Running, How accurate are treadmills?

Rovers_Andy

Rovers_Andy

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In September i started running to loose some weight and get fit. I have use of a gym at work so have been using the treadmill 4-5 times per week, as i was overweight and unfit i started off just walking building upto walking 1km running 1km and managed to do 10km in 60 minutes. I've been gradually increasing the distance i run and was hitting 5km in 25 minutes but last night managed 5km in 18:03 and 20km in 80:15.

I have lost a lot of weight since i started (3 Stone) but still feel very surprised i have managed to do 5km in 18 minutes? i know treadmills do some of the work for you so i have been setting the incline to minimum 1.5% but are the speeds on treadmills accurate?
 
Not really. Plus you have no wind resistance so you'll be faster anyway.
I started on a treadmill and was knocking out 5ks in under 20 mins.
Did my first road race and did 5k in 22 mins
Running 5k on my own outside I was usually doing it about 28mins
 
does it matter if you are getting out of it what you want to......... which sounds pretty impressive so far.....

Let's face it.. you're hardly going to be competing with the elites in a marathon, so don't try to compare yourself with them......... if you want to know the difference.. run 10miles or km on the tread....... then go pound the roads next time......

At the end of the day if you acheive your desire = result.
 
I was told by a sports physio that treadmills aren't the same as running for real as they use muscles in a different way. Running on a treadmill is more like jumping up while the 'world' moves underneath you. Real running requires pushing yourself forward. If you are only doing it for fitness and weight lose theynare fine. If you're thinking about the next Olympics you might want to rethink your training.
Remember it is always best to run within your heart rate zones.
 
Thanks for all the comments so far. Good points about the wind resistance etc. To be honest I'm mainly running to loose more weight and increase fitness so have been concentrating mainly on calories burnt and getting between 800 and 1000 burnt per session. Will look at increasing the resistance more to compensate a little also.

Peter, good points about the physio. It makes sense when you think about it. I was given a heart rate monitor by work so have been using that and a normal workout is around 10% below zone 1, 40% zone 1 and 50% zone 2. Occasionally I'll get into zone 3
 
I'm impressed you have the staying power and can run on a treadmill for 18 minutes let alone 80, I find them so boring, I find myself getting bored after just a few minutes. If you want to mix it up a bit try altering the speed during the run, start off at a slow warm up speed then kick in a fast speed for a minute or two, slow to a comfortable speed to get your breath back, then increase the speed again for the minute or two, keep repeating the fast and slow until you feel you've had enough, but can still breath comfortably but heavily, ignore distance. Get off the treadmill have a walk around until you have just about got your breath back then try the process again. This should improve your fitness levels and also improve weight loss as your body will be doing a much better job of continuing to burn the calories through out the rest of the day and while you are sleeping.
 
I did 45 minutes on mine the other day. I did 5 mins fast walking to warm up, then 35 minutes alternating between flat out for a minute or two with heart rate around 160-170bpm then slow jog until heart rate around 120bpm, rinse and repeat, then the last 5 minutes fast walking to warm down again.

Only trouble is I ruined my knees as it's the first time I've been on the treadmill since October and went in too hard too soon, so haven't been on it again since.
 
nilagin said:
I'm impressed you have the staying power and can run on a treadmill for 18 minutes let alone 80, I find them so boring, I find myself getting bored after just a few minutes. If you want to mix it up a bit try altering the speed during the run, start off at a slow warm up speed then kick in a fast speed for a minute or two, slow to a comfortable speed to get your breath back, then increase the speed again for the minute or two, keep repeating the fast and slow until you feel you've had enough, but can still breath comfortably but heavily, ignore distance. Get off the treadmill have a walk around until you have just about got your breath back then try the process again. This should improve your fitness levels and also improve weight loss as your body will be doing a much better job of continuing to burn the calories through out the rest of the day and while you are sleeping.
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Thats what i do normally, depends how i feel but try to run the first 2km at 18 then 0.4km at 8 then 1.6 at 18, 0.4 at 8 and try to run for at least 50 minutes. I don't mind the treadmill as i stick my headphones in and can clear my head

TCR4x4 said:
I did 45 minutes on mine the other day. I did 5 mins fast walking to warm up, then 35 minutes alternating between flat out for a minute or two with heart rate around 160-170bpm then slow jog until heart rate around 120bpm, rinse and repeat, then the last 5 minutes fast walking to warm down again.

Only trouble is I ruined my knees as it's the first time I've been on the treadmill since October and went in too hard too soon, so haven't been on it again since.
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Tom, similar to what i have been doing. I was like a zombie yesterday!
 
Rovers_Andy said:
but are the speeds on treadmills accurate?
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Basically.....no.

As others have said it's actually a different technique and there's no air resistance. The other factor is that they just aren't accurate. Not even slightly. Belts slip, small errors magnify and there's really no point in calibrating them. I know a bunch of people who exercise regularly on treadmills and they always end up with their "favourite" one on which they can set their PBs ;) But nobody really counts PBs on treadmills anyway.

