I find treadmill mentally harder as I find it incredibly boring, but I do run faster on a treadmill and I think the reason is I'm more conscious of my pace and can't get lazy and slow down without consciously pressing a button
As I live in tropical climate, I find running on treadmill is easier as much as 20 - 30 seconds faster per km compared to running outside based the same HR effort. I can control the indoor temp with AC and fan as needed but not the outside heat.
A very interesting analysis. As you say there are so many factors - all of which impact differently from person to person. I have found running outside produces much slower times - many due to the uneven terrain and lack of flat running route near me. Running on my own outside is not the same as running in a group inside on Zwift - in Zwift you get pushed to run much further and faster than you would do otherwise.
I find this really interesting as I'm very overweight and just recently started training again after a long time out of the sport. I am 55 years old male and weigh 265 lbs now I can do an hour at present on the treadmill covering 5 miles but as soon as I go outdoors I can't seem to run at all. When I first started running years ago I remember something similar I got up to 2 hours on a treadmill and had the same experience when I started outdoors and was told to drop my pace which I did then never looked back.
Interesting, thanks. I don't get all the complaints about being 'bored' or 'too hot' on a treadmill. Actually I haven't been on one for years but I do remember it can be warm, but so can a hot afternoon run in a humid city. And I've been bored out of my mind on some long outdoor runs, it's not all scenic bliss. Managing that is all part of the longer distances challenge. As for being easier/harder, again it depends on so many things and treadmills can differ from each other too, so I don't think it's meaningful to make a generalised statement one way or the other as I've seen others do. And for comparing times, I'd always wonder whether the particular treadmill you're using today is calibrated correctly. I do all my running outside but I've been happy to use treadmills when I had access to them in the past. I think they can be great tool.
What about the mental aspect? I find TM running harder because I don’t get the buzz from having the natural environment around me or the distraction from a friend chatting beside me
Absolutely. Great point. Although it is a lot easier treadmill running on Zwift because you do get that interaction with others and you kind of are running with others in the Zwift virtual environment. But yes totally agree that mental aspect is a huge part on the TM.
@@FilmMyRun That's the problem I have, I'm constantly focused on my breathing and time, whereas outside I tend to focus on my surroundings and set goals. For example if I see a building half a km away I would say okay I'll keep going stop there, then when I get there I tend to keep going and setting more goals. A bit late by the way I know..
Seems like a good analysis and sound conclusion to me. I like hills so am not biased to try and find reasons to avoid the 1% incline! Anecdotally about the influence that temperature has on me - I ran for 2 hrs @15%=2000VM at home (when my TM worked at least) barechested and with 2 large fans (280rTSS, Fitness 104, Fatigue 123) whereas 1 week ago at Village Gym I failed to do the Alpe (1000VM) as there are no fans and wearing a Trisuit (Fitness 103/Fatigue 111 with a day's rest before). I am assuming I must like hills because of the cooler temps at the top perhaps, virtual (i.e. sight of snow on the Alpe) or real!
Great vid. Hope it gets more views as this is a hotly debated topic. I used to think running outdoors was harder until I did a similar analysis to you and found heart rate and cadence were pretty similar. I think part of the problem is people don't compare apples to apples. Most of my outdoor runs included decent elevation so of course, it's harder. However, when I ran a flat 5k and compared it to a treadmill 5k the metrics were very similar.
So strange that I cant seem to translate my running outside. I love running on the treadmill but cant come close to my times outside. I wonder if weight and height make a difference. I am 12stone 6ft
The treadmill I have access to is a proper nightmare! I'd rather run the Arc of Attrition blindfolded, than do a 10k on that piece of crap! Horrendeous! Thanks for a great video;)
Great comparison Stephen. I've only been back on a TM for about 6 months since lockdown. My times for my effort on the TM are rubbish. But when I go out I'm faster, more comfortable. Been on Strava about 10 years and the TM makes me look like I'm getting worse. But the harder training makes me fly outside... better air conditions for breathing I think. Seriously looking at 80/20 now & keeping out of zone 3. Love your streams. Did a bit with you & Eddie. (MHG).
Ive experienced something totally different. As i live in the middle east, summer time is really tough to train outdoor. Heat and humidity is no joke. So ive been doing most of my training on a treadmill, i would say its definitely easier compare to outdoor. Then i raced a half marathon outdoor, since the weather is slightly start changing into winter. Actual temperature of the race was 28 degrees celsius, humidity 75%. My finished time was 1h41mins. That’s like 10-12 mins down slower than my PB. The question is did treadmill make me a softer runner? Cause running outside is a whole another story. My RPE(rate per exertion) is way way higher outside. Would love to hear what you think? Specially im prepping for my second marathon which will be in mid December 2023. I already restarted doing all my runs outdoors and finding it harder + im slower.
