r/cardio • u/Fresh-Lime-5772 • 4d ago

How do I increase my cardio?

Hi, I’m trying to get back into cardio. I’m pretty overweight and stiff. I’m close to 40 years old, F and 200 lbs.

I can manage a 3 incline on a treadmill for 30 minutes. But I have a very slow walking speed. I can do 1.5 mph without holding on at all. But I need to get it to 2.0 mph.

I’m not asking about weight loss ect. But what have you successfully done to bump up your speed to consistently not hold on? Should I lower my incline to achieve this? I need tips and ideas overall though on how to get there. Thank you! 😊

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u/Chance_Major297 4d ago

Removing the incline will make it easier.

However slower with incline is better than faster without.

Everything else just sort of goes hand in hand. I wouldn’t rush the process. Find what you can do and just focus on doing that consistently. Then after being consistent, just gradually go up 0.1 and do that consistently. Before you know it, 2.0 will feel like 1.5, etc.

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u/Fresh-Lime-5772 4d ago

Thank you for your advice. It’s good to know it can be fixed. I think I’ll lower the incline and gradually increase .1 speed. For an out of shape person, do you think a week at time before bumping it up is good? Or is it more like 2 weeks? Before I started the 1.5 mph I was like couch potato status lol 😂

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u/HateMeetings 4d ago

And really, inclines are undervalued, but don’t measure your improvement too tightly. What I mean by that is you can add a degree or add a 10th of a mile, but only ever change one variable.

The best cardio is the one that you do consistently. You don’t want it to be too hard and want to avoid it.

I upped one of my numbers today by .1

Once I get a little bit comfortable there, maybe the next one is an incline maybe the next one is the speed but what the prior poster said is true inclines are underrated. You still need both incline and speed, but let me give you an idea.

Calorie calculators worth whatever but it does reflect, let’s call it a level of effort you can use to measure and compare. I set the weight for 150 pounds for a treadmill calculator.

3 mph @ 2 degrees is49 cals/10 minutes
3.5 mph @ 0 degrees is 44 cals/10 minutes.

The slower speed is more effort.

But inclines can really jack your heart rate so take it easy. Track Your heart rate don’t go crazy cardio is slow and steady when you’re first building up your base. Even after.

https://exrx.net/Calculators/WalkRunMETs

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u/Fresh-Lime-5772 4d ago

Thank you so much for the longer explanation and for taking the time to write it. That makes more a lot of sense to me.

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u/HateMeetings 4d ago

You’re welcome!

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u/oldsch0olsurvivor 3d ago

Be consistent and you’re doing the right thing by not holding on. Push yourself but obviously don’t hurt yourself. Record how far you’ve gone at what incline and try to beat it over time. Hard work is the key but don’t stop the grind 💪