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Quick and effective training sessions for when you’re running indoors

Treadmills are a great training tool. But getting bored while running on them is a problem every runner faces, largely due to the lack of scenery and the fact that the clock is s-l-o-w-l-y ticking right in front of you.

Whether you’re new to running and prefer being in the gym, or are forced to clock up treadmill miles due to bad weather or injury, we’ve sourced a range of indoor running sessions to help inspire you to step onto the belt.

While it might not be your favourite way to train, there are some benefits of running on a treadmill. If the weather is bad outside, running on the pavements or track can be slippery and dangerous, so it’s often safer to opt to run indoors.

What’s more, in past studies, researchers discovered runners have reduced stride lengths and higher stride frequencies on a treadmill when compared with running outside due to the feeling of instability while running on a treadmill. All of these can help improve your form and reduce impact forces on the body.

If you don’t own a treadmill, and are thinking about investing, read our guide to the best treadmills.

If you normally run to feel, or in miles rather than kilometres, setting up your treadmill can be the first hurdle. In order to convert min/km to min/miles, use our handy pace converter here.

Olympian Jo Pavey says, 'Treadmill running is more interesting if you structure it, and you’ll get more out of the session, too. Try alternating the pace between a harder and easier pace every three to five minutes – neither of the paces need to be really hard, but by breaking the run into segments, you can focus on one segment at a time. A higher intensity workout – closer to an interval session – can also be done by working hard for repetitions of different lengths, then reducing the speed to a slow jog for the recoveries. I prefer a slow jog recovery rather than stopping, as I find it breaks up the workout too much to get on and off a treadmill.

'Tempo runs are also great on a treadmill, with the warm-up and warm-down being part of the workout too. I also enjoy progression running on a treadmill, increasing the pace every two to three minutes for 20-30 minutes. I enjoy the challenge of seeing how well I can do, and it has become a source of gauging my fitness levels.

'Or, for a hill workout, try ramping up the incline for a minute with a two-minute steady recovery. Work on progressing the speed and incline parameters.

'All that being said, I think the ability to withstand a degree of tedium on a treadmill improves mental toughness and the ability to focus your running.'

It’s not all about ‘dreadmill’ tedium and counting down the minutes until the session is over. Thanks to a raft of third-party software and apps, you can spice up your treadmill workout by running in virtual worlds and against other runners across the world.

Zwift Run is the most well-known. It’s free to use for runners – you will need to buy a RunPod that attaches to your shoe to track cadence, though. The concept is simple – switch the app on and enter Zwift’s virtual world, where you can run in fictional and real-life locations (including London, New York and Yorkshire). You'll be pounding the pavements alongside runners and cyclists from across the globe, and you can enter group runs, complete different loops and follow Zwift’s training plans for added motivation (see below).

Other popular virtual world apps are Treadmill Trails, Rouvy and Kinomap. They offer real running routes filmed by users across the world that you can run along from the comfort of your treadmill and see how you rank against other users. Some treadmills with a Bluetooth connection will even alter the elevation to match the onscreen metrics.

(In order to do this workout, you’ll need to work out your fast and recovery pace, using our training pace calculator).

Intermediate runners: Increase warmup and cooldown to 10 minutes each.

Advanced runners: Increase the warmup and cooldown, and repeat the 3-2-1 fast/recovery block a third time.

11:01-17:00 Repeat the 5:01-11:00 section at: 4%, 6%, 8%, 10%, and 1% incline

17:01-23:00 repeat the 5:01-11:00 section at 6%, 8%, 10%, 12%, and 1% incline

If you’re relatively new to running and want to make things a bit more challenging, try this run/walk workout.

0:01-5:00 - Easy jog or walk to warmup

5:01 -6:00 - Set the treadmill to an incline of 1% and walk

6:01 -7:00 - Lower the treadmill and jog

7:01 -9:00 - Set the treadmill to an incline of 2% and walk

9:01 -11:00 - Lower the treadmill and jog

11:01 -14:00 - Set the treadmill to an incline of 3% and walk

14:01 -17:00 - Lower the treadmill and jog

17:01 -21:00 - Set the treadmill to an incline of 4% and walk

21:01 -25:00 - Lower the treadmill and jog

25:01 -30:00 - Easy jog or walk to cooldown

1K: Easy pace to warmup

3K: Go straight up to yuor 10-mile to half-marathon race pace for three kilometers

1K: An easy 1K cooldown

1K: Easy pace to warmup

3K: Run three kilometers at your 10K pace, with two or three minutes jogging after each kilometer.

1K: Easy pace to warm down

As you get better, try to build up to 6 x 1K at 10K pace, then increase the pace.

Katie Sloane, Kings of the Wild Frontier and 2021 Zwift Academy athlete, has plenty of experience of training on the treadmill. “For all treadmill workouts I tend to set the incline to 0.5-1% as instructed by my coaches at Zwift Academy,” she says. “Throughout my marathon training this was one of my favourite workouts to do on the treadmill.”

5 x 800m fast with 1min recovery between

“I’m five months pregnant, so my treadmill workouts look a lot different,” says Sloane. “My go-to at the moment is the following session. Each set gradually tends to get faster but I’m never in the red zone – I’m always in control of the workout instead of the other way around.”

You'll find this workout on Zwift Run in its Training section – as Zwift says, the focus is to “become more efficient with higher intensity efforts and to teach the body how to recover after hard efforts”.