So in this case there are a couple of possibilities. Firstly the most likely case is that your treadmill is either miscalibrated or just not accurate. It’s telling you that you are running faster than you actually are. So how good is your treadmill. Cheap treadmills will not be accurate. They will either make it feel much harder OR of course they can mid-read and tell you you are doing a much faster pace than you are. Second option is that your indoor environment is cool and comfortable to run in and that your treadmill is super smooth and powerful. Compared to outdoors the conditions are better, you feel cooler, more relaxed and more in tune with your body allowing you to run faster speeds at lower heart rate than outside. Let me know what you think!
@@FilmMyRun that’s exactly the case, the indoor felt a lot easier. In air conditioning, with fans. I would guess its calibrated though! Could it be, what would made me slower, be probably the lack of acclimatization to heat and humidity? Regarding my HR, i was barely pushing through my threshold zone, not even zone 5. I felt bonking, having difficulties breathing, legs were seized. It was a very unpleasant experience… Thanks for your help appreciate it :)
I find treadmills really really difficult. Perhaps its the boredom level but also the effort level. I'm about to get rid of my treadmill and just concentrate on being outside... which at this time of covid and working from home, seems like a sensible idea :D
There’s no question that outdoors is harder. For one, you never have completely even asphalt under you in the same way you have a flat band on the treadmill. Adding in forest trails etc make it even harder and more unpredictable.
I just don’t think you can say that categorically. It is undoubtedly true that when questioned a majority of people would say the opposite in fact. But it depends on a variety of things. The type of treadmill you have makes a big difference. The temperature of the room your treadmill is in makes a big difference. I think what I have discovered is the better your treadmill the more like outdoors it feels. If you have a poor treadmill it can swing either way. It can feel easier because the treadmill display tells you that you are running a certain speed but in fact the reality is that the belt is not moving as fast as that and you are in fact running slower than you think you are. OR it feels much harder because the belt is old and worn and the motor is rubbish that it drags and your muscles are having to work much harder to pull the belt round….like on a non motorised treadmill, which is most definitely harder than outdoors. So swings and roundabouts I think.
Funnily enough that’s exactly what I am currently doing! Trying to get over 100 runs off the same distance and time inside and out and average out the HR and other metrics.
Excellent! I dont run marathons but distances between 10 km and half marathon and i am curious to know your results on these distances. Congratulations for your work 😊
Any run below 7k, treadmill is a lot easier but once its above 8k to 15k, treadmill is hard as its difficult to cool down compared to outdoor as well as its so boring causing my body to constantly moving around thus losing momentum and stability. That's my opinion
I did a couple of videos comparing Zwift/treadmill to outdoors and for me on same MYRUN treadmill as you concluded 0% best matched outdoors with the effort levels similar enough. Think heat is the biggest factor here so not surprising your June treadmill one was the slowest. Does that TP fitness metric work? Strava do one and seen some odd results like supposedly being fittest in periods when I was like a minute slower over 5K than at other times months later.
Tim Grose I think TrainingPeaks is easier to use. Whether it’s accurate is another matter and that depends on the quality of data you’re inputting of course. I think it’s doing a pretty good job so far but I need to read up on it a little more.
The Strava fitness metric is based on heart rate alone for the workout, relative to the max heart rate you provide it (or alternatively RPE for your workout if you provide one and tell STRAVA to leverage it for fitness calc. purposes). In Training Peaks, if you use a power meter, TSS is calculated based relative to the FTP/CP entered into Training Peaks (it's important the user keeps this FTP up to date to ensure 'correct' training load metrics are captured as one's FTP/CP evolves - i.e. for a given effort, a lower FTP/CP will give a higher TSS, a higher FTP/CP will give a lower TSS). This TSS is then used to calculate the various fitness metrics that Stephen shares in his video. The so called Fitness metric or Chronic Training Load (CTL) is just a 42 day exponentially weighted average of the athletes TSS history (near identical to STRYDs own so called RSS calculations but it just uses different constants to do the math). In general I find the Fitness/Fatigue/Form metrics Training Peaks provides are a much better representation of my current training load and level of fatigue. Because Strava is HR dependent I find you can get much more spurious results. I currently live in Houston and the temperature contrast between summer (feel like 40 degC) and winter (~8 degC) is huge, which means my heart rate drifts a lot higher in summer. In STRAVA, the fitness metric shows a decline from summer to winter as result (due to heart rates being lower in winter) despite me knowing that im in much better condition now than I was in the summer. Training Peaks, because its based on power, shows a much more representative set of metrics. If you don't use a power meter, as Stephen shows in some of his runs in the video, then Training Peaks just defaults to heart rate similar to Strava (hence in those runs it shows hrTSS as opposed to TSS). There's even an option to use pace instead. For all of these training load calculations it's always based relative to the threshold values the user needs to keep up to date in their profile (FTP/max HR/threshold pace etc.). Generally speaking the training load metrics are just another tool in an athlete's arsenal and we shouldn't be slaves to them - nothing beats how one physically feels despite what the metrics may suggest.
