Welcome back to Bounce Forward with me, Tip Haul, I'd like to acknowledge the traditional custodians of the land in which I'm recording this podcast, the Werendr people of the Cooler Nation. I pay my respects to elders past and present. Tanya reached out with a really good question because I'm seeing this everywhere. To Tanya, Tiff, I'm seeing the treadmill trend twelve three thirty everywhere, but it sounds really confusing to me. What actually is it? It's all over socials
as a means to shred. What are the benefits? Okay, so the viral trend twelve three point thirty workout is setting up your treadmill at an incline of twelve and a speed of three miles per hour, which is roughly about five kilometers per hour, and then walking for thirty minutes, all right now. The concept originated from a social media influencer, Lauren Giraldo. She shared it on YouTube in twenty nineteen and TikTok in November in twenty twenty, and the video
just went viral. It's wrapped up over twelve million views and now everyone's doing the twelve three thirty treadmill workout. It's gained a lot of popularity as being very effective, but is it effective. Let's break it down, Okay, so I really wanted to look at.
This first up.
You've got to consider your cardio the cardiovascular fitness there, and yes, there's some good endurance in this. Walking at a significant incline for thirty minutes is good cardio and it's going to build endurance and strength for the heart. So it's very good in that respect, and it's going to help your heart health a lot. You're going to reduce your blood pressure, improve your heart health and low cholesterol levels. So I give it a tick for being
good cardio. Now it's also gone viral because people think it's a way to shred, and so let's look at weight loss and weight management here. So caloric burn doesn't burn calories absolutely, like the combination of an incline and a consistent pace does increase the intensity of the walking and that leads to a high calorie burn compared to walking on a flat surface. So definitely good for weight
loss or weight management. And consistent cardio exercise, especially moderate to intensity like this does make it very accessible for people, so anyone can do it, which is great and it's quite easy to do thirty minutes bit of an incline. It's quite a good pace. You can bring that pace up if you get really confident and you are going
to burn some fat. The optimal goal for physical activity is one hundred and fifty minutes of moderate intensity activity or seventy five minutes of vigorous intensity alongside two strength activities per week, according to the Centers of Disease Control and Prevention in the US. Okay, so maintaining sixty to seventy percent of your maximum heart rate is where you should be for the fat burning zone.
And this would absolutely do that.
To estimate your highest heart rate again, you subtract your age from two hundred and twenty to determine the number of maximum beats per minute. Okay, so you can work out sixty to seventy percent there and then you can see if you are in the fat burning zone. Are they're fat burning zones? That's another podcast. I guess we could go into that. Really, I do think that this is going to burn fat, and it's really great because
it's not going to burn muscle. It's not like a long cardio session that's going to eat away at your lean muscle stores and they're your fat factories, so you want to really maintain your lean muscle mass. And the walking is still a good cardio that doesn't eat at that muscle mass, so it's really really good actually for calorie burn. Then you've got the muscle toning a spect which is targeting the lower muscle, lower body muscles, which
is really great. Your carves, your handstrings, your gloats, your quads, they're really working a lot harder than walking.
Over a flat surface.
So it does it lead to more muscle tone and strength absolutely, And your muscles have two types of fibers. You've got your slow twitch and fast twitch, and whilst fast twitched muscle fibers fatigue quite easily, think high intensity hit short duration bursts of exercise. Your slow twitch muscle fibers contribute to endurance, so long duration, low intensity as
they don't fatigue as quickly. And the twelve to three point thirty workout focuses on the slow twitch which can be activated through you know this kind of sustained aerobic exercise and adding an incline workout really helps build that muscle, which is great. We're always all about building lean muscle mass. And the other thing it does which is really great is the incline puts the posterior chain into action, so you glute your hamstring, your low back, your calf muscles.
We don't often work the posterior chain. We're all about the front of the body. But your back body is really really important to improve your low body strength and your overall balance and calibration so really important. Then you've got core engagement in this because of the incline, so your core muscles are working your strength and stability, which is really great. I love walking for stress relief and
mental health benefits and how achievable it is. It's like if you set yourself up for failure by going I'm going to go for a ten k run, and then you don't do it, and then you beat yourself up and then you feel guilty. Then you do nothing and you have the all or nothing attitude. I love a walk because anyone can go walking. You just go walk on an incline on the traademill, give yourself thirty minutes and it's done. You have that exercise satisfaction, a sense
of accomplishment, and your mood is boosted. Through the lease of endorphins, so it's really a win win, and it's very convenient, and it's something that you can stick to, so you've got consistency of routine and the straightforward nature of the twelve three point thirty workout makes it easy to stick to and it's a key factor in long term health and fitness. Isn't it just being able to stick to something? So I think that the twelve three
thirty workout is a great workout. It's got a lot of benefits, especially if you're going from being quite sedentary and wanting to bring the intensity up a little bit. While adding that incline is fantastic. It's something that you can play with as well. You don't have to go straight to the twelve incline. You could go ten three thirty and work your way up. That would be a
really great way. And for those with joint issues and injuries, the incline can actually really help with not having that pain, and it can really help with injuries and build that posterior change ng The other thing that's gained a lot of popularity, especially from the Kardashians and I see them on there all the time is a stair Master walking stairs is fantastic, you know, but it does get a little bit.
