Interval training is the best bang-for-your-buck form of cardio when it comes to working out on the treadmill. Here are some calorie-busting treadmill HIIT workouts and how to do them effectively.
There’s no doubt in my mind: the treadmill is the best of the cardio machines for burning calories.
Sure, it’s not a “full body workout” like some of the other machines (here’s looking at you elliptical machines and rowing machines), but nothing pushes your cardiovascular system as effectively as a run.
On the treadmill, you can work out any way you want—walk for an hour or two, go for a slow-paced jog, or push the speed to a full-on sprint to really max out the intensity.
At the end of the day, you’ll see real calories burned on the treadmill and real results!
In this post, I want to share with you some of my favorite HIIT treadmill workouts for weight loss, endurance, speed, and stamina.
All of them are beautifully short—just 30-minute treadmill workouts that you can do any day of the week, at your favorite gym or in the comfort of your home. They’re simple yet highly effective or anyone who wants to push their fitness to the next level.
By the time you reach the end of this post, you’ll have a whole arsenal of new workouts to add into your weekly training sessions—workouts that will keep things fresh, fun, and challenging.
Let’s get started.
Why Treadmill HIIT Workouts are So Awesome
Before we dive into the actual training, I want to take a moment to talk about why it’s such a good idea to add a treadmill sprint workout or two into your regular training.
Sprint training—a.k.a. HIIT—can be amazing for your health for a number of reasons:
That’s right: with regular sprint training you’ll find that you can start running faster every time you run!
When I first tried sprint training, I struggled to push past 8 or 8.5 MPH in my sprints. However, after just a few weeks, I was able to hit 9.5 and even 10 MPH (the max speed treadmills hit).
The faster you run, the faster you become capable of running. And not just during the intervals, either—the increase in speed will be evident in your walks, jogs, and runs, too.
During the high-intensity intervals, your body burns a lot more calories than it would during a steady-state run or jog.
What this means is that your available energy stores will be depleted quickly, forcing your body to tap into the only other available source: stored fat.
Fun Fact: Interval training, or HIIT, is a killer way to burn the same amount of calories as longer, steady-state aerobic cardio sessions1.
That’s right: sprint training will activate that stored fat and burn it for energy during the slower-paced “recovery” intervals. You’ll still burn chiefly glucose-based energy during the sprints, but every recovery interval will involve primarily fat-burning.
Talk about an effective way to target those fat stores and push for real, healthy weight loss!
When you sprint or do HIIT training, you increase your body’s ability to absorb oxygen into your bloodstream and pump that oxygenated blood to the muscles doing all the work.
Not only will your aerobic capacity (VO2 max) increase, but your Max Heart Rate will improve.
When you sprint, your fast-twitch muscle fibers activate and burn through energy in order to propel you forward.
More maximum exertion means greater growth of these muscle fibers—and, as you know, muscle fiber growth equals an increase in muscular strength.
But that’s not all!
Sprinting will increase levels of testosterone and HGH in your body, promoting a hormone balance more conducive to muscular growth.
Fun Fact: High-intensity running or sprinting has been shown to have a positive anabolic effect. One study2 with junior athletes found increased anabolic activity following four rounds of 250m sprints at 80% intensity with three minutes of rest.
Not only will that growth be focused on your legs (the muscles doing the work), but throughout you entire body.
Sprinting is a very high-impact form of exercise, which can take a toll on your joints, muscles, and bones.
However, this damage is minor enough your body can usually make repairs during recovery period (48 hours following training).
Not only will the damage be restored, but your body will actually increase tissue density in order to protect against future damage. The result: a more resilient body less prone to injury and capable of recovering more quickly.
As you can see, there are a lot of benefits of the treadmill for HIIT training.
Treadmill HIIT Workouts
Alrighty, with all of the benefits behind us, it’s time to get on your treadmill of choice and unleash some high-intensity training.
