Take the dread out of your tread routine

Are you bored with your monotonous treadmill routine? Of course you are! Grammatically speaking, the word "treadmill" is synonymous with terms such as, "chore," "drudgery," and "rut." A running revelation - treadmills were designed to peak your heart rate and caloric expenditure, but not so much your interest.

Luckily, there is a way to make this form of exercise fun and enjoyable. Change the pace of your conventional cardio course with the following treadmill twist:

{Shoot for a 30-minute cardio routine. Separate each exercise with a solid five-minute, fast pace run.}

Warm Up. Start your engines with a brisk walk on the treadmill. This will allow ample time to get the blood flowing to your muscles, work the kinks out of your joints and people watch for a bit. (A friendly tip, the television screen on the treadmill does not make you invisible. Chances are, if you can see me, I see you too, Norman Bates.) Fire up your heart rate and running routine with a five minute jog, then follow up with a sixty-second sprint. Walk it out for two minutes.

Truffle Shuffle. The next exercise requires taking a step in the wrong direction to get it right. With hands resting on the arm rails for support, position your body sideways on the treadmill and slowly shuffle your feet until you become comfortable with the exercise. It is important to stay low and resist the urge to hang onto the railing for dear life, as this will become an upper body exercise rather than a lower body routine. Increase the speed once you overcome the fear of flying off the machine and needing someone to scrape you off the wall. Perform thirty-seconds on each side, with a sixty-second fast walk in between sets.

Reverse Gears. Neuromuscular exercises are key to improving balance and coordination. Our bodies move in a sagittal direction everyday. Exercises such as walking or running become routine and can be performed with ease, allowing for the brain to function on autopilot. However, when we alter the directional perspective in which we exercise, your brain must focus in order to execute the exercises safely and effectively. Proprioception is the brain's sense of where our body parts are located and positioned. The mind-body relationship is strengthened by implementing exercises such as walking in reverse on a treadmill. Furthermore, it recruits underused muscles, such as the quadriceps and calves, which are neglected during walking/running since the hamstrings and glutes do most of the work. Start at a very low speed with a medium incline, such as 3.5. Position your feet on the immobile sides of the treadmill, body facing away from the front of the machine. While holding on to the arm rails, begin to walk until you are comfortable enough to let go. It may be hard to time this since there is no longer a clock in front of you, so mentally count out thirty-seconds or go until you are ready to turn around.

Take the Lunge Plunge. Here's where it gets fun, or hazardous if you don't slow down your machine to the appropriate speed. Start slow and get low. While maintaining proper form - shoulders back, core activated and ankles over the knees - take big lunging steps for one minute. While you may feel as though you are uncomfortably close to the front part of the machine, embrace this awkward proximity as it keeps your body from lurching forward into improper lunge form.

Step it up. Don't let the treadmill run the show.

Earn it.

Read more Sports Doc for Sports Medicine and Fitness.