Incline walk vs running

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kissanyacat
kissanyacat Posts: 11 Member
in Fitness and Exercise
Anyone switched from running to incline treadmill walks and had weight loss success? I love running but have an injury that’s been flailing up and have heard that a steady incline walk is amazing for fat loss when you’re in a medium effort zone. It’s a TikTok trend but curious if others have experience

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  • emmamcgarity
    emmamcgarity Posts: 1,594 Member
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    Depending on your injury, walking at an incline may aggravate the injury. When I was recovering from a hamstring injury I was specifically advised to avoid hills and speed work for several months. I’d definitely recommend you talk to your physical therapist before starting any new exercises.

    As was mentioned before, weight loss is largely controlled through diet. So focusing there will yield the best results.
  • spiriteagle99
    spiriteagle99 Posts: 3,676 Member
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    I do incline walking on some of my non-running days. It gives me a good workout without the impact of running. I have no way of knowing how many calories I am burning, because my treadmill thinks I weigh 150 lbs. so drastically overstates calorie burn, but it is an easy way to get some exercise when I need to burn some energy. I just use the regular MFP entry for 3 mph walking and take the extra calorie burn for going uphill as bonus.
  • kissanyacat
    kissanyacat Posts: 11 Member
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    spiriteagle99 wrote: »
    I do incline walking on some of my non-running days. It gives me a good workout without the impact of running. I have no way of knowing how many calories I am burning, because my treadmill thinks I weigh 150 lbs. so drastically overstates calorie burn, but it is an easy way to get some exercise when I need to burn some energy. I just use the regular MFP entry for 3 mph walking and take the extra calorie burn for going uphill as bonus.

    I wear a garmin watch so usually about 330 calories switch a 30 minute walk on an 11 incline with 4 pace
  • yirara
    yirara Posts: 9,416 Member
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    I have no idea what an 11 incline and 4 pace is as every machine has different settings and different angles, but good chance that it's overstated. You have to put in a LOT of effort to do anything that burns 600 calories per hour or more. And we're perfectly adapted to walking and burn surprisingly little calories doing it.

    Why not play a bit with this calculator, and use net calories https://exrx.net/Calculators/WalkRunMETs that might give you a better idea.
  • AnnPT77
    AnnPT77 Posts: 32,221 Member
    edited March 2022
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    kissanyacat wrote: »
    spiriteagle99 wrote: »
    I do incline walking on some of my non-running days. It gives me a good workout without the impact of running. I have no way of knowing how many calories I am burning, because my treadmill thinks I weigh 150 lbs. so drastically overstates calorie burn, but it is an easy way to get some exercise when I need to burn some energy. I just use the regular MFP entry for 3 mph walking and take the extra calorie burn for going uphill as bonus.

    I wear a garmin watch so usually about 330 calories switch a 30 minute walk on an 11 incline with 4 pace

    Heart rate can seriously mislead, if that's what the Garmin is doing. (I'm a Garmin user. Different models have different capabilities, and different settings or paces can use different ones of the capabilities for estimating - GPS, step counting, heart rate, potentially others.) I tend to cross-check my Garmin's calorie estimate with other types of estimates, like the one yirara suggested for walk/run.

    As a long-term exerciser, including much relatively-intense exercise of a type that's watts-metered (tends to be more accurate for calorie estimates), I'm also skeptical of 330 calories per half hour. It's not impossible, but it's a high number. Body size is part of the formula, of course, for walking, so variation in that does make a difference: Since you're trying to lose weight, I assume you're overweight, but I don't know how much. When I was obese, already an athlete, 330 calories per half hour was high even at the time, but most of my exercise is not weight-bearing in the way that bodyweight is a key variable in workload.

    My Garmin, IMO, materially over-estimates walking calories, even though it knows my tested HRmax (not just an age estimate), and even though it materially underestimates my all-day calorie burn (because I'm non-average for my demographic).
  • WailingDusk
    WailingDusk Posts: 58 Member
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    When I was heavier, I did 15% (max incline at my gym) incline walking at 3.8mph, and it gave me amazing cardio. Now that I can jog, I don't do it much anymore, but it will give your legs an amazing workout, too. You really can't go wrong with incline walking, tbh. You will burn a lot of calories doing it.
  • PapaBeast314
    PapaBeast314 Posts: 32 Member
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    I was always under the impression that walking at an incline helps burn fat faster and helps better cardio. Also that if you are on a treadmill, doing a 2% incline helps "simulate" walking outdoors. These are things I heard a looooong time ago, so science may have determined other things.
  • heybales
    heybales Posts: 18,842 Member
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    PapaBeast314 wrote: »
    I was always under the impression that walking at an incline helps burn fat faster and helps better cardio. Also that if you are on a treadmill, doing a 2% incline helps "simulate" walking outdoors. These are things I heard a looooong time ago, so science may have determined other things.

    If walking at an incline makes it more intense for you - the fuel source will shift towards carbs from fat actually.
    Still burning both - but anything more intense is more carbs - hence the reason anaerobic is above the aerobic range and very short lived in comparison to farther down the scale, because it's burning higher carbs.

    Incline can make up for the fact that most people have a max walking speed they can do, when it no longer becomes a workout due to their level of fitness, then you increase intensity by increasing the incline - and make it a workout again.

    That 2% was said to be more equivalent on treadmill to walking outside, as far as intensity.
    Not sure I'd call that simulate as the muscles are still being used slightly different between the two, but to get the intensity up to match outside walking.
  • Carmen_TX
    Carmen_TX Posts: 39 Member
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    I had to stop running because of a knee issue and I really enjoy walking with the incline up. You can easily burn the same calories as running without the pounding on your knees.

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