How much easier is a treadmill?

Well, it's possible that the treadmill was not calibrated correctly, but even if it was right, there are the following factors:

1) No wind resistance since you're standing still rather than moving through the air. Most people compensate for this by increasing the grade a few %, For me I'd say the treadmill 'feels' about equal to running on a track at 3-4% grade.

2) The treadmill paces for you, taking away any possibility of going out too hard, or using energy speeding up and slowing down

3) Controlled environment, it's usually a lot cooler inside a building, plus there's no wind. The fact the surface never changes also makes things easier, too.

i think treadmill is harder.

you cant get into a comfortable zone, you have to go at the treadmills pace, this can affect if your trying to train and you can go faster than you think. running on the spot gets boring and affects concentration making it harder.

Overall I'd say it's easier but there's two things I've found particularly useful with it.

You can make yourself (or the machine can make you)run longer reps at speeds you wouldn't do on the track. I've found it very good for 1 mile reps.

If there's a mirror in front of the treadmill you can try to fine tune your running style.

I've read that you can set the treadmill at a 1% grade to offset the lack of air resistance. This should be equivalent to running on a flat surface. If you don't mind the boredom, it could be easier running on a treadmill because there are no variables and mentally it is fairly easy to say set the pace you know you can maintain and sort of let the machine take over. I believe Daniel's book might have a table to show how you can increase the grade to simulate running at a faster pace. (ie: 4% grade at 7:00 pace might be the same as 6:00 pace on flat).

Conversion chart.

6.53 mph is 9:51 mile pace.

i also think it is HARDER.

wind resistance is not really much of an issue. frankly a breaze or just moveing THROUGH the air has a cooling effect.

in my experience it is often HOTTER indoors, not cooler.

r run mostly on treadmills and have found that my treadmill running times are often 10-20 secs per mile slower than when i run outside.

keep in mind many treadmills may not be calibrated correctly. i base what i have said above on using many dif mills.

since my treadmill time is consistantly slower than running outdoors i see no need to raise the incline at all. i think it is nothing more than an urban legend with ne real basis in fact. i have seen charts that purport to say you should raise the incline a percent, or in some cases even more, to make them =. i have never come accross a study that backs this up, just unsupported stmts about wind resistance...

there are more variables in compareing the two than just wind resistance and these claims seem to forget that wind/air has a cooling effect that is positive for the runner.

also assumptions are made about the conditions in the room with the mill that are often false.

i think saying you need to raise to treadmill a % is like saying you need to drink 8 glasses of water a day. everyone says it, but it seems to have no real basis in fact and there are no known studies that support it.

PS if anyone knows of a study i would like to see it.

ymmv

sorry for the bad spellings above. i can spell, but i know it does not show it. :)

Treadmill running is assisted running. It is easier because the ground is moving underneath you requiring less force application at toe-off.

moleman wrote:

Treadmill running is assisted running. It is easier because the ground is moving underneath you requiring less force application at toe-off.

that's what i said right after i did it, but some of my friends said they felt it was just as hard or harder then really running.

and the TM gave me an actual mile pace, i wasnt running at 6.53mph, more like 8.8.

moleman wrote:

Treadmill running is assisted running. It is easier because the ground is moving underneath you requiring less force application at toe-off.

I'm not buying that, particularly if you've corrected for wind resistance (typ 1% grade as mentioned earlier). Force=mass*acceleration. As your mass has not changed, the only way you could reduce force is to reduce acceleration. As you are moving at the same velocity and have not made major changes to your biomechanics, there should be no change in acceleration between the two.

You are not "assisted" with a treadmill. You still have to propel yourself over the surface (the belt) which means that you must still be applying the same amount of force to move the same mass. It doesn't matter if your motion relative the rest of the room is zero, all that matters is your motion relative to the belt. This assumes that the drive system is very solid and will not hesitate or slip as you land or push-off, which would alter your mechanics a bit. Using quality treadmills that have been calibrated, I have always had good correlation between treadmill and track workouts.

