It is considered a rule of thumb that 1 hour on an indoor bike trainer is roughly equivalent to 1.5 hours on the road. This is mainly due to stops in traffic, coasting, blah blah blah.
Now what do you thing the equivalnce is for a treadmill?
Me personally, I think 1 hour on the TM seems to be closer to 1.25 hours if not a little less. On one hand, the TM forces you to maintain a constant pace, which can be quite difficult for the uninitiated. On the otherhand, as has been thouroughly discussed in previous thread, us less you make certain adjustments, running on a TM is somewhat easier than running outdoors.
So, What say all you TM owners/users? I want your opinions.
I’ve not ever heard of any type of “rule of thumb” regarding treadmill time vs. outdoor time. I’m not an avid TM user but when I do run on one I would say that in general it feels a bit easier than running outside. Surface is much softer, no wind to contend with…so unlike the bike where you can say that spending an hour on a trainer is equivalent to much more than that on the roads, I would say there is no such correlation between TM and outdoors.
Running on a treadmill is a lot easier than running on a road because you’re running on a moving belt which keeps you from expanding some energy (not sure if it’s the push-off or whatever).
If you’re going to run on a treadmill run on a 1% gradient to stimulate road better.
in still air (which is what the 1% is supposedly for…
I thought the 1% was meant to account for the fact that the TM belt is moving, not for wind resistance. (I duly note that you don’t think the belt moving has any effect on you, since you don’t overstride.)
We all agree that the TM needs some sort of elevation in order to do somewhat similar work on a flat road.
I am afraid I must disagree. It is arguable that the lack of any real sense of motion/speed on the treadmill does little to activate the adrenal system of the athlete, thereby making the task of running indoors on a treadmill more difficult than running on the road. Compare it to riding your bike on the trainer. There is no rush of the blacktop rolling underneath your wheels, the wind in your face, the centrifical forces experienced whilst cornering. I propose that these factors make it easier for the cyclist to produce power as there is a stimulus aside from the brain telling the body to turn the pedals round. This scenario can be extrapolated to the treadmill, IMHO.
To me running on a treadmill is a wash when compared to running outside. I sweat more on the treadmill but the forgiving surface means my legs take slightly less of a pounding.
My effort for a given pace is the same indoors v. outdoors. And that holds true even if I don’t run outdoors for several months.
I love it!!!