Home Treadmill Training: Improving Incline Endurance

Many runners find they perform well until faced with a hill. After a few seconds, these runners find their pace drastically slowed, tanking their overall run time. If you are one of these runners, there is a simple tool you can use to unlock greater incline endurance.

A NordicTrack treadmill can be the key to dramatically improving your incline endurance. By following our training tips, you will be flying up hills in no time.

Add Incline Interval Workouts To Your Training

It can be easy to skip out on regular incline workouts when you are training on a treadmill. While outdoor running will never be completely flat, treadmills provide you with a cushioned surface with excellent shock absorption, which makes it tempting to avoid adding resistance. But your body needs to become accustomed to working harder to push you uphill.

Start by adding one incline interval workout a week to your routine. A simple way to do this is by breaking up the incline by minutes – one minute on incline, one minute flat. You can lengthen the intervals as you improve. We also recommend you add some incline to your sprint training.

If you have not set up a running routine, we recommend you start with our 4-week treadmill training program and add an incline workout into its framework.

Utilize A NordicTrack Incline Treadmill

An easy way to introduce a massive amount of incline into your home is with a treadmill from the NordicTrack Incline Trainer Series. These treadmills have set the industry standard for available incline – offering users -6% decline and an incredible 40% incline!

Since the treadmills have such a high incline range, there is a speed lock safety feature built into these machines, so that the machine will only go up to 6 MPH once you are at 30% incline or higher. However, this lock isn’t a huge issue, as most people will be hard put to maintain a fast pace once the incline is that high.

Include Slight Incline To Your Long Runs

The last piece of the incline endurance training puzzle is combining incline with your long runs. Now, you don’t want to go extreme when it comes to the incline level on your treadmill. As long runs are meant to be done at tempo or your easy pace, you want to stick to an incline level that won’t push you out of these zones.

Even if all you do is add 1-4% incline to a long run, your body will reap the benefits. That extra effort required will give you greater staying power both on flat terrain and when you encounter hills in your next race.

Not all treadmills are up to providing the incline and durability for a training runner’s needs. Be sure to look at the NordicTrack Commercial treadmill and Incline Trainer series to find a treadmill which can help you improve your incline endurance.