Christmas Cheer Cardio: Fun and Energetic Treadmill Workouts!

Happy holidays! Christmas is a magical time to create and share priceless moments with loved ones. A time to honor and celebrate friendship and family, and toss aside work and life’s worries. Speaking of things we tend to toss aside during the holidays, your fitness should not be one of them. During a time when we tend to take things easy, our personal fitness trainer is here to help you out. We’ve created a couple of high-octane treadmill workouts to help you shake off the winter cold and elevate fun, and fitness levels this season.

Half-a-minute sprint challenge

We don’t get a lot of cardio work in during the holidays. Well, it’s about time to get off the couch and hit the treadmill with this exciting and quick treadmill workout that will get your heart racing in no time.

For this workout, here are instructions from our San Diego fitness expert:

At 1% incline, begin with an easy jog for about 7 minutes. An easy jog is one where you can easily talk with someone without running out of breath
Now, it’s time to pick up the slack. Sprint hard for about half a minute while giving it your all
When your 30 seconds are you, you can now rest for about one-and-a-half minutes
Repeat this cycle for about 20 minutes, which means you can do about 10 reps overall.

After you’re done, don’t just jump off the treadmill. Our personal training guru advises a 5-minute slow-paced jog to help you cool down. Overall, you can be done with this exercise in just 30 minutes and get back to your regular Christmas itinerary, making it a very time-efficient option.

Side Stepping Workout

Do you know how to do a side shuffle? It does matter if you have two left feet like us, this is pretty simple and doesn’t require a background in dancing or anything of the kind. All you need to do is just move your body to either side using small, quick shuffle steps.

With that out of the way, here’s how the best personal trainer says to go about this:

Again, you want to have the treadmill at 1% incline and warm up as in the previous exercise
After you complete your warm-up jog, you want to get into a gentle walking pace.
Turn your body to the side while holding on to the rail, then squat low, and begin your side shuffles. Be sure to avoid crossing your feet
Once you get the hang of it, you can increase to a conversational running pace. Do this for about 3 minutes and switch sides

Of course, don’t forget to cool down with an easy walk or jog as well.

Hills and flats

Many people buy treadmills but don’t get their money’s worth. However, this next workout will ensure your treadmill gives you a run for your money. I’m talking about our special take on hills and flats, which will help you torch those additional calories that the holidays will attract.

Without further ado, here’s how you get these done:

Begin with a 5-minute light jog for your warm-up
Turn it up a notch on your incline until you feel it’s just challenging enough to walk, then do so for about 5 minutes
Lower the incline to its base and sprint for another five minutes
Alternating between hills and flats for about 5 reps should do the trick

The great thing about this work is that it brings your calves, glutes, hamstrings, and quads into the fray. So besides providing excellent cardio, it will also help build core stability. If you’re going to be running any races this holiday, this is an excellent workout to get you ready.

Bodyweight HIIT plus running

There are more things you can do on a treadmill besides running, and that’s some bodyweight HIIT. For example, you can switch between running and air squats, pushups, or sit-ups, to add more excitement and variety to mundane treadmill workouts.

With so many possible combinations, the world is your oyster when it comes to bodyweight HIIT. However, here is one highly effective example from our San Diego personal trainer. Check it out:

Begin with a 5-minute light jog to get the blood pumping
Follow this up with a 2-minute sprint at moderate speed (about half or less of your top speed)
Step off the treadmill and perform 15 air squats, 8 sit-ups, and finally five pushups. Everything up until this point will count as 1 set, save for the warmup.
Now perform between 3 to 5 sets depending on your ability.

As we said before, you can always mix it up with other exercise options like rowing, skipping rope, and stair climbers. It’s all up to your preference.

Descending ladders

The descending ladder strategy involves shortening your treadmill interval lengths while upping the intensity in the opposite direction. This is an exciting workout that will help push your limits and get you even fitter this Christmas.

Our personal training expert was kind enough to provide a great example of how you can go about the descending ladders workout:

Start with a 10 minute-light jog, and then run at about 50% of your maximum effort for 4 minutes

Perform a 30 seconds recovery walk thereafter to catch your breath
Then sprint again, but now up your effort to 70%, and do it for 3 minutes
Perform another half-a-minute recovery walk
Sprint for 2 minutes at 90% of your top speed and finish it off with a recovery walk and an easy jog for another 10 minutes

The descending ladders treadmill workout is most certainly not for the faint of heart. It’s an intermediate-level exercise option you should try once you bring your fitness levels up to speed.

Conclusion :

Who knew you could work a treadmill in so many exciting ways? With these amazing treadmill workouts, you now have one more fun and healthy activity for the entire family to enjoy and share in this holiday season. As always, IronOrrFitness is here for you should you require assistance with getting a fitness trainer, have concerns about our personal trainer prices, or just want more tips on staying in shape. Be sure to reach out to us with your queries and feel free to look around our website for even more eye-opening fitness pointers.