The plane will NOT take off!
The plane will NOT take off!
i'm completely confused and my head hurts.
The 3:30 Thonster wrote:
The plane will NOT take off!
But it will stay on the treadmill! Although how is that possible if it isn't jumping up and down?
Ingrid Kristiansen trained on a treadmill for most of the winter because of the weather in Norway. She did okay. She set 5 World Records, 2 in the 5000, 2 in the 10000 and 1 in the marathon.
leg speed wrote:
Usain Bolt on a treadmill
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UVBHdmDjmg4
I'm pretty sure I spent 6 weeks in that hotel.
Ok, but what if we put 10 box fans in front of the treadmill on high, does that give us enough wind resistance to equal running outdoors?
First, I don't think that wind resistance increases linearly with speed. I once read a cycling book which claimed that wind resistance on a calm day was negligible up to like 12 miles an hour while on a standard bike, and then increased exponentially thereafter. That might be wrong. But if it is right, and assuming in the upright running position you get wind resistance at, say, 10 miles an hour, then the answer about the benefit of treadmill running would vary at that speed. If someone can show otherwise, I would be interested in seeing a study and would appreciate the correction.
Second, there is a bounciness in most treadmills that makes them much faster than standard road surfaces. I am not saying that you can jump up and down to go faster on a treadmill as such. I AM saying that if you made a road surface that was equally as bouncy as the treadmill surface, the road surface would be as fast as a treadmill. The bounciness gives an energy return. Again, if this is wrong, I would appreciate a correction by a study.
Third, I do not believe that most treadmills are calibrated correctly, and the tendency is to display a higher speed than the actual speed. There are several business reasons for this, one being that a slower motor should be cheaper to make, so manufacturers put in a slower motor and say it is faster; another being that customers would prefer treadmills that indicate a faster speed at a given effort, and thus use those treadmills over the others in a gym with two or more types of treadmills. It's all about the money.
These three reasons make me think that running on a treadmill at a displayed speed is much easier than running on a typical road surface at that speed. And this is not taking into account road and sidewalk potholes, etc. (and moving around objects, etc.). A countervailing reason why most treadmills are "slower" is that running on them takes place in a hot, humid environment.
In a world . . . wrote:
First, I don't think that wind resistance increases linearly with speed.
No one thinks it does. It should be intuitive that it varies with speed-squared - you if you move twice as fast you hit twice as much air, at twice the velocity.
2. Why would bounciness be faster? A lot of that bounce is going to result in energy loss. There's a reason mondo tracks aren't mounted on springs.
3. It may be true that some treadmills aren't correctly calibrated, but I don't think there's any conspiracy going on. You can't just say "I feel like this is happening" with zero backing (and without having ever measured a treadmill).
Ho Hum wrote:
2. Why would bounciness be faster? A lot of that bounce is going to result in energy loss. There's a reason mondo tracks aren't mounted on springs.
3. It may be true that some treadmills aren't correctly calibrated, but I don't think there's any conspiracy going on. You can't just say "I feel like this is happening" with zero backing (and without having ever measured a treadmill).
I'm not sure what to say about some of these responses, so I'll leave it as it is. As for the second though, I still think that I am right. Think of Pistorius' blades, which might have been too bouncy, but for a running surface. As for why mondo tracks are not mounted on springs, there are lots of reasons, two of which I'll mention. First, just as in all ball sports, too springy is illegal. Second, imagine a treadmill built for a team with the springs for a team's applied runnign force. If the runners run out of sync on the team treadmill, the spring effect won't work. Now imagine trying to build a track that gives the spring-effect for runners racing out of sync, same problem. The spring effect would have to be localized to the footplant, a very difficult thing to make work. On individual treadmills, the whole darn thing goes up and down on each stride; on some, it does this for and inch or two, I believe. Again, I might be wrong; I'm just winging it here.