Should You Hold the Handrails on a Treadmill?

1. Should You Hold the Handrails on a Treadmill? The Short Answer

Hold the handrails when you step on and off, when the speed or incline is changing, when you need to steady yourself, and throughout if you need support for balance — but if you can walk or run safely with your hands free, do not grip or lean on them for the whole session. Habitual holding reduces the work your legs do, alters your posture and stride, and makes the console's calorie figure further off.

That answer has two halves, and the first one matters more. Safety comes first. If letting go would make you feel unsteady, or you have a condition that affects your balance, the rails are doing exactly what they were designed to do and you should use them. A slightly less efficient workout is a far better outcome than a fall from a moving belt. Nothing on this page is an argument for anybody to let go before they are ready.

The second half is for the much larger group of people who hold on out of habit, because the speed or incline is a little more than they can manage hands-free, or because it feels more secure. For them, the rails are quietly taking part of the workout away. The usual fix is not to grit your teeth and let go at the same settings, but to lower the speed or the incline to a level you can manage without holding on, and build back up from there.

One genuine exception: the metal pads on many consoles and handlebars are heart-rate grip sensors, and they only work while you hold them. Holding them briefly to take a reading is what they are for. Holding them for a whole run is not, for reasons covered further down.

2. When Should You Hold the Handrails?

You should hold the handrails at every moment when your footing is most at risk, which on a treadmill means transitions. Most of the falls and stumbles people describe happen not in the middle of a steady session but at the edges of it: stepping on, stepping off, a sudden speed change, a glance away, a cough, a phone dropped on the belt.

Getting on and off

Hold the rails as you step onto the side rails, while you start the belt at its slowest speed, and as you step onto the moving belt. Do the same in reverse at the end: slow the belt right down, hold on, step off onto the side rails, and only then let the belt stop or step away. Never step onto a belt that is already moving at walking speed from a standstill. Ourtreadmill safety tipscover the full start and stop routine, including clipping on the safety key before the belt ever moves.

When the speed or incline changes

A treadmill changes speed faster than your body expects, particularly on interval programmes that jump between settings automatically. A hand lightly on the rail for the few seconds of the change, released once you have settled into the new pace, is sensible. The same goes for big incline changes, which shift your centre of mass and make the belt feel different underfoot.

When anything unexpected happens

If you stumble, feel light-headed, lose your rhythm, need to reach for a bottle or adjust a screen, grab the rail first and do the other thing second. If you feel dizzy, faint, short of breath beyond what the effort explains, or have chest discomfort, hold on, slow the belt or pull the safety key, and step off — then stop for the day and get it checked.

Throughout, if you need support

If you need the rails to feel stable — because of age, a balance or neurological condition, recovery from an injury, a joint problem, medication, or simply because you are new and nervous — use them for as long as you need them. This is not a lesser way of exercising. It is the safe way for you, and the walking still counts. If your aim is eventually to walk hands-free, the section on how to stop holding on below explains how to work towards it gradually, and a physical therapist can tailor that to you.

3. Does Holding Onto the Treadmill Burn Fewer Calories?

Yes — holding onto the treadmill generally means you burn fewer calories than you would at the same speed and incline with your hands free, because your arms are taking some of your weight or helping to pull you along, so your legs do less work. The more you lean, hang or pull, the bigger the difference.

The reason is simple physics. Walking or running costs energy mainly because your legs have to support your body weight with every step, push it forward, and — on an incline — lift it upwards. Anything that takes some of that weight off your legs reduces the work. Gripping the front rail and leaning back on an incline lets your arms carry part of your body. Leaning forward with straight arms onto the console does something similar on the flat. Even a firm grip that pulls you forward with each step lets your arms contribute to the propulsion your legs would otherwise provide.

How much less? Nobody can give you a fair figure, and you should be wary of anyone who quotes one confidently. It depends on how much weight you are putting through your hands, whether you are leaning back or forward, the speed, and above all the incline. Resting your fingertips lightly on the rail for balance changes very little. Hanging off the front of a treadmill at a steep grade can change a great deal. The direction of the effect is certain; its size for any given person is not something a console, a watch or a website can tell you.

For the calorie arithmetic itself — how speed, incline and body weight combine into an estimate, with tables — see our reference ontreadmill calories burned. The short version for this page is that every number in those tables assumes hands-free walking or running, and holding on moves you below them.

4. Why Does Holding On Make the Console Calories Further Off?

Holding on makes the console's calorie figure further off because the console has no idea you are doing it. It calculates the estimate from the belt speed, the incline, the time and — if you entered it — your body weight, and it assumes you are supporting all of that weight on your own legs. When your arms take a share, the work you are actually doing drops while the number on the display stays exactly the same.

