Prioritizing fitness as you age is critical if you want to promote longevity and maintain your overall well-being. But workouts don’t have to take forever: A simple 20-minute treadmill routine, done regularly during the week, can help you reach your health and fitness goals.
The current Physical Activity Guidelines for Americans recommend getting at least 150 minutes of moderate-intensity aerobic exercise a week, and it’s a good cue to follow. Cognition declines as we get older, but keeping up with your exercise routine can help you stay sharp.
This quick treadmill workout will improve your cardiovascular fitness, strengthen your core, and activate your posterior chain of muscles (those at the back of your body). To make it more challenging, we’ve included dumbbell exercises that build upper-body strength and coordination.
Engaging your mind while you’re on the treadmill is also a good idea. Studies have long shown that doing cognitive exercises at an older age has brain-boosting benefits, and mental multitasking during a workout could amplify these. You could test this theory by listening to an educational audiobook or memorizing new vocabulary words while you exercise. Of course, the challenge of learning a new routine, as you are doing here, has its own neurological rewards.
Here’s the outline of our 20-minute workout and its associated dumbbell exercises.
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