After reading that holding onto the hand grips during a treadmill walkout is a Bad Thing (because it takes a lot of work off your legs) and while also feeling lazy today about going out for a run, I decided to try a treadmill workout hands-free. Good news: I didn’t fall off!
I set the speed to the usual 6.5 (pace of 9:13/km) but set the incline to 3 instead of 5 to see how that would go. It definitely felt weird to not be holding on, but in the end it turned out I really didn’t need to. I’ve been needlessly wimping out this entire time! I went for 30 minutes rather than the usual 45ish, so next time I will go longer and may bump the incline back up to 5 to see how that goes, then I’ll be able to see a true direct comparison between holding out/easy mode and testing just how coordinated I really am on top of moving objects.
No issues during the workout. Note the increased BPM. It’s like I really was working harder! The pace was slower because I could not count on the steely grip of my hands saving me from going splat.
Stats:
Speed: 6.5 Incline: 3 (down from 5) Pace: 9:01/km (8:43/km) Time: 30:03 (44:09) Distance: 3.33 km (5.06 km) Calories burned: 252 (332) BPM: 126 (121)