Most treadmill runners fall into one of two camps: They’ve never touched their treadmill’s incline buttons (wait, you can adjust more than speed?) or they beep their way up to max incline every chance they get (higher equals harder equals better, right?)
Neither approach is going to score you the results you want. That’s because changing up your treadmill’s incline changes the muscles you emphasize during your workout, says Jason Fitzgerald, a USA Track & Field-certified coach and the founder of . “Running a variety of inclines forces the body to engage different muscles [particularly in the calves, quadriceps, and glutes], increases the aerobic demand of the run [helping you develop more endurance], and boosts muscular strength, which can help prevent injuries.”
Here’s everything you need to know about running from low to high treadmill inclines and how to mix them up for better fitness gains.
But if you really want your legs to burn, turning up the incline can make it happen. “As the incline increases, the muscles are forced to do more work as the body must produce more power to propel itself not only forward but also up against gravity,” says Fitzgerald. Ipso facto, you burn more calories and build more muscle.
For instance, in one , when people walked at a nine-percent incline, they increased the activation of their gastrocnemius (a calf muscle) by 175 percent, their biceps femoris (a quad muscle) by 635 percent, and their gluteus maximus (the main muscle in your booty) by 345 percent, compared to when they walked at zero incline. While you work all of these muscles at low inclines, in the study, as the treadmill’s steepness increased, so did how hard the muscles had to work with every step.
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Still, steeper isn’t always better. “If you have any issues with hip flexor tightness, high inclines can cause irritation to those muscles,” says Joy R. Miles, an endurance coach with Indoor Triathlon series in Chicago and a USA Triathlon-certified coach.
Plus, more often than not, when people try walking or running at steep inclines, they lean back and hang onto the rails for dear life, messing up their posture and gait. By reducing activation of the leg muscles, hanging on essentially defeats the purpose of increasing incline. Whether you are walking, running, or sprinting, you should never set the incline or speed so high that you can’t move hands-free, your body forming a straight line. You should bend forward slightly at your ankles, says Fitzgerald.
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How to Switch Up Your Inclines
Based on what you’re training for, you might want to alternate between running on low-to-zero inclines on some days and on higher ones on others. (Fair warning: If you’re new to inclines, Fitzgerald recommends mastering moderate inclines of two to four percent before moving up.)
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