Does Running on a Treadmill During a Warm up Make You Lose Your Butt?

by Nicole Vulcan, Demand Media Google

Running is a high-intensity exercise that burns a lot of calories per minute. When you burn more calories than you consume, you lose fat. By that logic, then, you can lose your butt fat when you run on a treadmill during your warm up. That's one way to look at it, but there's really more to the equation than just that.

The Calorie Basics

To lose 1 pound of fat, you have to burn off 3,500 more calories than you consume. For most people, a safe amount of weight loss is 1 to 2 pounds per week. This translates to cutting about 500 to 1000 calories a day through diet, exercise or both. That fat loss is going to be evenly distributed over your whole body. In other words, you can't try to do spot-reducing exercises for one part of your body. Running also recruits the gluteal muscles, so while you're burning off fat, you may also be building muscle, resulting in more muscle mass in that area. If you find that you're losing more mass than you'd like, don't overlook strength training exercises including squats, lunges and quadruped hip extensions to build more glute muscle.

Calories and Running

The faster and longer you run, the closer you'll get toward creating a calorie deficit that can lead to fat loss. If you weigh 155 pounds and run at a pace of about 5 miles per hour, you can expect to burn about 298 calories in 30 minutes. Running at a faster pace of 6 miles per hour will help a 155-pound person burn 372 calories in 30 minutes, while running at a pace of 10 miles per hour will result in about 614 calories burned in 30 minutes. People who weigh less tend to burn fewer calories, while those weighing more will burn more calories, partly because of the increased energy demands of the additional weight. While running outdoors includes slightly more wind resistance, you can assume you'll burn roughly the same number of calories on a treadmill or outdoors.

The Warm Up Basics

As its name suggests, a warm-up is a time when you should be warming up, not going full-speed. Your heart needs time to gradually start beating faster, and your muscles need time to receive the resulting increase in oxygen. For those reasons, starting out on the treadmill at what you consider to be full workout speed is not the ideal way to run, whether it's on a treadmill or outdoors. Not doing an easy, gradual warm up could result in pulled muscles or rapid fatigue. Since burning the calories that will result in a smaller butt means spending plenty of time exercising, you don't want to risk an injury.

Ideal Running Warm Up

To prevent those injuries that could sideline your weight loss regimen, perform a proper, easy warm-up before you work out. Don't start out running at top speed; instead, set the treadmill to a relatively slow pace and walk or jog for five to 10 minutes. After that, perform some dynamic stretches that work the muscles you're going to do during the bulk of your workout. If the rest of your workout involves running, you might do side steps, shuffles or leg kicks, suggests "Runners World." If you're going to swim, you might perform arm circles. For aerobics, you might do leg kicks and arm circles. At the conclusion of your workout, repeat the process and walk or jog for another five to 10 minutes.

About the Author


Photo Credits

  • Jupiterimages/ Images
Suggest an Article Correction