I think that if one wants to compare the things underfoot that a runner is interfacing with, an effective study would need to start with temperature-matched runs. It should be clear that a cool day outside would produce a better run than an indoor run in a much warmer room, just like an air-conditioned treadmill room/gym would produce a better result than a broiling day outside; these results are due to the temperature around the runner, not the running surface. The closer to an individual's preferred temperature sweet spot, the better his/her run will be, whether indoors or out.
So being twice as fit in terms of CTL equates to only 6% improvement in performance. You have to ask if all that extra hours training was worth the time investment or would it have been better to stay halaf as fit and use the extra hours to get the bigger initial gains of a taking up another sport / pastime !?!
Gwyn Williams haha! I’m not sure the metrics are quite that simple. Like saying that 4k TV is 4 times the quality of 1080p I don’t think I’m ‘twice as fit’. Also, my performance the other day was not a best effort. I think under normal race conditions I would have been looking at a faster time. However you’re right in that s as we get older we have to work harder and we see smaller gains in performance. Elite athletes will put in hours and hours of work to knock maybe a few seconds off a previous best performance.
Wow that is a big difference. You should try to find a top quality treadmill somewhere in a well ventilated environment and see what you can do. It should be almost the same as outside
@@chocolate_squiggle To be fair I havent gone 100% outside but I seem to zone out on the treadmill yet cant find that mental fortitude outside. It doesnt seem to make a difference for my wife. She can run almost the same inside and outside.
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I find treadmill mentally harder as I find it incredibly boring, but I do run faster on a treadmill and I think the reason is I'm more conscious of my pace and can't get lazy and slow down without consciously pressing a button
As I live in tropical climate, I find running on treadmill is easier as much as 20 - 30 seconds faster per km compared to running outside based the same HR effort. I can control the indoor temp with AC and fan as needed but not the outside heat.
A very interesting analysis. As you say there are so many factors - all of which impact differently from person to person. I have found running outside produces much slower times - many due to the uneven terrain and lack of flat running route near me. Running on my own outside is not the same as running in a group inside on Zwift - in Zwift you get pushed to run much further and faster than you would do otherwise.
I find this really interesting as I'm very overweight and just recently started training again after a long time out of the sport. I am 55 years old male and weigh 265 lbs now I can do an hour at present on the treadmill covering 5 miles but as soon as I go outdoors I can't seem to run at all. When I first started running years ago I remember something similar I got up to 2 hours on a treadmill and had the same experience when I started outdoors and was told to drop my pace which I did then never looked back.
Interesting, thanks. I don't get all the complaints about being 'bored' or 'too hot' on a treadmill. Actually I haven't been on one for years but I do remember it can be warm, but so can a hot afternoon run in a humid city. And I've been bored out of my mind on some long outdoor runs, it's not all scenic bliss. Managing that is all part of the longer distances challenge.
As for being easier/harder, again it depends on so many things and treadmills can differ from each other too, so I don't think it's meaningful to make a generalised statement one way or the other as I've seen others do. And for comparing times, I'd always wonder whether the particular treadmill you're using today is calibrated correctly. I do all my running outside but I've been happy to use treadmills when I had access to them in the past. I think they can be great tool.
What about the mental aspect? I find TM running harder because I don’t get the buzz from having the natural environment around me or the distraction from a friend chatting beside me
Absolutely. Great point. Although it is a lot easier treadmill running on Zwift because you do get that interaction with others and you kind of are running with others in the Zwift virtual environment. But yes totally agree that mental aspect is a huge part on the TM.
@@FilmMyRun That's the problem I have, I'm constantly focused on my breathing and time, whereas outside I tend to focus on my surroundings and set goals. For example if I see a building half a km away I would say okay I'll keep going stop there, then when I get there I tend to keep going and setting more goals. A bit late by the way I know..
