Running on Treadmills

martyeds · 21-11-2011 05:08PM #1

I am new to running. I usually go to my local gym 3 times a week and do 5 kms. From reading here a lot of people recommend running on the road as opposed to treadmills. What is the reason for this?

I am not knocking peoples opinions, i was was wondering what was the main differences in both of them.

ThisRegard · 21-11-2011 05:11PM

Run 5k on the road and you'll see it's much more difficult than doing it on a treadmill. On a treadmill you can get away with just lifting your legs up and down while the roller does all the forward moving for you.

couerdelion · 21-11-2011 05:13PM

Running on the road also gets your body used to the impact it will endure when you race. Using a treadmill makes you soft.

Treadmill times also don't really correlate with the real world. I'm alway a lot faster on the treadmill than in the real world even if I up the gradient.

meijin · 21-11-2011 06:06PM

http://runningtimes.com/Article.aspx?ArticleID=3847 and some treadmill to real world pace conversion chart http://www.hillrunner.com/training/tmillchart.php

anymore · 21-11-2011 06:38PM

martyeds wrote: »

I am new to running. I usually go to my local gym 3 times a week and do 5 kms. From reading here a lot of people recommend running on the road as opposed to treadmills. What is the reason for this?

I am not knocking peoples opinions, i was was wondering what was the main differences in both of them.

martyed, i am not being smartassed here, but the best way to find out is to go out and run the kinds of distances on the road as you do on the tredmill !

martyeds · 21-11-2011 06:48PM

anymore wrote: »

martyed, i am not being smartassed here, but the best way to find out is to go out and run the kinds of distances on the road as you do on the tredmill !

I am planning on having a run on the road at weekend, i was just wondering what to expect.
I was under the impression that run runnning would be slighty more interesting.....different scenery and so on, but i also expect the wind factor would be against me. No offence taken by the way.

jack presley · 21-11-2011 06:52PM

I find I have to run faster and for longer on a treadmill to do my usual distance so i don't trust their output. Maybe you'rte actually running further than you think?

plodder · 21-11-2011 06:55PM

meijin wrote: »

http://runningtimes.com/Article.aspx?ArticleID=3847 and some treadmill to real world pace conversion chart http://www.hillrunner.com/training/tmillchart.php

I'd be sceptical about both of those links to be honest. Treadmill and road-running are apples and oranges, imho and setting the incline to be more than a few % is asking for injury trouble imo.

anymore · 21-11-2011 06:56PM

martyeds wrote: »

I am planning on having a run on the road at weekend, i was just wondering what to expect.
I was under the impression that run runnning would be slighty more interesting.....different scenery and so on, but i also expect the wind factor would be against me. No offence taken by the way.

Trying to run into a strong wind is so bloody tiring and frustationg ! Give me rain any day of the week !
Thanks - it so very much different both in good ways and bad.If i did 26.2 miles on a thread mill, I could in all honesty say i had run a marathon !

anymore · 21-11-2011 07:04PM

martyeds wrote: »

I am planning on having a run on the road at weekend, i was just wondering what to expect.
I was under the impression that run runnning would be slighty more interesting.....different scenery and so on, but i also expect the wind factor would be against me. No offence taken by the way.

As regards scenery, my instincts say that running in nice scenery should be easier than in monotonous scenery but my experience of running in dingle and Rome City tells me me than when you struggling hard to get a good time, you dont give a damn about the scenery !:)
having good crowds to support is much more important ! However, having said that, i do enjoy running in the woods or out on hills.

Deego01 · 21-11-2011 09:49PM

You'll probably find you ache in different places after the road run. Because the treadmill does a lot of work for you, especially in the glutes and hamstrings, you'll find that road running at the start will put these under strain. A few core/glute exercises at home or in the gym will help. hope you enjoyed the run.

Seres · 21-11-2011 09:51PM

The transition from threadie to road is easier , the other way round is a killer , soul destroying ( the threadie ) once you get use to the great outdoors !

Deego01 · 21-11-2011 10:22PM

A good book downloaded to the iphone helps a bit.

Slidey · 21-11-2011 11:46PM

I actually came in here to start a thread on something similar to this.

Normally I found treadmills soul destroying and would struggle on them.

I recently did a 5k race and finished in 20.45. Was more than happy with my time but felt I could have cut it down a bit with a little more experience of races.

Then last night after a small challenge was put to me I went on my treadmill which I rarely use and did the 5K in 18.36

As others have said, it really is apples and oranges.

snailsong · 22-11-2011 12:12AM

Running outdoors is more enjoyable. You get to look around, fresh air and the sense of progress that you can't have with a treadmill. You might meet somebody, or at least get a wave or a smile from other runners. Even if the weather is bad you won't notice it once you get moving. The time will fly and you'll find it immensely enjoyable, even moreso if you have a partner or group to run with. If you're new to running you shouldn't be too concerned about pace. Just enjoy the sensation, and you might never go back to the gym.
I have a gym membership and a fancy treadmill at home, I never use them. But tomorrow at 8, even if its pi$$ing down and blowing force 9, I'll be heading out to run with my friends with a smile on my face.

