Walking or running on the treadmill trains your heart and builds stamina, but does little to tone the muscles of your upper body. When you have limited time to exercise, you want to make your workout as efficient as possible. You’ll only do both workouts a disservice, however, if you try to exercise your arms while on the treadmill.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recommends you exercise at least 150 minutes per week, approximately 30 minutes most days, at a moderate aerobic intensity, such as a brisk walk. The recommendations also call for two total-body strength-training workouts that hit all the major muscle groups, including the arms, weekly. These minimal recommendations help you maintain good health and allow you to do daily activities with relative ease. If your schedule is packed with family, social and work obligations – finding these minutes to workout can be a challenge. You might think you are being proactive and wildly efficient by combining the arm portion of your strength training with your cardio workout on the treadmill.
Holding weights while running or walking on the treadmill distorts your gait. It causes your body to compensate in ways that encourage injury. If you pump your arms with biceps curls or shoulder presses while you walk, the gait distortion is even greater. You cannot focus on the form of your arm exercises if you are simultaneously walking – decreasing the effectiveness of the exercises and potentially causing muscle or tendon strains.
Trying to perform exercises while walking or jogging on the treadmill means both the cardio and strength portions of your workout get shortchanged. You cannot move as quickly when you are focusing on heaving weights and you cannot lift as heavy of weights when you are focusing on not tripping on the moving belt. You may end up burning fewer calories and not challenging your muscles enough to build significant strength and muscle mass.
You can combine a treadmill and arm workout in one session, but don’t do the two activities at the same time. Instead, alternate a minute of high-intensity walking or running with sets of arm exercises, such as biceps curls or triceps kickbacks. Your workout time will fly by as you are continually changing activities. You get the benefit of both cardio and strength in one session without risking poor form and ineffective effort. Another alternative is to perform a short 15- to 20-minute interval routine on the treadmill that involves alternating all-out bursts for one or two minutes with a slower recovery of equal time. These high-intensity treadmill intervals count as vigorous-intensity exercise, of which the CDC says you need just 75 minutes per week. When you get off, do a quick 10-minute arm-strengthening circuit that involves one set each of triceps dips, dumbbell curls, triceps overhead extensions and cable curls.
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