Going very fast on the treadmill--safe? (Read 565 times)

Sure it's safe. Just pray you don't have a power surge or lose power while hauling ass. My buddy was hauling ass on his treamill and lost power, and ran into the cross bar thing busted his ass big time, was funny as hell. Obviously it doesn't happen often, but something to keep in mind.

This summer I was running on a TM in a hotel the hour after the room "closed" and someone just tripped the circuit breaker off to shut the room down.

Complete blackness at 8+mph.

I was fine and continued my run outside in the rain.

 

Those trying to say that running on a moving belt you can somehow just hold your position and be aided by the belt, are simply not educated as to the basics of physics.  There is no difference between running on a treadmill and running on a solid surface of the same incline, aside from a very small component of airflow.  Heck, if you have a wind at your back on a road equal to the velocity you are running, there is zero difference.

I agree completely. There are very successful pros who do a lot training on a treadmill. Greet Waitz was one who said she did most workouts on a tread mill. A treadmill is not cross training and the belt doesn't pull your legs along. That's complete rubbish. You have to push back against the moving belt to stay in place, with the same force you would use against the unmoving ground. A 1 to 1.5% incline will compensate for the lack of airflow. I feel that the mill also increases the activation of muscles related to balance over what ground running does because of the reduction in stability and the need to make small positioning adjustments to stay in one place. It's more boring running but can provide very effective workouts. Doing hill and speed workouts on the mill seem very effective due to the controllability of pace and incline.

 

A 1 to 1.5% incline will compensate for the lack of airflow.

This is from the article Fuzzy posted on the previous page:

Researchers at the University of Brighton in the United Kingdom wondered the same thing 15 years ago, so they tested a group of trained runners on treadmills and an outdoor track, measuring their signs of exertion. "The energy cost of running outdoors is always greater than running indoors whatever the pace," says Jonathan Doust, Ph.D., one of the study's authors. "The faster you run the greater the effect."

This is most clearly seen in the tactics of races like the Tour de France, where the peloton saves energy by sharing the cost of breaking the wind. "At the slower speeds of running the effect of air resistance is much less, but still measureable," Doust says. For instance, running at a pace of 6:00/mile outdoors will add 5 percent to the total energy cost due to wind resistance. This would show up as roughly five extra beats per minute on that runner's heart rate.

The study's final verdict? At paces slower than 8 mph (7:30/mile pace), no adjustment is necessary. "The difference is so small as to be meaningless," says Doust. Between 8 mph and 11.2 mph (5:21 pace), a 1 percent treadmill grade provides the right adjustment. At higher speeds you will need at least a 2 percent grade to offset the lack of wind resistance.

 

where the peloton saves energy by sharing the cost of breaking the wind.

he-he

You're not even wrong; this just doesn't even mean anything.

In outdoor running, forward motion is momentum, which is a balance force that simply doesn't exist if you're on a treadmill. 

Velocity and momentum and force are three different things.

Your *conclusion* that running on a treadmill is fundamentally different from running outdoors is wrong, for reasons that I believe have already been adequately explained. Also see Galilean relativity.

So why is it that the people who have to hold on to the hand rails of a treadmill in order to walk and run, aren't using a walker to get to the machine in the first place. If there isn't a difference in technique, then the shouldn't need balance help to use them.

Who is holding on to the handrails!?

Clearly, Bob cannot choose the vial in front of him.

Who on God's green earth holds onto the hand rails?