Seems like a good analysis and sound conclusion to me. I like hills so am not biased to try and find reasons to avoid the 1% incline! Anecdotally about the influence that temperature has on me - I ran for 2 hrs @15%=2000VM at home (when my TM worked at least) barechested and with 2 large fans (280rTSS, Fitness 104, Fatigue 123) whereas 1 week ago at Village Gym I failed to do the Alpe (1000VM) as there are no fans and wearing a Trisuit (Fitness 103/Fatigue 111 with a day's rest before). I am assuming I must like hills because of the cooler temps at the top perhaps, virtual (i.e. sight of snow on the Alpe) or real!
Great vid. Hope it gets more views as this is a hotly debated topic. I used to think running outdoors was harder until I did a similar analysis to you and found heart rate and cadence were pretty similar. I think part of the problem is people don't compare apples to apples. Most of my outdoor runs included decent elevation so of course, it's harder. However, when I ran a flat 5k and compared it to a treadmill 5k the metrics were very similar.
So strange that I cant seem to translate my running outside. I love running on the treadmill but cant come close to my times outside. I wonder if weight and height make a difference. I am 12stone 6ft
Love a treadmill - it keeps me Mid Pack
The treadmill I have access to is a proper nightmare! I'd rather run the Arc of Attrition blindfolded, than do a 10k on that piece of crap! Horrendeous! Thanks for a great video;)
Treadmill 100% harder or at least what I have found since using treadmill recently, but it does make running outside feel easier !
Great comparison Stephen.
I've only been back on a TM for about 6 months since lockdown. My times for my effort on the TM are rubbish. But when I go out I'm faster, more comfortable. Been on Strava about 10 years and the TM makes me look like I'm getting worse. But the harder training makes me fly outside... better air conditions for breathing I think.
Seriously looking at 80/20 now & keeping out of zone 3.
Love your streams. Did a bit with you & Eddie. (MHG).
Ive experienced something totally different. As i live in the middle east, summer time is really tough to train outdoor. Heat and humidity is no joke. So ive been doing most of my training on a treadmill, i would say its definitely easier compare to outdoor. Then i raced a half marathon outdoor, since the weather is slightly start changing into winter. Actual temperature of the race was 28 degrees celsius, humidity 75%. My finished time was 1h41mins. That’s like 10-12 mins down slower than my PB. The question is did treadmill make me a softer runner? Cause running outside is a whole another story. My RPE(rate per exertion) is way way higher outside. Would love to hear what you think? Specially im prepping for my second marathon which will be in mid December 2023. I already restarted doing all my runs outdoors and finding it harder + im slower.
So in this case there are a couple of possibilities. Firstly the most likely case is that your treadmill is either miscalibrated or just not accurate. It’s telling you that you are running faster than you actually are. So how good is your treadmill. Cheap treadmills will not be accurate. They will either make it feel much harder OR of course they can mid-read and tell you you are doing a much faster pace than you are.
Second option is that your indoor environment is cool and comfortable to run in and that your treadmill is super smooth and powerful. Compared to outdoors the conditions are better, you feel cooler, more relaxed and more in tune with your body allowing you to run faster speeds at lower heart rate than outside.
Let me know what you think!
@@FilmMyRun that’s exactly the case, the indoor felt a lot easier. In air conditioning, with fans. I would guess its calibrated though!
Could it be, what would made me slower, be probably the lack of acclimatization to heat and humidity? Regarding my HR, i was barely pushing through my threshold zone, not even zone 5. I felt bonking, having difficulties breathing, legs were seized. It was a very unpleasant experience…
Thanks for your help appreciate it :)
I find treadmills really really difficult. Perhaps its the boredom level but also the effort level. I'm about to get rid of my treadmill and just concentrate on being outside... which at this time of covid and working from home, seems like a sensible idea :D
There’s no question that outdoors is harder. For one, you never have completely even asphalt under you in the same way you have a flat band on the treadmill. Adding in forest trails etc make it even harder and more unpredictable.
I just don’t think you can say that categorically. It is undoubtedly true that when questioned a majority of people would say the opposite in fact. But it depends on a variety of things. The type of treadmill you have makes a big difference. The temperature of the room your treadmill is in makes a big difference. I think what I have discovered is the better your treadmill the more like outdoors it feels. If you have a poor treadmill it can swing either way. It can feel easier because the treadmill display tells you that you are running a certain speed but in fact the reality is that the belt is not moving as fast as that and you are in fact running slower than you think you are. OR it feels much harder because the belt is old and worn and the motor is rubbish that it drags and your muscles are having to work much harder to pull the belt round….like on a non motorised treadmill, which is most definitely harder than outdoors. So swings and roundabouts I think.
Yep great video, i think it's definitely the heat with me.
After only 5k I'm sweating buckets at easy pace 🤪
instablaster
Nice video. It would interesting to have average data across a large number of runs to see whether this brings additional insight on this question.