That matters because the console figure is already an estimate with generous assumptions. Many consoles use a default body weight if you do not enter yours, the underlying equations describe an average person rather than you, and the displayed speed and incline are themselves not always exact. Our guide to whethertreadmill calories are accurategoes through those sources of error. Holding on adds one more error, and it always pushes in the same direction: the display overstates what you did.

The practical consequence is worst for people who use the console number to make decisions — eating back the calories, or judging whether a session was hard enough. A steep-incline walk done while hanging off the rails can show an impressive figure on the screen for a session that was, in reality, considerably easier than the same settings done hands-free. If you rely on the number at all, the hands-free session is the only one where it has a fighting chance of being in the right region.

Wrist trackers have the same blind spot from a different angle. If your wrists are clamped to a rail, a watch sees almost no arm movement, so it may under-count steps and mis-read the activity. A heart-rate reading from a watch or strap is less fooled, because your heart rate does fall when the work falls — which is, incidentally, a good way to see the effect of holding on for yourself: try a few minutes each way at the same settings and compare.

5. What Does Holding the Rails Do to Your Posture and Stride?

Holding the rails changes your posture and stride, usually for the worse: you tend to lean (forward onto the console or back against your arms), your stride shortens or becomes uneven, your arms stop swinging, and your hips and trunk stop doing the small balancing work they do on every step outdoors.

Leaning forward. Gripping the console with straight arms tips your upper body forward from the hips. Your back rounds, your shoulders creep up, and your head juts towards the display. It feels supportive, but it is not how you would ever walk on the ground, and many people find it leaves their shoulders, neck or lower back uncomfortable after a long session.

Leaning back. On an incline, the common pattern is to grip the front rail and lean back with your arms straight, almost as if water-skiing. The body ends up at an angle to the belt, the legs push from a position they never use on a real hill, and much of the climbing effort is transferred into the arms and shoulders.

Stride and arm swing. Natural walking has a rhythm in which the arms swing opposite to the legs and help to balance the rotation of the trunk. Clamp your hands to a rail and that rhythm goes. Many people respond by shuffling with shorter steps, or by walking with their feet closer to the front of the belt to stay near the rail, which raises the chance of kicking the motor hood. Our guide totreadmill running formcovers arm swing, belt position and posture for runners in more detail.

Balance practice. One of the quiet benefits of walking is that every step is a small balance exercise. Your ankles, hips and trunk make constant small corrections. Holding on removes most of that. For someone who could walk safely hands-free, that is a missed benefit; for someone working on their balance under a therapist's guidance, the decision about when to let go belongs to them and their therapist, not to a general rule.

6. Why Is Holding On Worst on an Incline?

Holding on matters most on an incline because incline is where most of the extra work comes from — lifting your body weight up the slope — and gripping the front rail lets your arms take part of that weight, so the one thing that made the session harder is the thing you are removing.

On the flat, the main costs of walking are supporting your weight and moving it forward, and a light grip changes those only modestly. On a steep incline, a large part of the effort is vertical: every step lifts you a little higher. If you hang back from the front rail with straight arms, your arms are holding part of you up, and your legs only have to lift what is left. The leaning angle also makes the slope your body is working against less steep than the deck angle says.

This is why people who hold on often report that they can walk at a grade they could never manage hands-free — and why the same people are often surprised how hard a moderate grade feels the first time they let go. Both experiences are accurate. The settings on the display were never what made the session hard; the work your legs did was.

Popular steep-incline walking routines are a common place for this habit to start, because the published settings are steep and people hold on to keep up. If you want an incline walk to do what it says, pick a grade you can manage without holding on and raise it slowly. Our guide towhat incline to walk onsuggests starting points by goal and fitness, and the batch guide towhat incline walking doesexplains why the hands-free version is the one worth doing.

7. What About the Heart-Rate Grips on the Handlebars?

The heart-rate grips are the one part of the handlebars you are meant to hold during a session — but only briefly, to take a reading, not for the whole workout. They work by picking up the tiny electrical signal of your heartbeat through your palms, so both hands need steady contact with the metal pads while the console finds the signal.

Most people get the cleanest reading by holding the grips with both hands, gently but firmly, while walking smoothly or for a few seconds at a steady pace, then letting go. Readings tend to be least reliable while running, when the hands bounce on the pads and the arm muscles add electrical noise of their own. Our guide to atreadmill heart rate monitor that is not workingexplains why grip readings fall apart at speed and how to improve them.

The trap is using the grips as a reason to hold on for the entire session in order to see a continuous heart-rate number. That gives you all the downsides of holding the rails — less work, worse posture, a less natural stride — in exchange for a reading that is often less trustworthy than a chest strap or a reasonably fitted watch. And because holding on reduces the effort, the heart rate you see is lower than the one you would have had walking hands-free.

