Treadmill vs Road: Which makes for the harder running?

Treadmill vs Road: Which makes for the harder running?

AJ submitted a question for us to answer on the Ask Coach Parry podcast, and she wants to know about treadmill vs road running. This is her question: “I run a fair bit on the treadmill and often struggle to get ‘going’. Can you tell me which is better for you treadmill vs road running and why, and also why does treadmill running seem so much harder?”

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Brad Brown: AJ submitted a question for us to answer on the Ask Coach Parry podcast, and she wants to know about treadmill vs road running. This is her question: “I run a fair bit on the treadmill and often struggle to get ‘going’. Can you tell me which is better for you treadmill vs road running and why, and also why does treadmill running seem so much harder?”

It can only be psychological thing because running on a treadmill is much easier than running on the road – you don’t have to deal with fluctuating environmental conditions, you’re on a round rotating belt so you don’t have the same ground reaction forces, and (unless you put the treadmill at 1 or 2% gradient) it’s actually very very flat.

You very seldom would run as flat, unless you're running around and around on a track outside. So no, from a physiological cost, it’s easier to run on a treadmill vs road. It is certainly more boring and it feels like it’s taking much longer running on a treadmill.

Treadmill vs Road: Which is more beneficial?

To the question which one is more beneficial, treadmill vs road? There are a lot of advantages from running outside and I’ve already listed them in their degree of difficulty, so you get varied terrain, the surfaces are slightly harder so you prepare your muscles a bit better for the races that you’re preparing for. Having said that if you live in an area where you’ve got little or no access to gravel roads or running on the grass but always running on the tar – that can aid in overuse injuries and the load can eventually be greater than your adaptation.

So the advantages of running on a treadmill; its much softer. So there is greater protection of muscles, joints, tendons, etc. But that there is that reduced preparation specifically for running on the tar, which has a much greater eccentric load.

There are some pretty famous examples of people who have done a lot of training on treadmills, and have gone onto have exceptional performances. Because we live in South Africa, I will use the example of Alberto Salazar, who won the Comrades Marathon in the early 1990’s, and had an illustrious marathon career in United States of America. He did almost every single step of his training on a treadmill. That does go to show you can prepare very well on a treadmill.

For the international runners out there, Dana Caster (I think) who won a bronze medal at the Los Angeles Olympics (I think) in a marathon – had major problems with injuries and stress fractures throughout her life and actually did a LOT of her training for that Olympic marathon on a treadmill that was submerged under water to reduce the impact even further.

So yes, I would say a treadmill would adequately prepare you but probably a mix of the two is not a bad way to go.

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