Despite my overall love for running, I’ll admit that it’s not alway thaaat appealing when I’m half asleep! Actually, no let me rephrase that: it’s not appealing at all!!   The idea of walking, on the other hand, seemed slightly more palatable this morning. To get the best of both worlds, i.e. endorphins combined with a decent calorie burn, I turned to the next best thing…low & behold: incline training.

Last week I bigged up interval training so it’s only fair that I show some love to incline training on a treadmill. As described by some random site online, the incline feature on a treadmill is ‘intended to mimic uphill climbing whereby speed is kept at a nice slow and steady pace.’  If you concentrate hard enough and really ‘hike’ up the incline, you kinda feel like you’re conquering Mount Kilamanjaro 😆 !  Jokes/visualization aside, incline training brings a fair amount to the table.  Did you know that slightly adding an incline to your workout can:

• Increase your overall calorie burn
• Work leg muscles differently and more efficiently than training on a level surface
• Provide a great cardio workout without the need to blast the speed
• More closely replicate running/walking outdoors and is hence ideal when training for a race
• Stretch the calves and help build long, lean calf muscles
• Sculpt and build strength in your ankles, thighs, and bootay.  The steeper the incline, the greater the benefit.
• Eliminates much of the impact that walking or running outdoors produces

And my favorite one of them all:

• Allow for variation and helps prevent boredom!  

My workout this morning can definitely testify to the last point.  Before I knew it, I had slammed out 45 minutes on the treadmill, I was drippin’ in sweat (and hence I had all the boys checkin’ me out 😉 ) and it was time for breakfast- hallelujah 😆 !

Here’s what I based my workout on this morning…it may come in handy next time you feel like sprucin’ it up:

*I repeated this until I hit 45 minutes.