to spend energy, and the scale is still mostly about what you eat. Walking and steps and why you can't lose fat cover that side.

Hands off the rails

Holding the rails takes some of your weight onto your arms, so the session asks less than the speed and grade suggest. In 10 healthy adults aged 38 to 60, gripping the handrails lowered heart rate and oxygen uptake at every stage compared with a free arm swing.⁸ If you need the rails to keep up, slow the belt or lower the grade until you don't.

Three beginner treadmill workouts

In the walk-jog, add 30 seconds to each jog every week or two until the jogs are longer than the walks. On the walk-jog, the jog minutes should leave you a few words at most and the walks should bring back a full sentence (HIIT vs steady-state cardio covers the trade). Raising the grade instead of the speed is the other way to make it harder: the 12-3-30 workout has a week-by-week build for that.

The treadmill beside lifting

Running is the cardio the interference research flags. In a 2012 meta-analysis of 21 studies, running alongside lifting, but not cycling, significantly reduced both muscle growth and strength, and more frequent and longer cardio went with smaller gains.⁹ That's a reason to place it, not to skip it: after lifting or on a different day, and walks or easy jogs rather than hard runs around leg day. Cardio and lifting covers the order, the spacing and how big the effect is.

Common questions

How long should a beginner walk or run on the treadmill?

Twenty minutes, three times a week, and add a few minutes a week from there. The World Health Organization's guideline is 150 to 300 moderate minutes a week, or 75 to 150 vigorous, counted across everything you do.¹⁰ In the 12-week trial above, sessions ran 30 minutes building to 40.⁴

Is running on a treadmill the same as running outside?

Close, but slightly easier at the same speed, because there's no air to push through. In 9 trained male runners at speeds from about 6.5 to 11 miles an hour, a 1% treadmill grade matched the energy cost of running on a level road.¹¹ At a walk or a slow jog, below the speeds that study tested, a flat belt is fine.

Treadmill or elliptical?

For fitness, a draw in the 12-week trial above.⁴ At the same rated effort, 18 untrained college-age adults used about the same oxygen and energy on both,¹² and the treadmill used the most energy, or tied for it, in the three studies that ranked several machines.^1,2,3 The elliptical workout covers the other side, including the load on your feet. Pick the one you'll keep doing.

If you'd rather have the week planned

The machine is simple; deciding how many sessions fit beside your lifting, and on which days, is the part a page can't do for you. Coaching is the version where your workouts are built around the days you actually have, and a weekly call looks at the week you just had and rebuilds the next one around what's coming. Coaching for a week that doesn't hold still explains how that works, and apply is the first step. Otherwise: twenty minutes, hands off the rails, this week.