T runner · 22-11-2011 01:38PM

Froma purely training perspective teh threadmill is excellent for running form as you are taking the exact same stride time after time. You tend to run with a higher cadence on a thread and a little faster. A great steady session is to run briskish but comfortable adding .1 of a K every two minutes. The body has to adapt to teh increased speed. It usually does it on a threadmill by improving form. You can hold teh pace before it gets too tough. When you get back to your original pace it feels like the effort of jogging.

They are very versatile indeed. I do a mix of road and thread now.

(also great for putting a babbie to sleep/entertaining her.)

Gringo78 · 22-11-2011 02:46PM

T runner wrote: »

A great steady session is to run briskish but comfortable adding .1 of a K every two minutes. The body has to adapt to teh increased speed. It usually does it on a threadmill by improving form. You can hold teh pace before it gets too tough. When you get back to your original pace it feels like the effort of jogging.

They are very versatile indeed. I do a mix of road and thread now.

(also great for putting a babbie to sleep/entertaining her.)

I do that sort of a session on the treadmill a lot....its a very controlled steady run. I will always choose road over treadmill but the treadmill at home gives me the opportunity to run when I'm minding kids asleep in bed and am confined to the house.

Ignore speed on a treadmill.....I stay away a lot with work and so encounter all sorts of different treadmills in hotel gyms and they can be fast, slow, accurate, its a lucky bag. I just pick my target pace heart rate and ease up to that over 12 minutes on the treadmill and then adjust the speed by 0.1kph to hold the HR steady for a tempo run. I don't like intervals on the treadmill as I don't like running 5k pace or faster as I don't think the treadmill handles it so well so I usually do a hills session instead which again the treadmill is great for (2-3min hill reps)

rasher_m · 22-11-2011 06:37PM

My opinion would be that the best place to run is on the grass. The road is bad for the joints and actually the grass is more difficult to run on but is better for the joints.
I find that Treadmill running is boring and mundane and I wouldnt even contemplate it if I didnt have some music.
My father always thought that it was more difficult to run on a treadmill on account of it being so boring.
Also if you're indoors and sweating then you're going to be feeling a lot hotter as well and will find it more difficult to breathe.
There really is nothing easy about the treadmill but it is very handy in bad weather or in darkness.

anymore · 22-11-2011 07:00PM

Slidey wrote: »

I actually came in here to start a thread on something similar to this.

Normally I found treadmills soul destroying and would struggle on them.

I recently did a 5k race and finished in 20.45. Was more than happy with my time but felt I could have cut it down a bit with a little more experience of races.

Then last night after a small challenge was put to me I went on my treadmill which I rarely use and did the 5K in 18.36

As others have said, it really is apples and oranges.

On a treadmill the surface you are ' running on' is itself moving. On the road, it is the runner who has to move over a stationery surface, hence it is the runner doing all of the work on the road. On the treadmill, a motor moves the surface !

BeepBeep67 · 22-11-2011 07:23PM

anymore wrote: »

On a treadmill the surface you are ' running on' is itself moving. On the road, it is the runner who has to move over a stationery surface, hence it is the runner doing all of the work on the road. On the treadmill, a motor moves the surface !

You still have the move to keep up with that moving surface, training by HR is the way to go as Gringo78 says.
I tend to use by treadmill for recovery runs and early morning runs in the Winter and obviously last year it was priceless with the snow. Looking back about 40% of my running was done on treadmill from mid November through to year end I didn't suffer any loss of fitness and ran strongly in January. I had to get creative with sessions and some of the mid-week longer runs were mind numbingly boring, but you do what you have to do.
BTW I always feel I run faster outdoors generally at a perceived easier pace, whether that is a treadmill calibration issue or perception I'm not sure.
Overall it's nice to have the option and balance and variety are only positive imo.

anymore · 22-11-2011 08:03PM

BeepBeep67 wrote: »

You still have the move to keep up with that moving surface, training by HR is the way to go as Gringo78 says.
I tend to use by treadmill for recovery runs and early morning runs in the Winter and obviously last year it was priceless with the snow. Looking back about 40% of my running was done on treadmill from mid November through to year end I didn't suffer any loss of fitness and ran strongly in January. I had to get creative with sessions and some of the mid-week longer runs were mind numbingly boring, but you do what you have to do.
BTW I always feel I run faster outdoors generally at a perceived easier pace, whether that is a treadmill calibration issue or perception I'm not sure.
Overall it's nice to have the option and balance and variety are only positive imo.

My feeling is that there is significantly less effort invloved in simply getting your feet off the treadmill to allow it to continue moving than there is in continously propelling yourself forward on the road.
However to each thier own.

T runner · 24-11-2011 03:20PM

Gringo78 wrote: »

I do that sort of a session on the treadmill a lot....its a very controlled steady run. I will always choose road over treadmill but the treadmill at home gives me the opportunity to run when I'm minding kids asleep in bed and am confined to the house.

