Treadmill - Walking On Incline vs Running On Flat

[Steve Armstrong]

Okay, since it seems this question was never asked on this site. Which burns more calories on a treadmill, walking on incline or running on flat?

 

[uphillclimb]

incline, 3.5 mph at 15deg incline for 20 mins.....easy 300 cal burn if you stay under 160 typically for heart rate....had great results with this versus running a couple miles on flat.

My opinion, not a fact.

 

[shortz]

When you increase the intensity over a given period of time, you increase calories burned. Studies are finding that high intensity cardio has more calorie burning effects than than a moderate intensity at twice the time spent.

 

[Topsy]

One benefit to walking on a 15% incline at 6kmph instead of running on 0% at 13kmph would be to allow connective tissues time to adapt (minimal impact compared to the 13kmph) whilst given you a good cardio session and burn some unwanted calories.

If we're talking about reducing fat I'm assuming we are restricting calories, thus any form of lower impact is going to have less stress on connective tissues and allow for a longer training period.

 

[HDH]

Okay, since it seems this question was never asked on this site. Which burns more calories on a treadmill, walking on incline or running on flat?

The best way to tell is go do both of them and see, it will tell you on the screen.

There can be different answers to this. It's going to depend on what incline and speed as opposed to how fast you are running flat.

It really comes down to what your goals are.

If you just want to burn a bunch of cals up, run on an incline, it will burn more than running flat.

At the opposite end of the scale, if you want to burn cals while preserving muscles, go full, slow incline.

I prefer preservation of muscles so I do mine at a 15 degree incline @ 1mph. I don't hold on to anything and keep myself at the bottom. It almost looks like walking in slow motion. I can go slower but the cals burnt are minimal. 1mph is good with me. It's around 275 cals for an hour.

HDH

 

[GiantSlayer]

Blah!!! Which one gets you huffin and puffin for air? Cause thats the effective one and I bet its the running.

 

[Rottenrogue]

A moderate pace and steep incline works for me. Not a chance I'm running

 

[Turbolag]

When you increase the intensity over a given period of time, you increase calories burned. Studies are finding that high intensity cardio has more calorie burning effects than than a moderate intensity at twice the time spent.

I've been hearing about this also.

So does that mean, if you walk on the tread mill at an incline at a high pace you should do less time than no incline at a slower pace?

Or should the times be the same?

The last time I did a cut I did slower pace cardio for longer periods. It seemed to work for me, but I'm curious to know what would have happened if I did incline at a higher pace.

 

[stevemc]

I was always told 3.0-3.5 incline for an hr. now correct me if im wrong u want at least 1.0 incline because that's equal to walking on solid ground? That's what a trainer told me.

 

[shortz]

I've been hearing about this also.

So does that mean, if you walk on the tread mill at an incline at a high pace you should do less time than no incline at a slower pace?

Or should the times be the same?

The last time I did a cut I did slower pace cardio for longer periods. It seemed to work for me, but I'm curious to know what would have happened if I did incline at a higher pace.

It depends on the exact pace you're doing. For instance, the rule of thumb when doing HIC is, you shouldn't be able to make it longer than 10-15 mins before you feel like you can't go anymore. Push yourself as hard as possible. This isnt including a warm up, which you will want to do since you can injure yourself sprinting on cold muscles.

Internal training is a little different, but still the same idea. That last high intensity push should just be all that you have left in you. This one is usually no more than about 20 mins.

What I like about this kind of training is, they also found it be much less catabolic than low intensity for very long periods of time. Short and pushing yourself hard, just like our weight lifting should be. So, the times should always be less, otherwise, you're doing it wrong. Think of how much muscle sprinters have, and their ability to maintain that under their training conditions.

 

[stevemc]

I thought low intensity was better for fat loss and High intensity was more catabolic.

 

[shortz]

I thought low intensity was better for fat loss and High intensity was more catabolic.

That's what we used to think. That has been taught in exercise for many, many years, but in the last 20 years it started to finally get questioned, and researchers started listening and doing new studies.

I used to be able to pull up lots of studies, but now all my searches are bringing up are forums and websites discussing results. I don't want to link up website and other forums because I am unaware of the rules of that here. Just do a search and you will get lots of hits on good reads