STOP saying that 1% incline on a treadmill compensates for the absence of wind resistance.

I just set the incline at 0% and set an electric fan in front of me with a jury rigged rheostat so that it makes wind at the same speed I set on the treadmill.

That the notion still persists, tells you much about the lack

of general knowledge within the sport.

We still have people using terms like running economy, steady state, tempo run and anaerobic. Some even say VO2max workout, without saying WTF just after.

Imagine telling Clarke in his prime that the US 5000 record

50 years hence would be close to 12:50 and held by someone who did absolutely no 100 miles weeks and never ever a two hour run.

Imagine telling Peter Snell in his prime that 800 running would be dominated by a Kenyan who trains less in a week than Snell does in a weekend. And this

same Kenyan would then decide to train more mileage and then get slower.

Or that many 800/1500 runners in the future would be as fast at the 800 with better stamina for the 1500 on just 60 miles/week.

I don't understand the obsession with pace. Just run at the same effort level and for the same amount of time that you would for an outdoor run and forget about pace and incline. A 60 minute easy run is a 60 minute easy run as long as a) you are running easy, and b) you run for 60 minutes. A 20 minute tempo run is a 20 minute tempo run as long as a) you are running at tempo effort, and b) you run for 20 minutes. Doesn't matter whether you're running it on a treadmill or outside.

Gravy wrote:

Here's an experiment. Run at a specific pace outside and note your heartrate. Now run the exact same pace on a treadmill and note your heartrate. Not even in the same ballpark.

I don't run on the treadmill but i'm really curious as to the difference in your HR for this experiment. Did you have it set at 0% or 1%?

time and effort wrote:

I don't understand the obsession with pace. Just run at the same effort level and for the same amount of time that you would for an outdoor run and forget about pace and incline. A 60 minute easy run is a 60 minute easy run as long as a) you are running easy, and b) you run for 60 minutes. A 20 minute tempo run is a 20 minute tempo run as long as a) you are running at tempo effort, and b) you run for 20 minutes. Doesn't matter whether you're running it on a treadmill or outside.

FINALLY, someone gets it.

The only accurate metric on a treadmill is the time.

Gravy wrote:

Here's an experiment. Run at a specific pace outside and note your heartrate. Now run the exact same pace on a treadmill and note your heartrate. Not even in the same ballpark.

If I'm in an overheated gym with poor air circulation, would my heart rate on a treadmill at 1% be lower than if I were running outside in 40 degree weather?

Probably way higher. The heat factor is huge.

Gravy wrote:

Here's an experiment. Run at a specific pace outside and note your heartrate. Now run the exact same pace on a treadmill and note your heartrate. Not even in the same ballpark.

If the treadmill is calibrated correctly then 1% does a fine job.

The well respected physiologist who was key in the Nike Sub2 project, Professor Andy Jones, demonstrated that setting the treadmill to a small incline causes the energy/oxygen demands for a given pace on the treadmill to be the same as running outdoors, when the pace is faster than ~7 minute/mile.

Your 'experiment' involving yourself, your treadmill and your HR monitor really doesn't stack up as scientific evidence I'm afraid.

moanswers wrote:

Gravy wrote:

Here's an experiment. Run at a specific pace outside and note your heartrate. Now run the exact same pace on a treadmill and note your heartrate. Not even in the same ballpark.

I don't run on the treadmill but i'm really curious as to the difference in your HR for this experiment. Did you have it set at 0% or 1%?

Meaningless without knowing the temperature of the room.

ex-runner wrote:

Gravy wrote:

Here's an experiment. Run at a specific pace outside and note your heartrate. Now run the exact same pace on a treadmill and note your heartrate. Not even in the same ballpark.

If the treadmill is calibrated correctly then 1% does a fine job.

The well respected physiologist who was key in the Nike Sub2 project, Professor Andy Jones, demonstrated that setting the treadmill to a small incline causes the energy/oxygen demands for a given pace on the treadmill to be the same as running outdoors, when the pace is faster than ~7 minute/mile.

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/8887211

Your 'experiment' involving yourself, your treadmill and your HR monitor really doesn't stack up as scientific evidence I'm afraid.

What’s never been very clear in the 1%=outside claim is what the “outside” conditions are. Is it the same as running on a totally flat surface like a track? I can assume you that virtually no one does their daily runs that way.

My daily runs are on undulation terrain on gravel paths. Does my normal pace there still equal 1% on an incline?

