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26 years
Is running on a treadmill the same as running on the street?
Apr 10, 2015
2nd opinion

Dr. Zakia Dimassi Pediatrics
1- While running outdoors, your pace varies from moment to moment, and so does your incline. Even when you're on the smoothest, most plain road, there is variation in pace and incline. Moreover, there's invariable curves and turns onto different streets,not to mention the different slight (or even significant) uphills and downhills. Treadmill running lacks these variations. To make the treadmill running mimic outdoor running in these aspects, you will need to vary the incline and speed on your treadmill runs. You can achieve this by running up some hills and adjusting your pace from time to time.

2- When running outdoors, your foot strikes are never exactly the same. On the treadmill, however, they usually are. There are no turns, no curves and the running surface is perfectly flat and smooth, which increases the likelihood of sustaining running injuries, which result essentially from repetitive motion injuries. It is therefore important, in addition to varying your speed and incline, to wear different shoes from time to time.

3- During outdoors running, changing pace very quickly is rather easy. On the treadmill, however, you have to wait for the speed (and incline) to change. This lag may not be important if you're going for an easy jog, but when doing race-specific workouts like repeats and intervals on the treadmill, this effect becomes significant. If you don’t adjust your workout to account for this lag, then your workouts will actually be much more difficult than outdoors. A physical training specialist suggests the following to overcome this problem:
-During your 1st repeat on the treadmill, count how much time it takes for the treadmill to reach your goal speed and incline. Then, simply reduce the duration of your repeat by that amount of time.

Another difference between outdoor running and treadmill running is that in outdoors running, the ground doesn’t move underneath you, so you'd be actively pushing off against the ground to propel yourself forward. On the treadmill, however, the ground moves underneath between foot strikes. Whilst this difference may be subtle, runners often report that they are more sore after a treadmill run as compared to an equivalent outdoor run.

5- When running outdoors, your body needs to overcome air resistance to propel itself forward, which requires energy. And, the faster you run, the more energy it takes. On a treadmill, however, your body remains stationary so the energy cost of treadmill running is slightly less than outdoor running at the same speed. A popular research study on outdoor overland running versus treadmill running reported that "at faster speeds (7-minute pace per mile), setting the incline to 1% led to the same effort as outdoor running." Practically speaking, most people don’t run this fast so the energy difference between treadmill running and outdoor running is not significant.
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