If you’re totally new to HIIT training, don’t worry! We’ll start off nice and easy for you.
This workout will help you adapt to the new HIIT training method and push your body hard initially, but still give you plenty of recovery time between each sprint interval so you can adapt to the maximum exertion.
The Workout:
- Start off with 5 minutes of light stretching to loosen up your muscles and joints, followed by 5 minutes of slow-paced running, jogging, or a fast-paced walk.
- Raise the treadmill to 8 MPH and run for 30 seconds.
- Slow the treadmill to a fast walk (around 3.8 MPH) and walk for 30 seconds.
- Repeat this 30/30 interval nine more times, for a total of 10 minutes.
- Walk or jog or 2 minutes to give your body time to recover.
- Repeat the 30/30 interval another 10 times, for 10 more minutes.
- Cool down with 5-10 minutes of jogging/walking and light stretching.
This workout is designed with longer recovery periods to help your body absorb more oxygen and burn more fat, but you’ll also run for longer to increase calorie expenditure.
Get ready to train for the full 30 minutes, not counting warm-up and cool down.
The Workout:
- Start off with 5 minutes of light stretching followed by 5 minutes of slow-paced running, jogging, or a fast-paced walk.
- Set the pace to 8 MPH for 30 seconds.
- Lower the speed to a walk (3.5 to 4 MPH) for 90 seconds.
- Repeat this 30/90 15 times, for a total of 30 minutes. To really push the workout, try increasing your sprint speed by 0.1 or 0.2 MPH every time you raise it.
- Cool down with 5-10 minutes of jogging/walking and light stretching.
This ladder-style sprint workout is going to push your body hard, but it’ll be absolutely worth the effort when you complete it!
You’ll see huge improvements in your cardiovascular and muscular endurance both.
The Workout:
- Start off with 5 minutes of light stretching followed by 5 minutes of slow-paced running, jogging, or a fast-paced walk.
- Raise the treadmill to 8 MPH and sprint for 30 to 45 seconds.
- Return the speed to a jog (around 4.5 MPH) and jog for 45 to 60 seconds.
- Raise the treadmill to 8.2 MPH for your next sprint.
- Keep raising the treadmill by 0.2 MPH every round until you hit 10 MPH.
- Complete five sprints at 10 MPH.
- Cool down with 5-10 minutes of jogging/walking and light stretching.
If your goal is to burn serious calories and build muscle, you’ll love this workout! It’s amazing for building glutes on the treadmill because it uses the incline treadmill setting to engage your lower body posterior chain muscles (glutes, hamstrings, and even your lower back) more efficiently.
The burn will be bad, which is why it’s a shorter sprint session. But it’s worth the effort to both torch calories and shred those glutes and hamstrings.
The Workout:
- Start off with 5 minutes of light stretching followed by 5 minutes of slow-paced running, jogging, or a fast-paced walk.
- Raise the incline to 5%.
- Set the sprint speed to 9 MPH and run for 30 seconds.
- Lower the speed to a jog or fast walk (3.5 to 4.5 MPH) for a 90-second recovery interval.
- Repeat for a total of 5 times at 5% incline, then raise to 10% incline.
- Lower your sprint speed to 8.5 MPH, but maintain the recovery speed and interval duration (30/90).
- After 5 intervals at 10% incline, raise the incline to 15%.
- Sprint at 8 MPH now, but maintain the same recovery speed and interval duration.
- Cool down with 5-10 minutes of jogging/walking and light stretching.
If you’re all about the speed, this is the workout for you! You’ll start off sprinting at near-full speed right away, and work your way quickly up to running at 10 MPH. However, you’ll also run faster and faster during your recovery intervals, which will lead to significant improvements in your running speed across the board.
The Workout:
- Start off with 5 minutes of light stretching followed by 5 minutes of slow-paced running, jogging, or a fast-paced walk.
- Set your sprint speed to 9 MPH. Run for 30 seconds.
