#running #treadmill #hill #incline #workout
Have you ever wondered if running at an incline on a treadmill is really equivalent to running up a hill? 🤔 Let’s dive into the science behind it and find out the answer!
### Understanding the Physics
When you’re running up a hill in the real world, you’re essentially lifting your body upwards against gravity. This requires more effort due to the vertical distance travelled. The work done is calculated by multiplying your weight with the vertical distance you cover.
Now, when you’re on a treadmill with an incline setting, your body mass stays in the same place. This raises the question – is the workout the same as running up a real hill?
### The Truth Behind Running on an Incline
While running at an incline on a treadmill may feel more challenging, is it really equivalent to running up a hill? Let’s break it down:
1. **Muscle Engagement**:
– Running on an incline engages different muscle groups compared to running on a flat surface. It activates more of your glutes, hamstrings, and calves.
2. **Caloric Burn**:
– Running at an incline burns more calories than running on a flat surface. This is due to the increased effort required to lift your body against gravity.
3. **Impact on Joints**:
– Running at an incline can put more stress on your joints compared to running on a flat surface. It’s important to listen to your body and adjust the incline accordingly.
4. **Simulation of Hill Running**:
– While running on an incline on a treadmill can mimic the effort of running up a hill to some extent, it may not fully replicate the experience due to the differences in terrain and air resistance.
### Conclusion
In conclusion, running at an incline on a treadmill can provide a challenging workout and help improve your endurance and strength. While it may not be exactly equivalent to running up a hill in the real world, it still offers a valuable training option.
So, next time you’re at the gym and debating between running on a flat surface or adding some incline to your treadmill workout, remember the benefits that come with incline training. Keep pushing yourself and enjoy the results!
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#running #treadmillworkout #hilltraining #fitnessjourney #workoutmotivation
I believe you require an incline of 2 in order to match air resistence, so any incline over that is equivalent to real hills.
There’s just bad science in most of these answers. There’s no such thing as something pulling you back that’s helping you. It’s the same energy in both cases. Outside you are increasing your potential energy. On the treadmill this energy is kinetic energy that is transferred to the treadmill.
Outside can feel more difficult because of the wind and the microadjustments you have to do for the uneven ground. If anything, running outside is easier, as you are getting farther away from the Earth you are experiencing less and less g.
The only time it would be any close to equivalent in energy expenditure to climbing is if you would continuously move backwards/down and then run forward/up on the treadmill.
If the core of your body is static it would be similar to riding a bike standing up. Different inclines would compare to different gears. Legs would do more work but you cant fake potential energy.
Single dad with two kids young kids so I do a lot of treadmill runs. I found a lot of runners like to gatekeep what a “real run” is. I’ve found a lot of correlation between running on a treadmill and running outside. Though nothing really replicates the skills you need to develop for technical trial running. While I prefer doing my hill training inside you’re much better doing it on a treadmill than not doing one at all.
This thread is the perfect example of how people can be confidently wrong in a domain they think they understand.
Einstein is very clear about it : everything is relative. You have to think about any movement in its reference frame, not the earth reference. In the reference of the treadmill, you are going upward, and work is being done.
Of course lol. You have to work against gravity to walk up the treadmill. When you are walking outside it’s likely going to be closer to thirty degrees
The difference is in the terrain. If you are on pavement then yes. If you are running trails, I say no because you have roots and debris that causes you to maneuver differently then you would on a treadmill. Also, without the display in front of you, you are more likely to push yourself harder because you don’t limit yourself to the set machines goal.
It’s not the work required to achieve a higher potential energy, it’s more that you’re running in a different direction than gravity. It doesn’t matter if the ground moves at a constant speed in either direction.
It might be more intuitive to understand, if you compare it to climbing stairs of an escalator, it is similarly exhausting, for an escalator that is going up, or down, or is standing still.
Why don’t you try it? Jump on a treadmill, and go for a half hour. Take a rest, jump back on, jack the incline as high as it will go, and report back.
>But if you are on a treadmill, no matter what “incline” setting you put it at, your body mass isn’t going anywhere.
Like how no matter how fast you set the speed, your body isn’t going anywhere so you’re not expending effort?
The surface of a treadmill is perfectly flat, whereas with a hill, it’s going to be more undulating. I’d say that a hill requires slightly more effort. Plus, you have the weather to account for.
When running in a level treadmill, your foot lands on it at a certain height and stays at that height. On am inclined treadmill your foot lands on it and rides downhill, so you have to continually step up to maintain your altitude.
You are still lifting yourself up a hill, it’s just that the treadmill is pulling you back down as soon as it happens. It’s exactly the same as how a treadmill works without an incline.
You’re looking at the wrong inertial reference frame.
The amount of calories burnt is based on the reference frame of whatever your feet touches, not the reference frame of a random third party observer.
For example, let’s say you’re climbing a hill. In the reference frame where the hill is stationary, you’re going up, increasing your potential energy.
Likewise, in the reference frame where the part of the thread you just stepped on is stationary, you’re also going up, increasing your potential energy.
You’re still running up an incline, even tho it’s pushing you back.
Running up a dirt or rocky hill would probably be more since you need to overcome uneven terrain vs the smooth terrain of the tredmill.
Stair master vs real Stairs would be similar. You’re still going up, but it’s bringing you down at the same rate.
>Is running at a 3% incline on a treadmill calorically equivalent to running up a 3% hill?