Boring, and I like to have the end in sight. Thirty minutes.
Okay, I can do that on a cardio machine or a piece of equipment, but just treading and you just don't know when you're going to get off, It's just like it's a little bit boring. It's still working the same muscles. You're activating the glutes, of hamstrikings of calves, the posterior chain of the body, really working those muscles and getting very very strong, and it's great for the glutes. But I would say they're very similar in workouts. It's
just about personal preference. What do you prefer. Bringing a bit of resistance into the stair master fantastic as well. Yeah, I think it comes down to personal preference because they are working very similar muscle groups.
So if you're looking.
At the twelve three point thirty workout, is it a complete workout? Is that something you go to the gym You got the best bang for your buck?
I think so.
I think it's a great cardio option if you're still getting your strength training in and you want to add some cardio into your week. This is a great standalone cardio workout. Thirty minutes of this fantastic. You could add in a little bit of glute activation before you do it, So put the band around your knees, do your crab walks, do some clams, do some fire hydrants. That is going to activate the glutes and they're going to be primed and ready for you know, doing the incline work That
would be amazing. Also, I was just thinking, if you have bad knees, you can still do this workout. You just got to work walk backwards on the treadmill. Okay, So walking forwards up in incline is going to hurt your knees, but if you walk backwards, it's not going to hurt your knees at all, and it's only going to strengthen the ptel ligament and make your knees really bullet p So I do backwards incline walking often to strengthen my knees and my muscles. So that's another tip.
You don't have to be doing this forwards. You can do it backwards. Just remember, after you've done any kind of workout, you want to cool down, and that doesn't mean you quickly grab your keys grab your phone, grab your bag, leave the gym and go home and then do some stretching or whatever it needs to be done quickly after your workout, especially if it's cardio. You want to bring your heart rate back down. You want to do that whilst you're stretching and calming your nervous system
back down to homeostasis. You don't want to go from a workout into rushing because that keeps the cortersole levels up right and you're still in that fight or flight mode. You want to bring it back down to safety where it's rest and digest mode. You know, you give your body a minute, and that is the gentle static stretches
that you can do. The beautiful stretches. You might be in a nice glute stretch like a pigeon pose, or you might do a beautiful child stretch child's pose that's really nice on the lower back and it gets into the glutes, and or you might go for something like a thoracic stretch with the upper back where you just want to really get the whole body into it, you know, And these cool down movements are really important because of the nervous system. It's a nervous system that has to
come first. And you don't want to go from zero to hero and not warm up. You want to warm up and prime the body with some dynamic stretching and mobility work. Then you go and some activations that mimic the movement patterns that you're about to do in your workout, and then you do the workout, and then you need to cool down and bring that nervous system back down, bring the heart rate down so you're not getting dizzy and you're not shocking the body anymore, and the body knows, oh,
this is safety. There's a time to go hard and there's a time to be safe and relaxed. And I love a bit of box breathing in a nice stretching position. Today, I you know, I did an upper body workout and then I finished with some cat cow stretches, some child's pose, and I was just concentrating on my breath four beats in, four beats, hold four beats out.
Bit of box.
Breathing and then I can easily have my protein powder or you know, my supplements straight after the gym, and I know they're digesting and my body is accepting at all. You know, you don't you don't ever want to be in a rush. Rushing women's syndrome, that's an actual thing, and there's I think doctor Libby Weaver wrote a book about rushing women's syndrome, and it's just about keeping those cortisol levels high and stress and the body stress out.
Even if you don't feel like you're in psychological stress, your body can be in physical stress. Hasn't calmed down and had a moment straight after the workout, so always do your cool down. Thanks so much for listening to Bounce Forward. I love having your company, so please dm me on Instagram at tip hole Underscore XO and let me know what topics and questions you'd love me to answer. Don't forget to rate and review me on your podcast at speak soon.
Happy Days,