Ignore speed on a treadmill.....I stay away a lot with work and so encounter all sorts of different treadmills in hotel gyms and they can be fast, slow, accurate, its a lucky bag. I just pick my target pace heart rate and ease up to that over 12 minutes on the treadmill and then adjust the speed by 0.1kph to hold the HR steady for a tempo run. I don't like intervals on the treadmill as I don't like running 5k pace or faster as I don't think the treadmill handles it so well so I usually do a hills session instead which again the treadmill is great for (2-3min hill reps)

I agree. The incline adjuster really makes a threadmill. Going to try 6km (equiv. time) uphill hard after a warmup as a good session to get all the muscles working hard.

Nwm2 · 24-11-2011 06:28PM

ThisRegard wrote: »

Run 5k on the road and you'll see it's much more difficult than doing it on a treadmill. On a treadmill you can get away with just lifting your legs up and down while the roller does all the forward moving for you.

What a load of utter rubbish. Junior cert science should be all you need to understand this.

The reality is that there is very little difference between running on a treadmill and running on the road. Studies have been done comparing gaits etc, and show tiny differences.

Cooling is a big possible factor, but that's nothing to do with the actual running, and you can just use a fan.

I'm a big fan of treadmill running, do 99% of my running on it (long easy runs, intervals, tempo runs, hill runs), and while not particularly fast, it has gotten me to 18:XX 5k and 38:XX 10k speeds. I use my road race paces to calculate treadmill paces as per McMillan/Daniels, and use an incline of 1.5% and off I go.

Nwm2 · 24-11-2011 06:35PM

anymore wrote: »

My feeling is that there is significantly less effort invloved in simply getting your feet off the treadmill to allow it to continue moving than there is in continously propelling yourself forward on the road.
However to each thier own.

Oh really? Well, why not go to Dublin Airport, stand at the end of one of those moving walkways, and starting hopping up and down. Think you'll stay stationary as the walkway moves beneath you?

Not convinced? It may surprise you to find out that the Earth is not flat after all, but is a sphere with the surface rotating in space at hundreds of MPH. Why not just lift your feet off the Earth and hey presto you're running so fast you can keep up with the dawn?

AntiVirus · 24-11-2011 09:07PM

ThisRegard wrote: »

Run 5k on the road and you'll see it's much more difficult than doing it on a treadmill. On a treadmill you can get away with just lifting your legs up and down while the roller does all the forward moving for you.

Everytime treadmills and running come up a few posters post this kind of rubbish.

Just to help you understand how it works here's something for you to try. Stand on a treadmill and turn it on. You'll start to move backwards, try get back to your starting position without having to move forward.

The biggest factor with running outside is the wind and hills. On windy days you'll get a head wind but you'll also get a tail wind.

ThisRegard · 24-11-2011 10:58PM

No need for the condescendion, I understand perfectly how it works. I thought my comment was obvious to all as not being an academic study into the finer details of forward propulsion on a treadmill, my point is that generally less effort it's required.

AntiVirus · 24-11-2011 11:11PM

ThisRegard wrote: »

No need for the condescendion, I understand perfectly how it works. I thought my comment was obvious to all as not being an academic study into the finer details of forward propulsion on a treadmill, my point is that generally less effort it's required.

Re read your own post, it certainly isn't clear from it that you understand how it works.

ThisRegard wrote: »

On a treadmill you can get away with just lifting your legs up and down while the roller does all the forward moving for you

That is just complete rubbish!

ThisRegard · 24-11-2011 11:21PM

You're pulling my chain here aren't you ? You mean everything I saw by Warner Brothers, cartoonists with a unmatched understanding of physics, have led me astray ? And here's me about to base my masters on electricity generation by putting an oversized bunny rabbit on a treadmill, scaring it so that its legs spin violently in place thus turning the belt without having to worry about it running off the edge and hey pesto, free electricity for the price of a carrot. Back to the drawing board for me so.

Looking back on this page it seems Thursdays must be the days the anally retentive kill joys are given their internet access.

plodder · 24-11-2011 11:22PM

ThisRegard wrote: »

No need for the condescendion, I understand perfectly how it works. I thought my comment was obvious to all as not being an academic study into the finer details of forward propulsion on a treadmill, my point is that generally less effort it's required.

You touched a raw nerve there all right. Treadmill vs road running is one of those issues like barefoot running or heel vs forefoot striking. Tread carefully :pac:

AntiVirus · 24-11-2011 11:40PM

ThisRegard wrote: »

You're pulling my chain here aren't you ?

Pulling your chain? No

ThisRegard wrote:

On a treadmill you can get away with just lifting your legs up and down while the roller does all the forward moving for you

That is just complete rubbish!

whydoibother? · 24-11-2011 11:48PM

I just always feel like I'm going to fall when I try to run on a treadmill. Having said that, I never have so it may be illogical. Also, I've only tried running on treadmills a couple of times. I way prefer outdoor running and don't really care what surface. I'm not very experienced though.

Running on Treadmills

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