Treadmill Running Tips

The treadmill is a great training tool. It helps to accurately quantify sessions, set up great structured workouts and fitness progressions, and is a controlled environment to work on technique and run cadence.

First, consider a few of the following items before starting a treadmill program.

• Treadmill running is slightly easier than outdoor running due to the lack of wind resistance. This enables you to be more efficient in your running on the treadmill, so to accommodate for the lack of resistance set the treadmill at a 1% grade for all of your workouts.
• Use a heart rate monitor. By using one you can eliminate "junk training" and get fitter faster. The monitor allows you to work out in the zone that you want to be in, helping you get results faster. A heart rate monitor also allows you to work out in zones that are safe for you and helps reduce your risk of injury or overtraining.
• Be sure to hydrate lots while working out on a treadmill. You can lose even more water running on a treadmill then you would if you were running outside. This is because of the lack of air resistance to help to keep you cool. Just a 1% loss in water can lead to a noticeable decline in performance.
• If you have a mirror nearby try to check your form during several parts of the workout. Do you start to hunch over or tighten up as you get tired? A mirror can help to point out to you how to improve your training.

Fartlek running is a great idea for indoor workouts as it really helps break up the monotony and helps get the person's mind off the fact that they aren't actually moving anywhere.

Sometimes I give my athletes a couple versions of the indoor fartlek. I call one "commercial" and the other "song", and they involve having the athlete go hard during a song or commercial, and then easy during the next song or during the show. I use "commercial" for long workouts that are mainly aerobic with the small number of short intervals included to stay in touch with threshold. The "song" version, which I use most often, involves increasing and reducing speed and/or grade from song to song. I have found that my athletes really enjoy it.

A couple more good sessions would be to do hill repeats or set intervals on the treadmill. You just set the treadmill to the desired grade and then do them as you would a normal interval with a rest period after each one. This is especially great for people who don't live in a hilly area and want the benefits of hill running.

Thanks to Stefan Timms for his contribution to this article.

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Posted: November 26, 2006