No, but it’s close enough for training purposes. Granted, I only speak from personal experience, but for me, every 1% on a treadmill was roughly equivalent to 0.5% on a real hill. Not only am I fairly certain the physics doesn’t work out, but the treadmill removes some of the real world considerations, as well, such as roughness of terrain.
Yes, just don’t hold onto the hand railings. I see too many people doing a steep incline ona treadmill, but supporting a large amount of their weigh on their arms. Kind of missing out on the incline workout if you just hold onto the rails.
Have you ever tried walking up a (running) down escalator? If so, recall the effort it took.
**Normal treadmill:**
There is only one thing happening. The treadmill is dragging you backwards at velocity -v (parallel to the ground) and to counteract this, you need to walk forwards at velocity v to stay in position.
**Inclined treadmill:**
There are two things happening. The treadmill is dragging you backwards with velocity -v, but this time it is in a direction that is inclined to the ground by some angle theta. You need to move to counteract this force with velocity v, which again is in the opposite direction to the direction the treadmill moves. You can break this vector into its x and y components.
The x component is parallel to the ground, hence you do not need to work against gravity.
However the y component is directly oppositional to the direction gravity wants to pull you, so depending on how large the y component is, you would be doing that much work against gravity(it will be direction proportional to the incline, you can break up a vector with theta = pi/6 and theta = pi/3 radians respectively and see that this is true)
This is 11th grade physics. If you are not convinced by this argument, you clearly do not understand physics to the level which you think you do.
I can see where the confusion arises because you stay more or less in the same place. However, think about what would happen if you stopped running on a treadmill: it would move you downhill. When running on the treadmill you are constantly counteracting that which requires energy; the same as running up an similar incline at the same speed. However you aren’t fighting air resistance or dealing with things like slippage so an outside run is still a bit harder.
I think you have misunderstood the definition of “work” in addition to misunderstanding the concept of reference points. Work is the application of force along a directional vector. Forces which decelerate an object are just as much “work” as those which accelerate. It is the eneregy required to change the direction of an object, relative to not doing it.
The fact is, in the treadmill example you are doing work to displace your mass relative to the reference point of the belt. Your starting velocity doesn’t matter as much as the change in velocity (the work).
The fact that the belt is moving is no different to the fact that the Earth is moving through space, these are just two different starting points. Moving a rock on earth is only moving it relative to its starting point on Earth. In reality the Earth is moving just like the belt is moving.
Have a read of this page which sums up some of the points.
https://scienceblogs.com/startswithabang/2010/03/12/the-inclined-treadmill-what-wo
you’re still lifting your body mass up the incline of the treadmill, the treadmill wants to send you backwards and a little bit down, so you need to exert effort a little bit up to stay in place. imagine if the treadmill was at a 90 degree angle. you’d have to climb vertically like a gecko in order to stay on it.
treadmills are almost never calorically equivalent strictly speaking since you don’t have to fight wind or air resistance. but the incline does require you to push harder to stay in place.
In my experience, yes.
An incline on a treadmill is noticeably more difficult in the same way that running up hill is difficult. I run on a treadmill all winter because it’s cold where I am, and I definitely notice that in the spring, I find that I’m really well prepared for running up hill and I can run MUCH faster on flat ground than before the winter
It’s not exactly the same you need a greater incline to achieve the same effect as going up hill while off a treadmill. I can’t recall what the actual difference was however you can train going uphill on a treadmill you just need to set it to a higher incline than you might actually face outside.
If you set your treadmill to the extreme’s it makes itself very apparent that the incline makes a significant difference.
Sweat. Focus on how much you’re sweating. Raising the incline will make you sweat more than flat.
Yes. Imagine a vertical climbing wall. You climb all of the way up to the top. We would agree that you did work to move yourself up that wall. But while you’re at the top, the wall moves down and presents more wall for you to climb. So you climb the new wall up to the top again. You did twice the work, right? The wall moves down again and you repeat.
Now imagine that again, but where the wall is just constantly moving down at the same rate you are climbing up. You’re still doing the same work. The wall is just moving you down while you climb. The gravitational potential energy you created by climbing is absorbed by the mechanism moving the wall down, which has to do more work to keep the wall stationary, so the brakes get warmer.
An inclined treadmill is basically the same thing, just at an angle.
Let’s assume your body at rest burns 0 calories.
we all know it doesn’t but it makes this math technically it burns a bit less than 100 an hour but let’s im subtracting that from the math we’re going to involve.
You mentioned Work being equal to mass multiplied by distance this is correct.
The treadmill is moving you meaning it’s doing some amount of work Let’s call it “pulling” you have to move an amount of work equal to it’s “pulling” force by “pushing” yourself forward otherwise you’re just standing and using 0 calories but if you push yourself equally to the amount it’s pulling it will be more than 0 calories per hour for you to stay on the treadmill.
same thing goes for adding an incline it’s not only pulling you now it’s pulling and lowering you now you have to push and lift yourself to match that amount of work being done onto you.
Yes it’s very similar the only difference would be uneven terrain that might cause more stability related muscles to be used as a treadmill is much more consistent compared to any natural landscape.
I’m surprised nobody said this yet:
If you stand on an inclined treadmill, does it resist you accelerating along the treadmill by gravity and falling off the back end? If so, all the energy that would go into raising you up is instead deposited inside this treadmill resistance mechanism.