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Adjusting
Treadmill Incline for Real Road Pace
Hazen Kent - Tri-Newbies
Online
The
Winter season always means readjusting your training
regimen. Especially for those living in harsher climates.
This usually means indoor cycling on a stationary trainer,
indoor swimming for most and on those really harsh days,
indoor running on the treadmill.
Unlike the stationary bike trainer, however, a
treadmill can provide the necessary gravitational
resistance by simply adjusting the incline of the machine.
And the more you adjust the incline, the closer you come
to real road pace.
Each
winter, discussion and questions arise based on the
differences between running on a treadmill and running on
the roads (excluding the obvious environmental factors).
And I refer specifically to running speeds on a treadmill
compared to those on the road. In fact, running speeds on
a treadmill are not equal to those running speeds on the
road. Because you are not moving forward on a treadmill,
your effort at any comparable pace to that on the roads,
is easier because you do not have to overcome air
resistance regardless of how calm the day may be outside.
Therefore,
if you want to achieve a truer “road pace” on the
treadmill, you must adjust the incline. Click
here and you will see a chart that gives the
various inclines and how each is compared to real “road
pace.” And the next eleven columns represent actual pace
based on percent of incline.
Remember,
when running on a treadmill, warm-up properly. The
wonderful thing about a treadmill is, you can adjust as
you move, both speed and incline. I hope you find this
chart helpful for those heading indoors for the winter.
**
Effort Based Treadmill Running. Peak Running
Performance. January/February 1996. Volume 5, Number
1.
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