Treadmill VS Outdoor Running
Winters in the Northern Hemisphere tend to be severe. Blizzards, winds, rain, subzero temperatures, snow, hail, you name them. This makes it impossible to have a consistent and uninterrupted outdoor running program.
If you are lucky and the weather is mild you can wrap up and go out jogging. There are many products out there for winter outdoor jogging that will help you keep warm and cosy during the jog. From warm running socks, shoes, neoprene bottoms and tops, to gloves, winter hats and waterproof jackets; all these are designed to deal with elements of the weather.
Despite all this there is nothing much out there to protect you for severe weather like snow and ice. This is when athletes have to look for alternatives. There is no better alternative out there that gives athletes some cardio exercise than the treadmill. Treadmills come in different sizes and levels of complexities. Some are equipped with sophisticated computer units that collect and compute your vital statistics as you run on it. Some treadmills are designed to imitate the rough and ragged terrain that runners are used to when they jog outside. I haven't yet set my foot in a commercial gym but if what I see on telly, in movies and magazines is anything to go by; treadmills seem to be the most popular gym equipment of choice for cardio workout.
But do treadmills give you the same workout as you would get if you run outdoors when you compare calories burnt during similar lengths of time?
I have used these 2 forms of cardio workout exercises quite extensively in the past 2 years or so. I use a treadmill that is fairly basic. This Rebook Treadmill is capable of imitating a slight terrain incline and is capable of top speed of 8.2 miles per hour (13.6km). It has a basic computer that calculates some basic statistic but for the purpose of this article the important one is calories burnt based, on the speed selected and the pulse rate.
In order to compare like with like I am using the Garmin Forerunner 405 GPS watch with a foot pod and heart rate monitor to provide the comperative data. Of course because GPS cannot be used indoors I have to rely on the foot-pod to convert my treadmill steps into distance in Kilometers. As a backup; like I mentioned above, the Treadmill computer can also calculate the total distance covered based on the set treadmill speed.
Here is a comparison of a 10km run on the treadmill compared to a somewhat similar distance run outdoors
Treadmill http://connect.garmin.com/splits/20262014
Total distance 10.05km
Total time: 1hour 03mins
Average speed 06:17min/km
Average heart rate 151bits/minute
Maximum heart rate 172 bits per minute.
Total calories burnt 761 kilo calories.
Outdoors. Http://connect.garmin.com/activity/21697128
Total distance 10.65km
Total time 59 minutes and 36 seconds
Average speed 5:3mins/km
Average heart rate 165bits per minute
Maximum heart rate 174 bits per minute
Total calories burnt 801kcal.
All other workouts follow similar patterns. A search of user-name Realbigdhara on either http://connect.garmin.com or runkeeper.com will show this.
It is clear from the comparisons above that a basic treadmill is no match for an actual outdoor run.
You spend less time to run 10km than you do on a treadmill. You also burn more calories outdoors than on a treadmill.
One could argue that the speed on the treadmill is set lower than the average speed outdoors, and that if I set the treadmill to match my average outdoor speed then there won't be any difference. Fair point! But this is where it gets exciting.
If I set the speed higher it means either I have to increase the length of my stride or the speed with which I crisscross my legs. It means I will be running with a wider stride or a faster pace than I do when I am on the road yet I will achieve same results. Running with a wider pace than I am used to; will increase the risk of hamstring injuries. A normal length stride and a faster pace can result in raised heart rate and may lead one to train in the anaerobic zone, something not good for long distance runners. What I simply mean by this is the fact that I could run and complete a marathon at my outdoor pace and complete it but would not be able to do so on a treadmill set at higher speed because I will soon run out of glucose and hit the proverbial runner's wall.
The reason why I would need to make these compensatory changes when I increase the treadmill speed is because the treadmill is an artificial track. It helps to push you off the ground and rolls you 'forward' whereas if you where on the actual ground your muscles need to do this vital action themselves. The movement that thrusts our bodies forward as we run is generated by the entire musculature of the back of the whole leg. That is to say all the muscles stretching from the sole of the foot, up the calves, the back of the thighs and finally the butt, all work as a unit to push our bodies off the ground and forward.
As you can imagine, these are some of the main big muscles of the body. If they are being assisted to do half their job when one runs on the treadmill then it also follows that less calories will be burnt. The only way to match the calorie competition is to increase the speed of treadmill to artificial levels.
One can conclude that treadmills engage less of your back leg muscles than the actual road run. Treadmill are less likely to prepare you for an injury free outdoor run during competitions. I would like to believe that if an athlete has no option but to use a treadmill for training they need to add more exercises for the gluteal muscles, hamstrings, gastrocnemius and the foot muscles otherwise an imbalance of muscle strength will occur between the front of leg muscles and back of leg muscles.
Because of the assisted body thrust that the treadmill gives I would like to logically conclude that these machines are great for such things as hamstring recovery and other back of leg muscle recovery
Did I mention that treadmill workout is extremely boring? Well it is at least for me. You will be running in one place and if you are long distance runner, you may almost fall asleep.
Try running a marathon on a treadmill!
