jogging-walking-on-a-treadmill

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About 1 out of 5  people in the U.S. suffer from some form of docter-diagnosed arthritis which can cause joint soreness, stiffness, and pain. Needless to say, joint soreness and pain caused by arthritis doesn’t make it easy for these people to exercise – especially any form of running workout or jogging exercise. There are, however, alternatives to running and jogging on the treadmill that can be equally as effective at burning calories but without the jarring impact on your joints that running or jogging on a treadmill can cause.

According to MayoClinic.com, exercise for people suffering from arthritis is a crucial part of improving joint soreness and pain. It can help improve cardiovascular health, increase muscle mass, control your body weight and help you lose weight, help maintain bone strength, and the list goes on. My point is that people with arthritis do not have an excuse to not exercise – if anything, suffering from arthritis should give you more motivation to exercise.

So I decided to do a little experiment using my treadmill to compare the number of calories burned when jogging, walking, and walking on an incline. The results weren’t surprising to me, and they showed that jogging obviously burns the most calories, but I really wanted to find out if walking on a slight incline would come close to matching the amount of calories burned while jogging. Here were the results:

  • Walking for 2-1/2 minutes at 3 mph and 0% incline burned 11.8 calories.
  • Jogging for 2-1/2 minutes at 5 mph and 0% incline burned 25.9 calories.
  • Walking for 2-1/2 minutes at 3 mph and 5% incline burned 19 calories.

As you can see from the results, if you add a slight incline to your walking workout, you’ll see over a 60% increase in the amount of calories you burn! Increasing the incline while walking on the treadmill allows you to burn more calories and isn’t hard on your joints like running or jogging can be.

If you look deeper into the difference in calories burned while walking on flat ground with a 0% incline compared to walking at a slight 5% incline, the numbers are staggering. If you walked for 20 minutes, 3 times per week over the course of a year, you would see a difference of almost 9,000 calories, or an additional 2.56 pounds of body weight loss, just by slightly increasing the incline of your treadmill for your walking routine. The numbers don’t lie!

So if you suffer from arthritis or joint soreness, try increasing your treadmill’s incline a bit to increase the intensity of your workout. If you do feel excessive joint pain, you should always stop your workout and consult a doctor. For most people suffering from arthritis though, this workout is a great way to burn more calories without having to resort to killing your joints by jogging or running.

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