The mental aspect is something else. Some people find treadmill running very boring and therefore very difficult. Others actually feed off of the monotony of it.

Wrong. The belt is helping propel your feet. There's much less resistance with a moving belt than the road.

JimFiore wrote:

I'm not buying that, particularly if you've corrected for wind resistance (typ 1% grade as mentioned earlier). Force=mass*acceleration. As your mass has not changed, the only way you could reduce force is to reduce acceleration. As you are moving at the same velocity...

But, you are not. The emphasis on a treadmill is on the vertical component. You lift yourself off the ground and allow the ground to move beneath you. It's the belt that is moving at the same velocity, not the runner. Since the horizontal component for the runner is reduced, less force production is required.

Slap on a heart rate monitor and go for a run outside. At another time, get on a treadmill with an HR monitor on and see how much "faster" you have to go on the treadmill to duplicate your HR during the outside run. At a fixed velocity, treadmill running requires less effort than real running.

Actually Moleman, you seem to have a little trouble with the physics involved here. If you jump into the air from a treadmill, air resistance neglected, you will move backwards horizontally with the same velocity as the belt (until of course gravity causes you to hit the floor, but in this relatively small distance it can be neglected). Think about that for a little bit.

PhysicsWiz: He didn't say there was no horizontal force involved, just that it was reduced.

Sam,

I'm surprised to hear this stuff from you. There is a lot of information out there on this topic. The bottom line is that running on a treadmill at 0% grade requires considerably less energy than running forward on flat grounds. The higher the speed, the bigger the difference.

It's true that your body temperature may get higher on the treadmill, in the absence of circulating air.

from my experience,

treadmills work my calves over a lot more than my normal trail/back road mountain runs. the non-treadmill runs hit my quads and hamstrings a little more.

uphill and downhill running depletes glycogen stores faster (per distance) than level running. / however, what does it

mean that treadmills border/cross-over into the perfect repetitive stress machine? i hardly ever change stride frequency or length or any other biomechanical aspect at all in a 16 mile treadmill run. when i'm off the machine, i don't think i've ever had a chance for a normal footplant (stride length and angle of impact are always being determined by changing terrain). without judgment, what -does- this mean, with respect to performance on the track, on the road, on a cross country course? i'd conjecture that the TM has some advantages for track racing with respect to pacing, breathing, etc. ... unless it moves out of a ball-busting time trial and into a give-and-take race. remember geb saying that for his age, he still had his "laps" (that is, his time trialing ability), but his closing speed was waning. / but, anyhow, i prefer mixing it all up. road, trails, TM, pool running, etc. it keeps the mind fresh, and the advantages to either form usually add-up faster than the disadvantages subtract.

back to the point: without a fan or a way to moderate my body temperature, i sweat profusely and start to overheat on a TM. the heart, obviously, goes into overtime to pump blood from core to surface to reduce internal body temperature. and with the sweat really doing no good -- little evaporation equals little evaporative cooling -- i've noticed a defined cardiac drift on the treadmill. perhaps it -does- take less energy to run a certain distance on a treadmill, but that doesn't mean the body (as a system) perceives it as easier.

which just means that maybe the treadmill isn't as tough on the muscles, but harder on the heart.

which is just to trick out "easy" and "hard." it's not "either/or" it's "both/and." treadmill running isn't EITHER harder OR easier than regular running, it's BOTH harder AND easier. // depending upon what your specific training goal is, you determine the best mode to achieve that.

hrm.

Trinity?! The trinity of stupidity, ignornace, and dumbassedness?"Room temperature" is usually around 22 degrees celsius (63 degrees fahrenheit, for those of you who still use that shit). I don't know where you live, but it's usually not hotter than 22C (63F) where most of us are, particularly not in the morning and evening.

2xTrinity wrote:

it's usually a lot cooler inside a building

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