Common Treadmill Running Mistakes

By Christine Luff, About.com Guide

Updated March 30, 2012

About.com Health's Disease and Condition content is reviewed by our Medical Review Board

If you're one of those people who reads an entire magazine as you barely break a sweat on the treadmill, you're probably not working hard enough. While it's not good to do every run or your entire run at a hard pace (easy days are important), you should sometimes try to push yourself to get some results.

Try increasing your speed or incline so that you feel challenged, for at least part of your workout. Interval training, where you run hard for a period of time and then cool down for another interval, is a good way to push the pace without pushing it for the entire run. You can do interval training once or twice a week (never two days in a row). Try some of these workouts:

Treadmill Hill Workout
Treadmill Interval Workout
Pyramid Speed Interval Workout
Fartlek Interval Workout

Of course, when you're running hard on the treadmill, it's still important to make sure you're doing a proper warm-up and cool-down.

More: Tips for Running Faster

Previous

• Treadmill Mistake #1: Skipping Your Warm-Up or Cool Down
• Treadmill Mistake #2: Improper Running Form
• Treadmill Mistake #3: Holding onto the Handrails
• Treadmill Mistake #4: Not Exercising Hard Enough
• Treadmill Mistake #5: Stepping Off While Moving
• Treadmill Mistake #6: Running at the Same Pace for Your Entire Run
• Treadmill Mistake #7: Running the Entire Workout on a Steep Incline

Next