Treadmill sessions

[didds]

Ok - following on from other dreadmill sessions...

for those of you that DO use dreadmills...

how do you structure your sessions?

Do you just run for X minutes at speed Y... or what?

didds

[Sir Conehead]

For you Didderama - I'd view treadmills as weight loss sessions as they're not actually 'running' or preparing you for running in a triathlon.

So as long as you're doing them with a view to shifting weight with an added benefit of increasing fitness, that's ok.

As for structuring them - put it on a 1% incline as you're running slightly 'downhill'. Then just do exactly what you would on a turbo - in fact treadmills are running versions of turbos. You're jumping up and down while the belt moves under you, you're not actually moving your mass forward.

So as mentioned divvy them up as you would a turbo - you can practically cut and paste them.

[Jack Hughes]

I don't like doing intervals as such on the treadmill, as going too fast scares me.

My favourite would be some steady-state LT threshold type information.

This might be say, 20 mins at 8.5 mph with a 2.5% include or whatever (the numbers might be wrong, I would have to check)

Where do I get this from? Jack Daniels running formula. He has some tables which enable you to translate particular sessions onto the treadmill. Essentially, you work out your training paces from your race pace. Then do a variety of sessions at different paces to get things like easy, lactate threshold etc. etc.

I always use an incline because it is easier to forefoot run with an incline on the treadmill.

I also like to do "brick" type sessions - which could be bike + treadmill, row + treadmill, and get intervals like this - i.e. I don't have to vary the speed too much on the treadmill. So 4 mins on rowing machine, 4 mins on treadmill. 1 min rest, repeat. You can perm a bike in as well (or I sometimes do active recovery on the bike).

I never do more than 30 mins on the treadmill - either because it is boring, or because I think it is hogging the equipment.

[didds]

I never do more than 30 mins on the treadmill - either because it is boring, or because I think it is hogging the equipment.

I guess I am "lucky" here (?!) in that the gym i frequent rarely is that busy that people are waiting... i'm often the only bugger in there!

didds

[Bendy Ben]

I can only do an hour on a treadmill - I got so bored the other day I spent ages fiddling with all the buttons, incline, speed etc ( did one "lap" at 18kph) then when I felt sick I slowed it down to a gentle jog. Then I plugged in my i phone for some tunes, then got annoyed with the wires so took it off. I can't just run I have to play with something

I'm sure the other gym users were thinking " knob" but I'm not as bad as the kid who came in wearing a full " golds gym" outfit, weight belt, gloves etc,, lay on the bench, pressed the bar 10 times with no weight on it, stopped ,stretched whilst drinking a putrid purple drink from a litre sports bottle then walked out the gym!!!!!!

I love people watching.