The ups and downs of treadmill trekking can simulate a walk on the wild side.If cyclists can spin furiously on stationary bikes that go nowhere and crew aficionados can organize races on rowers that require no water, is it any surprise that walkers and runners can take a hike without their feet touching the ground?
It’s called trekking, the latest group-exercise program to take advantage of workout machines found in most health clubs–this time the treadmill.
“When you first tell people it’s group treadmill training, they say, `OK, you walk together. Whoop-de-do,’ ” said Therese Iknoian, a San Jose exercise physiologist and nationally ranked race walker who, with Los Angeles fitness instructor Jay Blahnik, developed the trekking program for Star Trac, a manufacturer of fitness club treadmills.
But, as with spinning, the studio cycling program that has been the next big thing in group exercise for a couple of years, trekking tries to do more.
Instructors pace back and forth in front of class members aboard treadmills and advise them to increase or decrease their speed, change the incline to simulate hills, work a little harder, and walk or run a little longer.
It’s not exactly a stroll in the park.
“I think your heart rate is elevated for 30 minutes,” said a slightly breathless Debbie Kanagaki, who jogged through an introductory trekking class taught by Iknoian this month at the Right Stuff health club, one of four clubs nationwide to offer the program. “The best part,” she said, “is you don’t even know it’s 30 minutes.”
Iknoian says the idea is to give exercisers at different levels of fitness a structured workout, complete with warm-ups, varying intensities of exercise and warm-downs.
“You can go into any club anywhere and invariably you look at the bank of treadmills and there are 8 to 10 people just plodding along,” she said, adding that research conducted by Star Trac indicates that only 10 percent to 15 percent of treadmill users change the incline level on their machines to anything more challenging than flat. “And then,” Iknoian said, “they complain about how bored they are.”
During a trekking workout, exercisers are taught to discover their personal “break points”–the point at which walking turns into running.
Throughout the class, they’re advised to walk or run at speeds faster or slower than their break points. They change inclines up and down. They get their heart rates up, then recover, then do it again.
They’re also taught to find the red emergency button that stops the machine.
The pattern of the workout is based on interval training, Iknoian explained: short spurts of hard exercise followed by periods of rest that help build cardiovascular capacity and muscular strength.
Such unfamiliar use can be a bit intimidating for novice treadmill users.
The group lined up for Iknoian’s first class laughs nervously as she points to an emergency stop button and advises them to punch it if they feel they’re in danger of flying off the back and hitting the folks on the exercise bikes behind them.
“The last time I was on that thing it really ate me up,” said Too Ying Joe, a new club member who made it through her first trek without injury. “But this time, I was not only walking, I was jogging. And I never jog.”
But the real question is, will she ever jog again–outside? Will anyone?
“I’m a big proponent of outdoor exercise. I think with any of these indoor training programs the point is not to stay indoors all the time but to get brave enough to go outdoors occasionally,” Iknoian said.
“But you have to be realistic. There are a lot of people who just don’t want to go outdoors.”