- Lower the speed to a slow jog (4.4 MPH) and jog for 60-90 seconds to recover.
- Sprint at 9.2 MPH for 30 seconds.
- Recover at 4.4 MPH for 60-90 seconds.
- Sprint at 9.4 MPH for 30 seconds.
- Recover at 4.6 MPH for 60-90 seconds.
- Sprint at 9.6 MPH for 30 seconds.
- Recover at 4.6 MPH for 60-90 seconds.
- Sprint at 9.8 MPH for 30 seconds.
- Recover at 4.8 MPH for 60-90 seconds.
- Sprint at 10 MPH for 30 seconds.
- Recover at 4.8 MPH for 60-90 seconds.
- Sprint at 10 MPH for 30 seconds.
- Recover at 5.0 MPH for 60-90 seconds.
- Sprint at 10 MPH for 30 seconds.
- Recover at 5.0 MPH for 60-90 seconds.
- Sprint at 10 MPH for 30 seconds.
- Recover at 5.2 MPH for 60-90 seconds.
- Sprint at 10 MPH for 30 seconds.
- Recover at 5.2 MPH for 60-90 seconds.
- Sprint at 10 MPH for 30 seconds.
- Recover at 5.5 MPH for 60-90 seconds.
- Cool down with 5-10 minutes of jogging/walking and light stretching.
Getting the Most from Your Treadmill HIIT Workouts
If you’re new to HIIT, don’t jump straight to full-intensity and full-speed training right off the bat.
Better to be safe and start off slower and easier at first, then work your way up to max output over the course of a few weeks.
You’ll be less prone to injury and overtraining this way.
Don’t do HIIT treadmill training every day. Instead, try mixing it in 2-3 times per week along with your other workouts.
Your body needs time to recover from the high-intensity exercise, and pushing too hard every single day will cause you to burn out as well as wear out.
Rest to train another day.
If you feel pain, excessive soreness, or aches, it’s a good idea to slow the pace and give yourself a rest.
Injuries are your body’s way of saying you’ve pushed TOO HARD, so you should rein your workouts in before you reach that point.
One very effective way to increase your endurance and conditioning is to increase the time you spend working at maximum output—a.k.a., the high-intensity interval, in this case, the sprint.
Typically, beginners will start off at a fairly sustainable 20 to 30 seconds, with plenty of recovery time between each interval.
But as you adapt to the exercise, try to push for longer high-intensity intervals: 45 or even 60 seconds.
60 seconds is usually the max your body can sustain that level of exertion, so it’s a good goal to shoot for as your fitness increases.
The other way to max out the endurance and conditioning is to shorten recovery time.
You might start at 90 or 120 seconds of recovery, but you can slowly go cutting down that time to 60 or 30 seconds between intervals.
The shorter your recovery intervals, the harder your body ends up working to ensure energy is available, flush lactic acid from your muscles, and provide oxygen and nutrients.
All of this combines to improve your muscular and cardiovascular endurance.
Your risk of injury is significantly higher with HIIT training—everything from pulled muscles to sprained joints to greater aches and soreness.
It’s absolutely imperative that you take plenty of time to warm up beforehand to really loosen up any stiff joint or muscle tissue.
Incorporate lots of dynamic stretches, do a warm-up that promotes blood flow, and you will not only reduce injury but your body will also be primed for a better session on the treadmill.
And after the workout is done, take another 5-10 minutes to cool down. It will do wonders to prevent next-day soreness, I promise you.
The Bottom Line
HIIT workouts on the treadmill machine are an amazing way to burn an insane number of calories, increase your cardiovascular and muscular fitness, boost your body’s natural resilience to high-impact exercise, and even improve your running performance.
Though they’re not the easiest workouts around, they’re guaranteed to deliver real results with less time invested.
For a busy, working professional or parent with limited time to dedicate to fitness, they can be an absolute game-changer.
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