If you want a continuous heart-rate reading, a chest strap that the console or an app can receive is the usual answer, and a watch is a reasonable alternative for steady sessions. Then the grips become what they are best at: an occasional check, taken in a couple of seconds, with your hands back at your sides afterwards.

8. Who Should Keep Holding On?

Anyone who feels unsteady without the rails, or who has been advised to use support by a doctor or physical therapist, should keep holding on. The goal of walking on a treadmill is to walk safely; the rails make that possible for many people who could not otherwise use one at all.

That includes, among others, people with balance or vestibular problems, some neurological conditions, recent joint replacements or lower-limb injuries, significant visual impairment, and people taking medication that can cause dizziness. It includes many older adults, particularly when they are starting out. And it includes anyone who is simply nervous on a moving belt, which is a reasonable thing to be.

For these users, a few points help get the most from the session without giving up the support:

• Hold the side rails rather than the console where the design allows, so you can stand upright rather than leaning forward to reach.
• Hold lightly where you can. A steadying hand is enough for many people; there is no need to grip harder than you need.
• Keep the settings modest. Lower speed and incline reduce the temptation to lean or pull, and make each step easier to control.
• Keep the safety key clipped on, so the belt stops if you drift back.

If you are choosing a machine with support in mind, longer side rails, a low step-up height and a slow minimum speed make a real difference. Our guide totreadmills for seniorsexplains what to look for, and the advice applies to anyone who will rely on the rails.

9. How Do You Stop Holding the Handrails?

The way to stop holding the handrails is to lower the speed or incline until you can walk comfortably with your hands free, then build back up gradually — not to let go at the same settings and hope. If you need the rails to keep up, the settings are too high for hands-free walking right now, and that is useful information rather than a failure.

This only applies if you are steady enough to walk without support. If you are unsure, ask a physical therapist to watch you on the machine first. With that in mind, a sensible progression for most people looks like this:

1. Drop the settings. Reduce the incline first, then the speed if needed, until the session feels easy enough that you would not think of holding on. For many habitual rail-holders that is a lot lower than the settings they are used to.
2. Hover, then let go. Keep your hands just above or beside the rails for a minute, so they are close if you need them, then let your arms hang and start to swing naturally.
3. Use short blocks. Walk hands-free for a minute or two, touch the rail briefly if you want to, then go again. Lengthen the hands-free blocks over a week or two until they cover the whole session.
4. Look ahead, not down. Fix your eyes on something level in front of you rather than the belt or the console. Looking at your feet is one of the main reasons people feel they need to hold on.
5. Stay in the middle of the belt. Most people who hold on drift to the front. Aim for the middle of the belt, a comfortable distance from the console.
6. Raise one thing at a time. Once a level feels easy hands-free, raise the incline or the speed — not both — by a small step, and hold it for a few sessions before the next.

Expect the first hands-free sessions to feel harder than the old held sessions did, even at lower settings. That is the point. Your legs are doing the whole job for the first time, and your heart rate will tell you so. Within a few weeks most people find they are back near their old settings and doing considerably more work at them. Our guide towhat speed to walk on a treadmillhas sensible starting speeds if you are resetting from scratch.

10. Is It Different When Running, Walking Backwards or on a Walking Pad?

The principle is the same in every case — rails for transitions and genuine support, hands free otherwise — but the details shift a little depending on what you are doing.

Running. Holding on while running is both less useful and riskier than holding on while walking. A natural running stride needs free arm swing, and gripping a rail at running speed tends to twist the trunk and shorten the stride. If you feel the need to hold on while running, you are probably going faster than is comfortable, and slowing by half a mile per hour or so is the answer. Grab the rail freely when changing speed, stepping onto the side rails for an interval rest, or if you lose your footing.

Walking backwards. Backwards walking is a case where a light hand on the rails is commonly suggested, at least while learning, because you cannot see where you are on the belt. Keep the speed very low and the safety key attached. Our guide towalking backwards on a treadmillcovers how to start.

Walking pads and under-desk treadmills. Many walking pads have no handrail at all, or a short fold-up bar. That is fine for the slow, steady walking they are designed for, but it means they are a poorer choice for anyone who needs support. If you rely on the rails, a conventional treadmill with proper side rails is the safer machine.

Using a phone or tablet. Holding on with one hand while scrolling with the other is a common habit and an awkward one, because it combines the lean with distraction. If you need to use a screen, slow the belt, hold the rail, do what you need to do, then go back to hands-free walking.

11. Frequently Asked Questions