The trick is to attach a light-duty bungee from your waist to the wall behind you.
The trick is to attach a light-duty bungee from your waist to the wall behind you.
Whether the 1% incline compensates for hte absence of wind resistance depends on what kind of speed you're running. The faster you're going, the easier the lack of wind resistance is. According to the runworks calculator, 5:00 pace at 1% grade would be worth 5:04 on flat ground in still conditions, so it's still aided. However, 9:00 pace at 1% grade would be worth 8:56 pace on flat ground in still wind, so the treadmill at 1% would be slower than just running on flat ground in still conditions.
The interesting conversion for me, living at altitude, is getting a treadmill to mimic the pace for a given effort when running at sea level. I have done some hard effort runs on treadmills at 0% at 4800 ft, and I find that in a run of, say, 10-12 miles, I'm certainly unable to match my 0% treadmill altitude pace at sea level, particularly if the effort is broken over intervals. However, if I'm going hard for 20 miles on a treadmill at 5000' at 0%, I'm a good 5+ seconds per mile off what I can do for a flat road run in good conditions at sea level. This training cycle, for example, I had a 16 miler on a treadmill at 0% at 4800' at 5:56 pace that felt harder than a sea level 18 miler on roads at 5:50 pace a week or two later. The longer the run gets, the more aerobic it is, and the more the altitude slows someone down, not to mention that longer runs force a slower speed, slightly decreasing the effect from the lack of wind resistance.
Yes to the first part, because aerodynamic drag increases nonlinearly with velocity. I think someone already mentioned this. The absolute additional energy required to run up an incline will still increase with increasing body mass.
It should be pretty easy to produce a nomogram relating body mass, speed, incline, and power, using a standard efficiency both on the flat and at each standard incline.
Interesting about elevation—harder due to lower oxygen, but also not easier because you’re not experiencing decreased wind resistance, unlike actual running over land.
All those gym rats in Colorado are getting good workouts on their treadmills!
Yeah, for sure. A local OTQ guy here does a lot of his workouts on treadmills, but since they typically only go down to 5:00 pace, he'll just crank it up to 5% by the end of the workout when he wants to finish particularly hard. Seems awfully punishing, and it works for him.