Threadmill - A waste of time ??

Dfitzer

For the past month I have NOT been able to go running outdoors due to the place where i work (dont ask). I have been training fairly hard on a threadmill almost daily trying to keep up my fitness levels. However recently I had a few days off where I could go for runs outdoors and I was under some serious pressure trying to go for even easy runs.

I have been running for about ten years and would classs myself as a fairly decent runner

I am back at work now and am looking at that bloody threadmill and wondering if there is any point in getting on it.

Anyone know how threadsmills compare with road running for developing and maintaining aerobic fitness

Sangre

Increase the steepness level to compensate for no wind resistance.

Squiggle

Dfitzer wrote:

For the past month I have NOT been able to go running outdoors due to the place where i work (dont ask). I have been training fairly hard on a threadmill almost daily trying to keep up my fitness levels. However recently I had a few days off where I could go for runs outdoors and I was under some serious pressure trying to go for even easy runs.

I have been running for about ten years and would classs myself as a fairly decent runner

I am back at work now and am looking at that bloody threadmill and wondering if there is any point in getting on it.

Anyone know how threadsmills compare with road running for developing and maintaining aerobic fitness

I always find outdoor running way more difficult than the threadmill - a combination of wind and the natural hills and hollows of outdoor makes it harder. As long as you are in the target heartrate zone on the threadmill it is helping your aerobic fitness though.

Mr E

Why can nobody here spell that bloody word right? Its TREADMILL!
Sorry... had to get that off my chest

Were you doing steady runs on the treadmill, or doing intervals/hills etc?

Dfitzer

mixture of both; fast 5 milers every second day and hill intervals in between on the TREADMILL .

defiantshrimp

There was something in Men's Health a while back about comparing treadmill difficulty to the difficulty of actual running outdoors. Basically treadmills are much easier for reasons already mentioned but you should increase the gradient to 3% or more to get a more realistic effort level. TBH I almost prefer the treadmill since i can keep more easily motivated on it and so it can seem easier in a mental sense, at least to me anyway.

Roddy23

nice sig, shrimp