The 12.3.30 Treadmill Workout: What It Is and Why You Need to Avoid Doing it!

 

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The 12.3.30 workout has become really popular on social media lately. It was created by Lauren Giraldo, a health and beauty influencer, and originally appeared on her YouTube channel. She wanted to make it easier for people to get fit without doing complicated exercises.

I'm a bit concerned that this trend may be inducing over-training, and I think it might be a lot better to do sSit training for about 20 minutes twice a week for even better science-backed results! 

So how do you do the 12.3.30 Treadmill Exercise?

The instructions are straightforward - but in my view, that's where the value ends. Here are the basic exercise instructions: 

- Set the incline on your treadmill to 12% 

- Adjust the speed of your treadmill to 3mph 

- Walk for 30 minutes on the treadmill 

This treadmill exercise is equivalent to walking a steep hill for half an hour. 

You could burn around 250-300 calories if you weigh around 130-160 pounds. 

Top Reasons You Should Not Make The 12.3.30 Workout Part of Your Regular Exercise Routine - Based on Science:

Although the instructions for this treadmill exercise are straightforward, it's challenging to complete, especially for a beginner or someone who needs to lose unhealthy body fat. 

For one thing, prolonged uphill walking can put a lot of stress on the lower back, leading to lower back pain and even injury over time. 

But most importantly, given the difficulty level and continuous activation of the leg muscles, this kind of exercise will likely lead to serious muscle soreness. And that likely includes early and late-onset muscle soreness that can last for days. And that's on top of potential low back pain. 

And that makes the 12.3.30 Workout a high-friction exercise, which means that over time, it would be very difficult for most people to stick to doing it. Not only that, but it would likely lead to giving up on the attempt to get into shape or lose weight. 

Ideally, you want to take the friction (the reasons to give up on it) out of your workout program. 

For example, the latest research clearly shows that the real key to both fat loss and optimal health and longevity is building and maintaining high-quality muscle. 

And that can be done in as little as 3-4 15 minutes of resistance training (i.e., 45-60 minutes per week)! And you can do these short, low-friction workouts with resistance bands. You don't need weights or a gym membership. 

And cardiovascular fitness, which is very important for overall health and longevity, is very different than what people think of when they think about cardio workouts.

For example, you can develop very high cardiovascular fitness levels with very short bouts of vo2 max training per week - as little as 1-2 minute intensive sprints during power walks twice per week. 

Cardiovascular fitness is not the same as doing "cardio" to burn fat. It's a myth that cardio is the top way to burn fat. Having muscle in your body leads to a higher metabolism, calorie burning, improved metabolic health, and fat loss over time. For example: 

A massive new (2022) meta-analytic study  shows that resistance training is incredibly effective in reducing body fat and getting into good shape overall. And people lost even more weight when they combined resistance training with caloric restriction. 

The study, which reviewed and analyzed the results of 116 studies, found that when only resistance training was done, there was a significant reduction of 1.6% in body fat - which jumped to 3.8% when combined with caloric restriction! 

That's a fantastic result, especially compared to the modest 1.4% reduction achieved by cardio and resistance training without calorie restriction. In other words, it's mainly the resistance training that's getting the fat-loss results, not the cardio! 

Simply walking and enjoying short movement breaks throughout the day is critical for optimal health and wellness. But this is more about dumping and burning glucose to maintain healthy blood sugar levels. 

And the more muscle you have, especially in your legs and glutes, the more glucose you can dump and the more calories you burn with simple "frictionless" short walks and movement snacks. And you can make this regular quick movement breaks fun with music or by listening to your favorite podcast.

Not only that, but by having more healthy muscle mass in your body, you can burn thousands of extra calories per month, even when you're inactive during the day - and while you're sleeping! 

And of course, it is critical to eat a protein-optimized muscle-centric diet. For optimal health and weight loss.  

Another cool thing the latest muscle-centric fitness research shows is that you don't have to do resistance exercises to failure to enjoy maximum muscle-building results. 

In fact, studies show that if you're experiencing intense muscle soreness, the kind of soreness you're likely to experience trying to do The 12.3.30 Treadmill Workout as your go-to-workout, you're likely NOT going to build and maintain muscle over time. 

And given the high friction level (muscle sourness and difficulty level) you're likely not going to be able to stick to it 12.3.30 Treadmill Workout over time! 

Hope that helps! - Click Here for Online Coaching 

Your Coach David is a former Cognitive Behavioral Psychotherapist and Clinical Behavior Consultant turned Certified Stress Management & Sleep Science Coach. He's also an International Sports Science Association (ISSA) Certified Personal Fitness Trainer and Nutritionist.