This weekend we’re “falling back,” which signals the start of indoor workout season for many of us. But before you abandon all hope of staying in shape until the New Year, consider a fresh approach to exercising in enclosed spaces with a new tool for the treadmill.
RunReviews, one of the more comprehensive resources of treadmill reviews on the web, recently launched its namesake RunReviews Workout Creator, an application for treadmill users that allows them to create, track, share and print custom workouts in a few easy steps.
Best of all, if your treadmill features the ‘Custom Workouts’ function, you can manually insert exercises from the RunReviews Workout Creator tool into the console as preset exercises. By doing this, your treadmill automatically changes incline and speed during the exercise, taking the guesswork out of your workout.
I chatted with Anna Ursu Moore, editor-in-chief at RunReviews, whose hope is that the tool will help ignite new enthusiasm among runners for the machine.
JH: What’s behind your passion for the treadmill, in particular?
AUM: We chose the treadmill because we love running, but we're runners with very limited free time and are always on the road, so we need it to have continuity in our training. It's always at hand at the right time and in the right place.
I have also an emotional attachment to this machine. I started running five years ago, but up until then, I honestly hated the sport because I wasn't good at it. The treadmill helped me develop the skills I needed to enjoy running, and I want to share that knowledge and my experience with others. It's more pleasant than advertised. Guaranteed.
How did you come up with the idea for the Workout Creator?
We designed Workout Creator to provide a source for custom treadmill exercises. Before Workout Creator, we’d write workouts in documents that we either printed out or sent to our phones, but it was not the optimal solution for keeping a record of runs. Workout Creator is just a more efficient way to create and save treadmill exercises in one place and then print, edit and share them easily. Plus, creating treadmill workouts is a more entertaining way to maintain motivation.
What are the benefits of pre-planning your time on the treadmill?
People run for different reasons, and we all have different goals in mind before training sessions. Pre-planned workouts provide the motivation we need to keep doing it over and over again and help us organize the time we spend on this machine efficiently so we can reach our goals. When we reach goals, we feel good about ourselves. That's the feeling we run for, so it’s a win-win situation.
We’re coming up on the colder months; how can people keep their treadmill workouts from becoming monotonous?
Sometimes shorter is better! Hills and speed intervals last for 20-30 minutes, and they are the most fun to do on the treadmill because they are short and intense. When you feel the need for a new challenge, just increase speed or incline in the interval, and the duration doesn't have to change at all. Music also helps; a pre-made playlist that pumps you up makes the time fly by.
Do you have any other treadmill tools in the works of which we should be aware?
There is a larger development now in progress that we hope will be ready by the end of this year. The application is called Program Manager and, as the title suggests, it's designed to help runners follow or design their own running schedule for 12 consecutive weeks. It automatically generates training plans based on an individual’s weight, maximum speed and duration of current runs, creating a schedule that alternates rest days, speed intervals, long runs and hill intervals. Over the course of the program, the schedule increases effort by 10 percent on a regular basis, so by the end of the 12 weeks, users will see speed and endurance improvements.
A second development we’re working on is called Room Planner because storing a treadmill can be a problem in a limited space, so we want to help our readers design rooms around the machine before they purchase it. This will help them know, in advance, what the dimensions of the treadmill should be to fit the space available, along with ideal positioning.
For more information, visit RunReviews.com.
