To entertain myself during training I often compare doing one thing in different situations.
Lately I have done that, a few times, running in my carbon (super) shoes on a treadmill then immediately outside (6-7 k each leg). Taking into account that treadmills don’t come with air movement or downhills, are monotonous and soul destroying, there is no doubt in my mind that the mechanics of the treadmill negate some of the advantages of Carbon shoes. Treadmills, I believe, have a certain amount of give and that “give” removes some of the bounce that a carbon shoe gives a runner.
The outside running speed at a similar HR is always faster and conversely if done at the same speed that was maintained on a treadmill it results in a lower HR.
Now I do admit that if I crank up the speed on the treadmill to a 5k race speed, the carbon shoe mechanics do kick in again.
Anyone have similar or other experience observations?
ps the outside running is always on a wooded road and asphalt path (not hard concrete). Not flat, but it’s out and back so it’s a wash.
Yes, very different to outside. But it also depends what treadmill.
Woodway is very stiff and unforgiving and (for me) physiologically harder to run than outside.
“Normal” treadmill has a lot of bounce and so easier to run than outside and not much point in carbon shoes.
Also agree that mentally its much harder, even while watching TV. Certainly not the same as bike trainer.
I have only seen the indoor Tri’s done on those Woodway treadmills and they look nasty for the level of my running. And I do love my "super: shoes…:0)
I find the bike trainer to equally soul destroying and considering I live downtown in Canada, both the treadmill and the bike trainer are the only options for large parts of the year. For some reason I cannot watch TV while running, bad posture probably. There may be some months in midwinter that I am not clinically sane…:0(
A lot of the tests on super shoes has been done using treadmills, mostly because it gets rid of lots of variables (wind, elevation, etc.). A typical test was repeatedly alternating between using regular and super shoes at a given treadmill speed (often marathon pace) and looking at either HR or O2 consumption. The benefit of super shoes is great enough that many testers get statistically significant results. I’ve even seen the method used to determine which super shoe was best for a given runner (I’m a bit skeptical that these tests can accurately measure <1% differences though).
Lots of belt treadmills do have some flex/bounce, so the results are not exactly the same as the open road; but super shoes have been shown to offer advantages on pretty much every surface (all weather tracks, dirt trails, asphalt, etc.). The one exception is the non-motorized treadmills; since you want to be driving the tread, not bouncing off it.
Similar tests have been shown on some videos by GCN for example. Which is why I did mine with both a treadmill and outside running, they didn’t.
While I have no scientific equipment (or credentials for that matter) I did think I could compare the two by matching ,as much as possible, HR effort (with resulting speed) and then Steady Speed effort (with resulting HR) over enough of a distance to provide some average for both.
My results were considerably better for the outside run than on the treadmill (a low 2 digit % improvement).
The 4% claim may or may not be true for me, wouldn’t know, but as I was only using the one shoe for a different comparison it really wasn’t the same question being answered.
I did have some comparison of historical data from older treadmill and outside runs in more standard shoes, which were at various times, Hoka, Altra and Nike (lower end trainers). But different years, different ages, different weights and different training goals make those somewhat nebulous.
As mentioned before I do this to entertain myself while training, which is why I wondered about if others were trying to see similar differences. I wasn’t so much interested in the difference between carbon and non carbon, I’m already a happy convert, but between indoor and outdoor results.