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Comment by jrockway | Hacker News Reader

The only thing I agree with in the article is that cardio machines in the gym are a waste of time.

Not sure this is really true or that it matters. A 5 mile run on the treadmill at an x minute pace is the same as a 5 mile run outside at an x minute pace. Advantages of the treadmill include being able to keep a given pace without making any particular mental effort. Advantages of being outside is that it's not boring.

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Hmm, well it's more subtle than that. Running on a "real" surface, that is constantly changing gradient and direction, works a lot of ancillary muscles for stability and balance that you don't get on a treadmill. The cardio workout might be the same. But if you trained for a Marathon only on a treadmill, you'd be in for a bit of a surprise when you tried a real one. Without the core strength you'd lose your form, your running would be less efficient, you'd get exhausted much more quickly.

Also air resistance, which is zero when you're stationary.

The other thing I've noticed is that when running on a treadmill, it may seem like your legs are making roughly the same motion as real running, but you're not pushing yourself forward, just upward. Your legs definitely don't have to work as hard pushing your body around.

My girlfriend is currently training for a half marathon and was told to never ever run on the treadmill with it set flat, so she goes with a fairly decent incline (not running up hill, but definitely should get some resistance) the entire time at a minimum.

maybe I'm in a minority, but I've always found the way the treadmill cuts short my naturally long stride at any reasonable pace to require far more body adjustment than minor undulations in the ground (which I adjust for naturally and subconsciously, without worrying that I'm going to misjudge the pace the machine fixes for me)

Suffice to say I strongly prefer the real surface.

That's not at all true. In addition to the lack of variation in stride that gaius points out, it's almost impossible to not cheat on a treadmill and let it do some of the work for you, and there's no wind resistance.

Treadmills have their place - for warming up a bit before some other kind of exercise, or as a replacement when the weather or traveling keeps you indoors - but they just aren't equivalent to real running. 5 minutes on a trail will tell you that.

No particular mental effort beyond that needed to abstain from committing suicide due to the extreme monotony of a treadmill run.

That said, the treadmill can be a fine tool for training. It allows you to totally ignore weather conditions, and actually for speed workouts it can have the advantage of forcing you to stay on pace. A common rule of thumb is that a 1% incline on the treadmill compensates for the lack of wind resistance.

I can't stand the damn things myself, but there are runners, including some guys I know personally, who train exclusively using the treadmill and still do well in races up to marathon distance (I've never heard of any ultramarathoners who train exclusively on the treadmill).

That's interesting, because personally I find running outside boring whereas on a treadmill I can use the time & distance readouts to help me stay motivated (e.g I'll just keep going until the timer gets to the next multiple of 5 minutes... ok, now I'll keep going until the next whole kilometre... and so on). Each to their own, I guess.

This is in no way true. Running on a treadmill is significantly easier than running the same distance on an outside surface.

My experience has been that 20 minutes on a treadmill is equivalent to about 15 minutes outside.

Coaches discourage running on a treadmill - getting used to the ground moving under your feet makes you slow.

This is something I always wondered about.

I get FAR more tired running 2 real miles than 2 "miles" on a treadmill.

On a treadmill, both of your feet are in the air for a significant amount of time, and you're not being carried backwards. Yet, I bet that distance still gets counted.

The only significant differences are constrained stride length, and wind resistance (which definitely matters even before 10mph).

Staying in the gym is also a hell of a lot better when it's -15 outside with a mean wind and snow on the ground.

  5 mile run on the treadmill at an x minute pace is the same as a 5 mile run outside at an x minute pace.

LOL. Go run outside. You have no idea what you're talking about.

Depends on where you live. A hilly area can kick your ass a lot harder than a treadmill, but my current neighborhood is flat and it compares pretty evenly to a treadmill run.

It does not.

Running on the ground you push yourself forward. On a treadmill the amount of work you are doing can vary quite a bit by technique (ie. how much contact you are making with the treadmill) because you are not actually propelling yourself.

A treadmill makes me run at a pace that is faster than I would run outside though.

Sure, your benefit is still proportional to your effort, but if you look at the odometer and think that you've ran 10 miles just because 10 miles of belt passed underneath you, then you really need to run outside once in a while.

Crazy.

Mark a dot on the treadmill track.

How is the person moving relative to that dot?

How is the air in the room moving relative to that dot?

That's basically all that can distinguish between running at constant speed on a treadmill vs. on level (non-treadmill) ground.

If you're running 8mph on a treadmill, it's like running 8mph on level ground, with an 8mph tailwind.

How do you fail so badly at physics?

lol

The fact that you are upvoted more than me shows me that too many people spend too much theorizing and not enough time actually trying it out. Go spend some time on a treadmill and some time running outside. It very well could be that if you had a perfect tailwind (which doesn't happen) then it would be similar, but I wouldn't bet on it (the surfaces are different for starters). My point was that running on a treadmill is not the same, and that's irrefutable.

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