What do you think? Should it count as running?
I was reading an article in the British press saying Paula Radcliffe's odds of competing in Beijing were slim because she's still not running. Then you read the article and it says she's doing sessions on an anti-gravity treadmill. When Ritz does this as part of his daily training, he seemingly counts it as running.
Is it running? What about from a training standpoint?
Article is here:
I ran on one for two months while I was injured. In my opinion, it most certainly does not count as running. Although the motion is the same, it just does not feel or have the same effect as regular running. Essentially, you wear neoprene half tights and the machine creates air pressure that lifts you up. I felt like it was more or less just sliding your feet. At about 80-85% of my body weight I could comfortably run 5:00-5:10. Once my injury healed and I finally got off that thing, 6:00/mile felt hard, not to mention I felt terribly out of shape. Maybe other people have different results, but I feel the thing is just a over-hyped $80,000 machine.
Didn't Ritz do the vast majority of his training on one of these machines prior to winning nationals Cross?
That said, there is a huge difference between doing very little regular running and doing no regular running. As the above post suggests, Paula may be working some of her running muscles on this treadmill, but there's no way she's working all of them. I would guess that the prolonged pounding of 26 miles on the road might be hard on someone whose training has involved supporting only 15-20% of their body weight.
Here is a scientific abstract on the topic.
http://www.asbweb.org/conferences/2007/161.pdf
the full publication should be in the next issue of Journal of Applied Biomechanics.
Off the cuff, is it real running?
No, it's easier on the body than "real" running. It seems to me that is what someone would want for rehabilitation.
Rodger Kram
I guess we'll see how much it counts after her marathon (if she runs it). What I want to know is how the anti-gravity treadmill compares to an underwater treadmill or just plain old pool running, other than the cost?
If it doesn't yield the same training effect, the answer is NO. It isn't running.
Out.
[K]ilgore wrote:
If it doesn't yield the same training effect, the answer is NO. It isn't running.
Out.
playing devils advocate, not all running is the same to begin with. running outdoors when it's 55 degrees is easier than when it's 80 degrees. running down a slight decline is easier than running up a steep hill. thus the training effect yielded is not the same.
Rodger Kram wrote:
Here is a scientific abstract on the topic.
http://www.asbweb.org/conferences/2007/161.pdfthe full publication should be in the next issue of Journal of Applied Biomechanics.
Off the cuff, is it real running?
No, it's easier on the body than "real" running. It seems to me that is what someone would want for rehabilitation.
Rodger Kram
This looks more like an advertisement for Alter-G.com (which, according to the document, "supported" it) than a "scientific abstract." What exactly does it show, except that different combinations of weight and speed can produce the same overall metabolic rate? I don't see that this abstract says or even hints at anything new, or sheds much light on the value of this product for competitive distance runners.
By the way, are you aware that Alter-G, on its web site, describes your project as an "independent" study?
http://alter-g.com/alterg/ContentManagement.aspx?MainPageID=4&Redirect=1&SubPageID=11Do you agree with that description?
Its running in the sense that your doing something instead of just sitting around. But if I ran 10 miles on a gravity treadmill I wouldn't count it into my mileage, same as if i had spent an hour on an elliptical machine.
If it doesn't yield the same training effect, the answer is NO. It isn't running.
Out.
What!?
Has the K Man really returned??
It is not an advertisement. It is an abstract from a presentation at the American Society of Biomechanics conference in 2007.
Our question was: can a runner attain the same metabolic rate, i.e. VO2 by running faster but at less weight and thus less biomechanical load. Some combinations did achieve that, but it depends on which biomechanical load variable is most important.
Regarding relevance to a runner trying to recover from an injury or prevent one:
An injured runner wants to maintain their aerobic fitness but minimize impacts. Our study showed that can be achieved by running faster but at a lower simulated weight. It could also be achieved with a stationary bicycle, but one might ask if a bicycle would maintain neuromuscular factors (hard to quantify).
The speeds studied were slow for an elite runner but we plan to extend the study to faster speeds but at more typical levels of simulated gravity. For example, the Gouchers run at something like 80-90% of normal weight but at a normal training pace.
What is new? Well, it is the first published study of the Alter-G device which measured VO2. It is the first study to look at both VO2 and biomechanics over such a range of speeds and gravities using any reduced gravity device.
Comparison to water running: we didn't directly make such a comparison, but the running motions are much more similar with Alter-G. With water running there are almost no forces that simulate ground forces. With water running there are unnatural viscous forces that resist leg swing. The ability to run fast in Alter-G may maintain neuromuscular patterns (no data on that yet).
Was our study independent? Well, Alter-G loaned us the device and donated funds that paid my grad student (Alena Grabowski) a stipend for a semester plus a summer. Hence, we disclosed in the abstract that the study was "supported by Alter-G", (no pun intended). We designed the experiment independently, Alter-G didn't see or ask to see the article before it was accepted for publication. I was not paid for my time or the use of our lab equipment. Alter-G did take me out for dinner once. That is about as independent as you'd likely see for an applied research study. We couldn't afford to just buy an Alter-G to do the study, one would never get a government grant to buy one.
[quote]rojo wrote:
What do you think? Should it count as running?
Is it running? What about from a training standpoint?
quote]
As long as the plane doesn't get off the ground, it's still running.
no. you can practice the same motions, but it can't prepare you for race day. your body accustoms itself to a certain workload associated with a certain pace. anti-g treadmills would screw with that. not that i'm an expert, but i simply cannot imagine anything like this working.