My other question is why did incline become the appropriate variable to change in order to make the efforts equal...why not pace? Why isn’t the conversion to run at x% faster pace, yet keep the incline at zero?

The fact is, the 1% rule is probably around because it’s simple. It probably equals conditions that almost never exist outside.

dsrunner wrote:

That the notion still persists, tells you much about the lack

of general knowledge within the sport.

We still have people using terms like running economy, steady state, tempo run and anaerobic. Some even say VO2max workout, without saying WTF just after.

Imagine telling Clarke in his prime that the US 5000 record

50 years hence would be close to 12:50 and held by someone who did absolutely no 100 miles weeks and never ever a two hour run.

Imagine telling Peter Snell in his prime that 800 running would be dominated by a Kenyan who trains less in a week than Snell does in a weekend. And this

same Kenyan would then decide to train more mileage and then get slower.

Or that many 800/1500 runners in the future would be as fast at the 800 with better stamina for the 1500 on just 60 miles/week.

Your joking right? Are you ripping Snell and Lydiard by saying high mileage is a waste. Do you not realize Snell would be a big factor right now if he were competing? He ran the equivalent of a 1:43 low. Do you think Snell would have been any good running 30 mpw like Rudisha?

ex-runner wrote:

Gravy wrote:

Here's an experiment. Run at a specific pace outside and note your heartrate. Now run the exact same pace on a treadmill and note your heartrate. Not even in the same ballpark.

If the treadmill is calibrated correctly then 1% does a fine job.

The well respected physiologist who was key in the Nike Sub2 project, Professor Andy Jones, demonstrated that setting the treadmill to a small incline causes the energy/oxygen demands for a given pace on the treadmill to be the same as running outdoors, when the pace is faster than ~7 minute/mile.

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/8887211

Your 'experiment' involving yourself, your treadmill and your HR monitor really doesn't stack up as scientific evidence I'm afraid.

Nonsense! "Running" on a treadmill isn't really running at all, you just stand in one place and lift your feet up and down. You can't compare it to real running at all it's not remotely the same.

I personally suck on the treadmill compared with running outside.

Correct. Treadmill will be WAY harder at zero incline if you're hot.

My treadmill is in my basement under radiant heat. I had 5 mile tempo workout that I knew I was going to do before going to sleep the night before (expected freezing rain and snow the next morning). I forgot to turn the heat down before going to sleep. Oops. Next morning my basement was almost 80 deg and my body is used to 10-30 for the winter.

My heart rate after three miles of the tempo workout was higher than my final rep max during a recent 5x1200 vo2 workout and climbing higher. The heat turned this normally comfortable workout into a race. I had to stop and take a couple of minutes to cool off and get my HR down before finishing. So yeah. Treadmill can be tougher.

time and effort wrote:

I don't understand the obsession with pace. Just run at the same effort level and for the same amount of time that you would for an outdoor run and forget about pace and incline. A 60 minute easy run is a 60 minute easy run as long as a) you are running easy, and b) you run for 60 minutes. A 20 minute tempo run is a 20 minute tempo run as long as a) you are running at tempo effort, and b) you run for 20 minutes. Doesn't matter whether you're running it on a treadmill or outside.

EXACTLY.

The obsession with the 1-2% incline thing is hilarious - you really think your gym treadmill is calibrated within 1% error?!?! Newsflash: it's not, so your fiddling with the incline to make your pace "accurate" is misguided. And even if by some miracle the treadmill is perfectly calibrated (you are doing your run at high end sports science facility), running at 1-2% incline for a long period of time seems to me like a bad idea from a biomechanics perspective. You wouldn't run consistently uphill for 1-2hrs. The risk could be insignificant (no studies on this), but setting it to 0% seems safer. Learning to gauge workouts/runs by effort will better serve you longterm anyways.

If you want to know *exactly* how fast you're going, run on a track.

Treadmill allows optimal Netflix viewing.

Gravy wrote:

Here's an experiment. Run at a specific pace outside and note your heartrate. Now run the exact same pace on a treadmill and note your heartrate. Not even in the same ballpark.

What if the treadmill has a fan? Now what, dude?

dsrunner wrote:

That the notion still persists, tells you much about the lack

of general knowledge within the sport.

We still have people using terms like running economy, steady state, tempo run and anaerobic. Some even say VO2max workout, without saying WTF just after.

Explain what's wrong with these terms.