Treadmill Running: Helpful for Training or Holding You Back?

Over the last ten years or so, the indoor trainer has played an ever-growing role in the training week of committed amateur cyclists. The safety and controllability of training indoors has significantly improved the quality and efficiency of time-crunched cyclists but can the treadmill do the same for runners with similar goals and aspirations?

Initially, cyclists were concerned about the specificity of doing the bulk of their training indoors. How would that translate when they were in a race or group ride out on the road, in the real world? These concerns have proved largely unfounded. Pedalling our own bikes on the trainer is exactly like it is on the road and as long as we do get a few hours a month on the road and in a group to keep our skills and bike handling tuned in, we are good to go on race day, probably armed with a bigger engine as a result of the perfectly executed workouts that would have been tough to achieve on the open road, in the dark, early hours of the morning.

So, what are the concerns that runners have with training on the treadmill and are they justified?

IT’S BORING – Yes, running on the spot for extended periods is definitely a lot less stimulating than whizzing along a technical trail or doing a long run with a good group of mates. These were the same concerns that cyclists had about the indoor trainer before the advent of virtual training apps like Zwift. These are also available for running and will help alleviate some of the boredom of training indoors. That said, the long run component of our training is always going to be a chore indoors and these should be aimed at the great outdoors wherever possible. For all the other workouts like intervals, hills and tempo runs, the treadmill can be just as effective (if not more) and working in sets and reps where we only focus on hitting the required numbers for specific increments, will make the time pass without us noticing. Possibly the hardest run to do on a treadmill is an easy, recovery session, where the goal would be to just cover a certain duration at an easy effort. Time can drag doing this on a treadmill. Even these can be divided into intervals where we change the gradient or speed slightly, obviously keeping things at the lower end of our effort zones in order to achieve the desired training outcome.

IT’S NOT LIKE RUNNING ON THE ROAD – Somewhere along the line, runners got it into their heads that they will run differently on a treadmill and that an altered gait can cause injuries. It was thought that we are just keeping up with the treadmill and not driving off properly as we do when running on the road. For this reason, many runners who did include some treadmill sessions would raise the elevation slightly to make it more ‘realistic’. There is really no evidence to support this. A great visualisation of why running on a treadmill is still running as we would do it outside is to think of running on a giant aircraft carrier while it is moving forward. If we run in the same or opposite direction that the ship is travelling, would we be running in differently? This does not change because we are running on the narrow deck of the treadmill.

There are some very specific benefits of doing some of our training on a treadmill

IMPROVED TECHNIQUE – In complete contrast to what many thought would be a problem on the treadmill, it can in fact, be very good for our running form and allow us to make small improvements to our gait, actually reducing our chances of injury. It is not vanity to watch ourselves running in the mirror, or to get someone to video us while on the hamster wheel. It is a great way to pick up the small things that we do in our running that may be inefficient and, over time, could provoke injury. Biomechanically we are all unique and trying to completely overhaul the way we run is never a good idea, but small things like a hip-drop, for example, can be a sign that we need to spend a bit of time improving our pelvic stability with some core-strength training. Just trying to improve our arm carriage or the inclination of our heads can make a significant difference to our running in the long term and it is much easier to spot and work on while we are on the treadmill.

IT ALLOWS EXPERIMENTATION – Running on a treadmill allows us to experiment with different cadences and stride lengths. As mentioned already, we are biomechanically different and our most efficient method of producing running speed, may not be what works for someone else. Yes, we can try different cadences out on the road and see how stretching or shortening our stride affects the way we run but it is very difficult to control these things for extended periods. On the treadmill however, we can set a constant speed and simply shorten our stride and pick up the cadence and see how that feels.

TREADMILLS ARE THE GOLD STANDARD FOR INTERVALS – Performing intervals on the road is always going to be a bit inconsistent. Changes in gradient, intersections, corners etc. will all affect how hard or how fast we can go during a hard repetition, making it very rare that one is exactly the same as another in a set of intervals. There is a lot more control on a track but running the bend is different to the straights and, over time, can also cause issues in the hips, ankles and knees. Doing intervals on a treadmill can be specific, to the letter, of our planned workout.

Yes, just like cyclists, most of us run for the pleasure of the activity and personal fulfilment and we don’t want to make a chore out of our training. Even if we don’t have specific time goals, just running more efficiently and easier must be something to strive for? Being able to run for longer through a beautiful trail or being able to hold a conversation on a long, easy run, without gasping for breath. A bit of focused work on the gym treadmill will do that for us. It isn’t only something we use as a last resort when the weather is terrible.