How do you all handle treadmill workouts?

Run outside. It's summer.

I hope you are not too myopic to realize the treadmill (in an environmentally controlled room) has some advantages.

Cheers.

You manually put how much km you ran exactly same what treadmill shows, but put ascent meters how much you climbed: 1%-10m per 1km, 5%-50m per 1km.

Don't use more than 2% at easy runs. Very carefully warm up and cool down, treadmill running is much harder and bigger load than outdoor, especially with gradient (can destroy your achills)

Speed correlation treadmill and outdoor is the same.

Canefis wrote:

You manually put how much km you ran exactly same what treadmill shows, but put ascent meters how much you climbed: 1%-10m per 1km, 5%-50m per 1km.

That's a problem I'm having. Unless I missed it, the Garmin (a Forerunner 245) was not asking for ascent. Does your Garmin ask for ascent. Does a more powerful Garmin (like the Forerunner 945) which includes a gyroscope and accelerometer ask for ascent, and/or have the capability to determine ascent autonomously?

Don't use more than 2% at easy runs. Very carefully warm up and cool down, treadmill running is much harder and bigger load than outdoor, especially with gradient (can destroy your achills)

But the gradient is, in effect, like running up a hill outside. And running up hills is lower impact. Keeping the calves, tendons, and joints somewhat amenable to the task, at my age, is a challenge whether running on flats or inclines.

I handled them terribly. Trained for and ultimately did a decent 5k, but the mill injured either or both my mcl, and cartilage. Probably cartilage, it took 6 good months to be ok, and now almost a year to get to maybe 97%.

Avoid the mill if you can.

Who cares about the "VO2" prediction. Just ignore it.

Sprintgeezer wrote:

I handled them terribly. Trained for and ultimately did a decent 5k, but the mill injured either or both my mcl, and cartilage. Probably cartilage, it took 6 good months to be ok, and now almost a year to get to maybe 97%.

How did you do a "decent 5k" if you were injured?

Wait a sec...weren't you the guy a while back that posted a lot (with attendant drama) around your big upcoming 5k effort, eventually claiming a 5k, but without any evidence to back it up (i.e., no actual race results to show, etc.)?

Disregard if I'm confusing you with somebody else.

Treadmills have a lot of advantages (along with any disadvantages). Are you aware that more than one olympian has used them (almost solely) in their training?

Hardloper wrote:

Who cares about the "VO2" prediction. Just ignore it.

VO2 prediction is just 'icing on the cake', along with race prediction. This info dovetails into the device's assessment of recovery, which is important for serious athletes.

The main thing is facilitating accurate logging of the workouts, and when done at 5% incline, that is not an insignificant training stimulus to be ignored in the log, and in the computation of the other metrics I mentioned above.

Thank you to all of the responders to this thread, for keeping the conversation going. Hopefully, it will attract the attention of folks that do use the treadmill, and maybe have a method of logging all the treadmill metrics in the Garmin ecosystem.

sorry if this is lame wrote:

Hardloper wrote:

Who cares about the "VO2" prediction. Just ignore it.

VO2 prediction is just 'icing on the cake', along with race prediction. This info dovetails into the device's assessment of recovery, which is important for serious athletes.

Or you could just listen to your body and not do all that

If you ran at 5% incline, you ran at 5% incline. It happened regardless of whether it got recorded by some machine who sells your data to silicon valley. If you really need it recorded, use a piece of paper and a pencil, start a training log and put 5% in the notes. Problem solved.

If you feel tired, you feel tired. If you feel recovered, you feel recovered. This is regardless of what some machine on your wrist tells you. These metrics are probably programmed by some fat slob sitting on his ace in silicon valley. I'd trust your body over that guy. And if you really think what the watch says is on par to your own body's senses, then I tip my cap to the marketing folks at Garmin.

Hardloper wrote:

sorry if this is lame wrote:

VO2 prediction is just 'icing on the cake', along with race prediction. This info dovetails into the device's assessment of recovery, which is important for serious athletes.

Or you could just listen to your body and not do all that

You could, it seems that at least 50% of people are incapable of effectively listening to their bodies though. Those people need a coach or additional outside information to help them. If you are not one of those people you probably won’t understand unless you have been on large teams or coached high school.

normals wrote:

Hardloper wrote:

Or you could just listen to your body and not do all that

You could, it seems that at least 50% of people are incapable of effectively listening to their bodies though. Those people need a coach or additional outside information to help them. If you are not one of those people you probably won’t understand unless you have been on large teams or coached high school.

Well a coach is one thing. Some stupid watch is another. In fact, I'd venture to say all this technology--even if it purports to measure your recovery--has the effect of causing people to train more--it's a d*ck measuring contest and you get addicted to these stats going up, up and up.

Guys and gals, I've been running off-and-on for over 50 years, so I've obviously I've had to 'listen to my body' before all the technology of today. But even when Polar came out with the first mass-consumer HR monitor almost 40-some years ago, I was fascinated. The whole matrix of modern training of olympiads and in-tune amateurs involves using technology, to some degree or other. It is the HRV (heart rate variability) that I have an interest in assessing recovery, as there is a fair amount of scientific studies going down that road.

I'll still listen to my body. But having an independent assessment to provide feedback I think can be somewhat interesting, if not invaluable.

Thanks for keeping the discussion going!

slacker who skims wrote:

If you feel tired, you feel tired. If you feel recovered, you feel recovered. This is regardless of what some machine on your wrist tells you.

True, but when goal oriented, it is not uncommon for some over-achievers to fall into the trap of overtraining, which is why it has commanded serious attention is physiological studies through the years.

slacker who skims wrote:

If you ran at 5% incline, you ran at 5% incline. It happened regardless of whether it got recorded by some machine who sells your data to silicon valley. If you really need it recorded, use a piece of paper and a pencil, start a training log and put 5% in the notes. Problem solved.

If you feel tired, you feel tired. If you feel recovered, you feel recovered. This is regardless of what some machine on your wrist tells you. These metrics are probably programmed by some fat slob sitting on his ace in silicon valley. I'd trust your body over that guy. And if you really think what the watch says is on par to your own body's senses, then I tip my cap to the marketing folks at Garmin.

+1

And I will be the first one to say the Garmin vo2 max and race predictions are wayyy off. I’m coming back from injury running about half the mileage I did before and it says I could run a PR.

Don’t get caught up in the gadgets and gizmos. Sure it’s cool to look at, but you can’t possibly expect those numbers to be accurate

slacker who skims wrote:

If you feel tired, you feel tired. If you feel recovered, you feel recovered. This is regardless of what some machine on your wrist tells you. These metrics are probably programmed by some fat slob sitting on his ace in silicon valley.

Not Silicon Valley. If I'm not mistaken, the Firstbeat Analytics folks (that specialized in the HR physiological metrics) were based out of Europe:

sorry if this is lame wrote:

Sprintgeezer wrote:

I handled them terribly. Trained for and ultimately did a decent 5k, but the mill injured either or both my mcl, and cartilage. Probably cartilage, it took 6 good months to be ok, and now almost a year to get to maybe 97%.

How did you do a "decent 5k" if you were injured?

Wait a sec...weren't you the guy a while back that posted a lot (with attendant drama) around your big upcoming 5k effort, eventually claiming a 5k, but without any evidence to back it up (i.e., no actual race results to show, etc.)?

Disregard if I'm confusing you with somebody else.

Yes, that’s me.

Try to remember that the OP asked for users’ experience with treadmills. I tried to help by describing mine.

I was able to grind out that 5000m even though I had been injured. The run made it worse, but it was def the mill that caused it—even though I was running in literally broken shoes.