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What is the 12-3-30 workout and should you do it?
Summary
The 12-2-30 treadmill workout has become a fitness phenomenon. We take a look at how to do it, and whether you should take it up
Sometimes all it takes is a proper structure to get the best out of fitness science. If you take that structure, and add a catchy and easy-to-understand term, and that science turns into a popular trend.
It is well known that walking on an incline will work more muscles and keep your heart-rate elevated. But it took social media influencer Lauren Giraldo’s genius in giving this idea the popularity it deserves. In 2019, she took her treadmill routine, and named it 12-3-30, a fitness term which she then smartly trademarked.
The video blew up on TikTok. To date, it has over 16 million views on YouTube with ‘@twelvethreethirty’ having its own robust following across social media.
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The workout is simple and all you need to do it is a treadmill. The settings have to be on an incline of 12, at speed 3, and has to be done for 30 minutes. Giraldo said that doing it helped her lose around 15kg. The workout is backed by proper science, with enough room to play with the settings. What you need to keep in mind is this basic idea: Walk on an incline to maximise your calorific output.
A study published in 2013 in the journal Plos One, titled A Paradigm Of Uphill Running, studied the biomechanical movement of humans when running uphill. The biggest takeaway was that the heart rate increased by nearly 10% on a 2-7% incline.
“A large number of variables have been targeted to try to shed light on the relationships between the mechanical and metabolic during uphill running… It has been confirmed that running at increasing slope elicits greater heart rate, metabolic and mechanical cost," the study stated.
But while running at an incline seems like a daunting prospect, the 12-3-30 sounds doable. But it isn’t a particularly easy thing to do either. Especially when you consider that Giraldo did it five times a week. Weight loss coach Layna, who goes by FrumpyFit on her social media channels, tried the workout and made some valid observations.
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“You should probably modify this and just use the same principle of a specific incline on a specific speed for a specific amount of time," Layna says in a YouTube video (see below). She also points out that one must take their height into account to figure this out. This is because people with longer legs may find the settings too easy and people with shorter legs may find them too tough." For reference, Giraldo is 5’1".
For the longest time, I believed that walking as a means to getting fit wasn’t worth the hype. But I have decided to give this one a shot. Taking a break from the preferred sprint interval training, the settings for me will be 8 on the incline, 4 for speed, and a duration of 10 minutes. The aim is to build to a 12-5-15 rather than a 12-3-30 and take it from there. It’s also more polite to occupy a treadmill for no longer than 20 minutes if you are going to the gym in peak hours. As FrumpyFit says in the video, “don’t be afraid to change the parameters."
The thing is, you need to find a personal balance where you keep your body’s conditioning in mind while fiddling with the treadmill’s settings. Running coach and physiologist Janet Hamilton speaks about the drawbacks of diving into the program as if it was a magic formula to weight loss.
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In a Health.com article titled Is The '12-3-30' Treadmill Routine A Good Workout she warns against the load this can put on your lower back. “The workout also demands a lot of your hamstrings and calves, so you could potentially strain these muscles if you jump into the routine without properly preparing your body."
A Shape.com article suggests another way to approach it. Titled All About The Viral 12-3-30 Workout, “…another way to build up to the 12-3-30 workout is to increase your incline on the treadmill by about 10% each week."
There is also a case to be made for pairing this workout with resistance training and mobility exercises, especially if you are doing it regularly. The best part about the routine is that it sets a high benchmark even for those who don’t want to or cannot run but still want to use the treadmill for their goals. Doing the 12-3-30 is a big challenge and that is where this trend differs from others—it is both legit and also flexible.
The workout has to be treated like any other repetitive exercise. Walking on a steep incline means that the ankles, the knees, the hips, and the back are all working. That is a lot of joints working hard in tandem. So mix it up, and you might be able to come up with a bespoke formula that works wonders for you.
Pulasta Dhar is a football commentator, podcaster and writer.