Put it this way, if you can genuinely do 5k in 18 mins then you'd be able to beat all the 22 year olds at parkrun every single week. My local parkrun is "undulating", it has been going for 43 weeks and gets about 70 odd runners a week and attracts a lot of students and serious club runners. There have been a total of 6 people who have ever broken 18 minutes for that course.

But what does it matter? Sounds like you're enjoying it and getting results.
 
Yeah i really don't think the speed/distance readings are accurate. I would love to believe them........ so just going off HR and Calories from the monitor, assuming the chest monitor is accurate of course, going off that i'm burning roughly 1100 Calories over 80 minutes.
 
Rovers_Andy said:
Yeah i really don't think the speed/distance readings are accurate. I would love to believe them........ so just going off HR and Calories from the monitor, assuming the chest monitor is accurate of course, going off that i'm burning roughly 1100 Calories over 80 minutes.
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Sounds about right, someone will typically burn 100-150 calories per mile depending on weight, 80 minutes at 10 minutes a mile (for example) is 8 miles which at 150 cals per mile is bang on assuming you are around 15 stone (plus/minus).
 
TCR4x4 said:
I did 45 minutes on mine the other day. I did 5 mins fast walking to warm up, then 35 minutes alternating between flat out for a minute or two with heart rate around 160-170bpm then slow jog until heart rate around 120bpm, rinse and repeat, then the last 5 minutes fast walking to warm down again.

Only trouble is I ruined my knees as it's the first time I've been on the treadmill since October and went in too hard too soon, so haven't been on it again since.
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Just becareful you don't hit max heart rate. Doing the bursts is excellent to get fit but can cause a worrying fast increase in HR where you can pass your max. I'm on my second heart and wouldnt recommend breaking your oem one from continually exerciseing above max HR!
 
I can see the speeds being accurate because surely they would have gotten calibrated by the manufacturer.

As of your 5k in 18minutes that's quite believable. Say the average speed of walking is about 3mph (4.8km), therefore it will take 20minutes per mile (1.6km). All you have to do is roughly triple your pace. You must have ran an average of 10-11mph (about 16-17kmh), divide that by 3 to give you a 20minute session and that gives you about 5.5k. That's not a full on sprint, but a nice fast jog which would make your 5k in 18mintutes easily doable (y)

My maths might not be right, monday morning and all but I know what I mean lol

3stone since September is pretty impressive in my eyes. Keep it up.
 
CaveDweller said:
I can see the speeds being accurate because surely they would have gotten calibrated by the manufacturer.
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Possibly on a top end "sports science" treddie but really, nobody's going to bother. And that's without the advertising effect - if you run "faster" on brand A than brand B then which one are you going to buy?

CaveDweller said:
As of your 5k in 18minutes that's quite believable. Say the average speed of walking is about 3mph (4.8km), therefore it will take 20minutes per mile (1.6km). All you have to do is roughly triple your pace. You must have ran an average of 10-11mph (about 16-17kmh), divide that by 3 to give you a 20minute session and that gives you about 5.5k. That's not a full on sprint, but a nice fast jog which would make your 5k in 18mintutes easily doable (y)
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I don't want to burst anybody's bubble, but I know quite a few runners and some of them are pretty fast. 18 mins if pretty quick for 5k unless (a) you're 16 or (b) you've put a LOT of effort into your 5k time. Using a pace converter (which aggregates over thousands of people to find how speed at one distance indicates speed at another) it would suggest that a 24 year old male* who could run an 18 minute 5k could run a single mile in 5:16 and a marathon in 2h53. Both of those are on the quick side of rapid.

Anyway, it's pretty easy to resolve. Either go to parkrun next Saturday and get a watch time for a measured 5k, or just measure out a mile on a flattish road near you and tell us what your sprint time is.

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* I just took a random age but it actually doesn't make a lot of difference. The calculator I used (which has proved fairly accurate at scaling speeds for me) is here - http://www.runningforfitness.org/calc/racepaces/rp
 
JonathanRyan said:
Possibly on a top end "sports science" treddie but really, nobody's going to bother. And that's without the advertising effect - if you run "faster" on brand A than brand B then which one are you going to buy?



I don't want to burst anybody's bubble, but I know quite a few runners and some of them are pretty fast. 18 mins if pretty quick for 5k unless (a) you're 16 or (b) you've put a LOT of effort into your 5k time. Using a pace converter (which aggregates over thousands of people to find how speed at one distance indicates speed at another) it would suggest that a 24 year old male* who could run an 18 minute 5k could run a single mile in 5:16 and a marathon in 2h53. Both of those are on the quick side of rapid.

Anyway, it's pretty easy to resolve. Either go to parkrun next Saturday and get a watch time for a measured 5k, or just measure out a mile on a flattish road near you and tell us what your sprint time is.

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* I just took a random age but it actually doesn't make a lot of difference. The calculator I used (which has proved fairly accurate at scaling speeds for me) is here - http://www.runningforfitness.org/calc/racepaces/rp
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Meh, I don't know I never use the things, never bought one and never go running :rolleyes: I do a lot of other sports though but running isn't one of them. Also as stated before because of the way treadmills work your muscles I'd imagine it would be easier to run 5k on a treadmill than 5k running properly by pushing yourself along, rather than keeping up with the treadmill..
 
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