Making the Best of Indoor Running – Treadmill Running Tips

As many of us are stuck indoors right now due to COVID-19 and the subsequent lock-downs, I wanted to share a few of my treadmill running tips.  If you have any additional treadmill running tips to share, I’d love to read them in the comments below.

Treadmill Basics

• Put the treadmill at a 1% incline to emulate a more realistic outdoor running experience when training with outdoor pace zones.
  • The 1-2% incline recommended by most coaches is to overcome the lack of air resistance. For this reason, it psychologically doesn’t become a factor until running at speeds of 7 min/miles or faster and truly doesn’t impact training unless controlling intensity with zones set outdoors at paces above 7 min/mile.
  • Some athletes may find the incline just feels “better” or more natural; this can become more apparent on some models due to belt design.
• Give yourself plenty of time to warm up because running on the treadmill requires slightly different mechanics.
• Start the speed out slow when you start running on the treadmill.
• Ensure you are balanced by rotating your head and looking around, so you don’t fall off if you get distracted by something or someone.
• Ensure you are calm, and you are breathing through your diaphragm. Treadmill running can make some runners nervous and throw them off their normal breathing patterns.

Dealing with Heat  Build-up Indoors

• Ensure you are drinking fluid when running on the treadmill.
  • Conduct fluid loss testing periodically to gauge intake requirements during treadmill sessions.
• A towel is a useful tool as well to stay cool.
  • Soak your towel in cold water and place it in a ziplock bag in your freezer overnight. Remove the towel 15-20 minutes before your run or event and place the towel on the back of your neck to help cool your body. Starting with a lower-body temp will help negate some of the impact of heat on your performance
• Fans are great for moving air across your skin and helping your body to cool down. Recommend placing the fan at your 3 o’clock or 9 o’clock position to maximize airflow over your entire torso, both front and back.  This also avoids any tailwind or headwind issues if you find yourself using a military-grade industrial fan like I once did while training on base.

Change it up – Hitting Reverse

• There is extra and novel muscle tension when running on the treadmill. Sometimes, it takes a few training sessions to adjust to the differences of the treadmill.
• Fast walking is a skill that runners and triathletes neglect. A brisk walk helps build hip and ankle mobility while also training for those race times where a runner may need to slow down(late run breaks and aid stations).
  • Fast walking takes a different set of muscles that helps injury prevention and injury recovery. 
• You don’t need to always run forward on the treadmill. You can go side to side and backward at a slow speed. Changing up directions lets you work on and strengthen muscles in different planes.

Working on the Details

• The treadmill is an excellent opportunity to work on your cadence and mechanics.
  • A treadmill + slow-motion video can be a useful tool for collecting information on your running form.

Workout Adaptations

• If you track your workout intervals by distance instead of time, you may find treadmill workouts easier to manage by converting distance to time.  For example, US athletes traditionally use a 1600m track but run in a minute per mile splits.  However, not all treadmills track distance or even pace this way. Thus a workout may say 4x 400m @ 6:30 min/mile. To convert this, simply convert the min/mile pace to min/km and multiply that by the distance of the interval to get the interval length:
  • To convert interval distance to interval time use the equation: time (mins) = distance (km) * time (mins) * 0.621 (mins/km).
    • For our example of 4×400 @ 6:30 min/mile convert 6:30 min/mile to min/km. Use decimal format for the minutes; 6:30 = 6.500 min/mile. The equation for min/mile to min/km is 1 min/mile = 0.621 min/km; thus 6.5 min/mile * 0.621 min/km = 4.037 min/km
    • Now convert 400m to km given the pace split is in min/km. Thus 400m = 0.400 km. Multiple 0.400 km by 4.037 min/km to cancel out km and leave 1.615 minutes or 1 minute and 37 seconds.
    • Final treadmill workout is 4x 1:36 @ 6:30 min/mile.
    • The full equation is: time = distance (km) * time (mins) * 0.621 (mins/km)
  • To convert min/mile to mile/hour (mph) use the equation: speed (mph) =s 60 (mph) / speed (min/mile).
    • For our example of 4×400 @ 6:30 min/mile, we once again convert to decimal format for 6.500 mins/mile.  Next, we divide 60.000 mph by 6.500 mins/mile to get 9.231 mph.
  • The final treadmill interval set would look like 4x 1:36 min @ 9.2 mph
  • You may find it easier to round this to 4x 90 seconds @ 9.2 mph for tracking on your treadmill.