Five Ways to Make the Treadmill Suck a Little Less

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Fitness in the chiller months, generally speaking, requires a tad more effort than the long, warm days of summer. Instead of lacing up your sneakers and hitting a quick 5K around the neighborhood, now your miles are subject to some contingencies. Is it too cold? Too dark? That’s typically when the good old treadmill comes into the mix.

To many, the treadmill may as well be equivalent to a torture chamber. Are you moving? Sure. But you’re also not going anywhere. A workout that otherwise involves sights and sounds in the great outdoors turns into something entirely different when you bring it into your own basement—or local gym, complete with dudes and their tripods. The good news? A treadmill workout doesn’t have to be dreadful, with the right attitude and approach.

“There will inevitably be days that it’s not appropriate to be outside, especially as we transition seasons,” says Rebeka Stowe, a coach for Nike Running in New York and Endorphins. “But once you can be better about letting go of the resistance you feel toward an indoor session, you’ll realize there’s potential for a massive mental unlock.”

1. Do a workout.

Is the treadmill different from a track? Sure. But breaking your run up into intervals can turn the otherwise mundane into a bit more of an entertaining experience. Stowe recommends leaning into longer reps: “Some treadmills need a second to get up to speed, so you want to have the bandwidth to set it and forget it without needing to change anything up immediately,” she says.

You might start with ten minutes of warmup, six three-minute efforts at 10k pace (with three minutes of rest in between), and ten minutes of cooldown.

2. Link and build.

Yes, buddy up for your indoor run. In our experience this isn’t as common as meeting up for IRL run club, but it has some real advantages: “It’s great when a friend runs at a different pace than you,” says Stowe. “You have an opportunity to connect with someone you may not typically run with.”