I’m a Marathon Runner and This Is My Favorite Walking Mat Workout.

As someone who’s logged thousands of miles on roads, trails, and roads training for marathons, you might think that my favorite workout always involves running. But here’s the truth: Some of my favorite workouts are at walking pace on my treadmill at home . Because, as Lifehacker’s senior health editor Beth Skuerecki has explained before, walking is cardio . The best part for me is that walking workouts are cardio without the impact of running. That makes them ideal for recovery days when you want to maintain fitness without increasing your overall training load. Especially when I’m short on time or need active recovery that still gets results, I turn to a high-incline treadmill walking routine.

Now, when you hear “walking workout,” you probably think of the trendy 12-3-30 program . While its online promises are wildly overblown, I have no problem with this workout. It’s both simple and challenging: You set the incline to 12% (the maximum you can get on many treadmills), your speed to 3.0 mph (a fairly typical walking speed for most of us on a flat surface), and you do it for 30 minutes. Personally, I need more variety in my program. If I just walked at the same speed and incline for 30 minutes, I’d go crazy. It’s not the same as running 26.2 miles on a standby.

The 12-3-30 program gets it right: it emphasizes steep inclines. You can speed walk as much as you want, but without a steady incline, you won’t be engaging all the same muscle groups that you do when running. Think glutes, hamstrings, and calves—these are the muscles you need to work to power through the last few miles of a marathon. Trust me.

My 30 Minute High Incline Walking Mat Workout

For this workout, you’ll need a treadmill with an incline of up to 12% and a speed of 4 mph (6.5 km/h). For me, that’s the Merach W50 ( which I reviewed here if you want to learn more). As with any workout, you can adjust the settings to suit your fitness level or the treadmill. If you do adjust the speed or specific sections, I recommend sticking to the general idea of the workout: a high incline (to keep your muscles active) with constant variation (to keep your mind active). It’s the variety in this workout that helps me stay consistent, whereas the 12-3-30 routine would wear me out by day two.

Warm-up (five minutes)

• Minutes 1–2: Walk 2.5 mph, moderate grade (6–8%)

• Minutes 3-5: Gradually increase speed to 3.2 mph, increase incline to 10%.

Main set (20 minutes)

This is where the magic happens.

Minutes 6–9: Brisk walking intervals

• 30 seconds at 4.0 mph, max incline

• 90 seconds at 3.5 mph, max incline

Repeat this pattern twice.

Minutes 10–13: Steady State

• Maintain a speed of 3.8 mph on maximum grade

It should be quite difficult – you should be able to speak in short sentences.

Minutes 14–17: Speed Ladder

• Minute 14: 3.3 mph, max incline

• Minute 15: 3.5 mph, max incline

• Minute 16: 3.7 mph, max incline

• Minute 17: 4.0 mph, max incline (or your max sustainable speed)

Minutes 18–25: Pyramid Intervals

• 1 minute at 4.0 mph, max incline

• 30 second recovery at 3.0 mph, reduce grade to 8%

• 2 minutes at 4.0 mph, max incline

• 30 second recovery at 3.0 mph, reduce grade to 8%

• 3 minutes at 3.8 mph, max incline

• 30 second recovery at 3.0 mph or slower, reduce grade to 8%

Cool down (5 minutes)

• Minutes 26–28: Gradually slow to 3.0 mph, decrease grade to 6%.

• Minutes 29–30: Easy walk at 2.5 mph, 3% incline.

Progressive overload options

If you find this workout too easy, you can make it more challenging as follows:

• Increase speed at intervals by 0.1–0.2 mph

• Adding one to two minutes to the main intervals of the set

• Incorporate short jogging intervals into your speed ladder run if your treadmill gets fast enough.

• Adding light dumbbells (one to two pounds) to increase the upper body challenge

Bottom line

Runners sometimes tend to think that harder means faster or farther. A good treadmill workout reminds me that intensity comes in many forms. The combination of steep hills and strategic speed drills creates a challenging but economical workout that complements my running routine perfectly. Give it a try next time you’re short on time but still want to challenge yourself—with a max hill, your legs are sure to feel it the next day.

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