Funnily enough that’s exactly what I am currently doing! Trying to get over 100 runs off the same distance and time inside and out and average out the HR and other metrics.
Excellent! I dont run marathons but distances between 10 km and half marathon and i am curious to know your results on these distances. Congratulations for your work 😊
My treadmill times are slower than outdoors. Partly due to increased heat indoors and a slower cadence on the treadmill.
Ps missed it but does your cadence change on treadmill? Mine seems to drop about 6 spm over outdoors.
Tim Grose yes definitely. Cadence is always faster outdoors
Any run below 7k, treadmill is a lot easier but once its above 8k to 15k, treadmill is hard as its difficult to cool down compared to outdoor as well as its so boring causing my body to constantly moving around thus losing momentum and stability. That's my opinion
You should come and join us on Zwift. Treadmill is not boring then!
I did a couple of videos comparing Zwift/treadmill to outdoors and for me on same MYRUN treadmill as you concluded 0% best matched outdoors with the effort levels similar enough. Think heat is the biggest factor here so not surprising your June treadmill one was the slowest. Does that TP fitness metric work? Strava do one and seen some odd results like supposedly being fittest in periods when I was like a minute slower over 5K than at other times months later.
Tim Grose I think TrainingPeaks is easier to use. Whether it’s accurate is another matter and that depends on the quality of data you’re inputting of course. I think it’s doing a pretty good job so far but I need to read up on it a little more.
The Strava fitness metric is based on heart rate alone for the workout, relative to the max heart rate you provide it (or alternatively RPE for your workout if you provide one and tell STRAVA to leverage it for fitness calc. purposes). In Training Peaks, if you use a power meter, TSS is calculated based relative to the FTP/CP entered into Training Peaks (it's important the user keeps this FTP up to date to ensure 'correct' training load metrics are captured as one's FTP/CP evolves - i.e. for a given effort, a lower FTP/CP will give a higher TSS, a higher FTP/CP will give a lower TSS). This TSS is then used to calculate the various fitness metrics that Stephen shares in his video. The so called Fitness metric or Chronic Training Load (CTL) is just a 42 day exponentially weighted average of the athletes TSS history (near identical to STRYDs own so called RSS calculations but it just uses different constants to do the math). In general I find the Fitness/Fatigue/Form metrics Training Peaks provides are a much better representation of my current training load and level of fatigue. Because Strava is HR dependent I find you can get much more spurious results. I currently live in Houston and the temperature contrast between summer (feel like 40 degC) and winter (~8 degC) is huge, which means my heart rate drifts a lot higher in summer. In STRAVA, the fitness metric shows a decline from summer to winter as result (due to heart rates being lower in winter) despite me knowing that im in much better condition now than I was in the summer. Training Peaks, because its based on power, shows a much more representative set of metrics.
If you don't use a power meter, as Stephen shows in some of his runs in the video, then Training Peaks just defaults to heart rate similar to Strava (hence in those runs it shows hrTSS as opposed to TSS). There's even an option to use pace instead. For all of these training load calculations it's always based relative to the threshold values the user needs to keep up to date in their profile (FTP/max HR/threshold pace etc.). Generally speaking the training load metrics are just another tool in an athlete's arsenal and we shouldn't be slaves to them - nothing beats how one physically feels despite what the metrics may suggest.
I think that if one wants to compare the things underfoot that a runner is interfacing with, an effective study would need to start with temperature-matched runs. It should be clear that a cool day outside would produce a better run than an indoor run in a much warmer room, just like an air-conditioned treadmill room/gym would produce a better result than a broiling day outside; these results are due to the temperature around the runner, not the running surface. The closer to an individual's preferred temperature sweet spot, the better his/her run will be, whether indoors or out.
So being twice as fit in terms of CTL equates to only 6% improvement in performance.
You have to ask if all that extra hours training was worth the time investment or would it have been better to stay halaf as fit and use the extra hours to get the bigger initial gains of a taking up another sport / pastime !?!
Gwyn Williams haha! I’m not sure the metrics are quite that simple. Like saying that 4k TV is 4 times the quality of 1080p I don’t think I’m ‘twice as fit’. Also, my performance the other day was not a best effort. I think under normal race conditions I would have been looking at a faster time. However you’re right in that s as we get older we have to work harder and we see smaller gains in performance. Elite athletes will put in hours and hours of work to knock maybe a few seconds off a previous best performance.
I find treadmills a lot easier because of my long stride and bounce
You know my best in thredmill for 5 k is like 18 minutes while outside is 15.59. Running in Thredmill is like hell for me
Wow that is a big difference. You should try to find a top quality treadmill somewhere in a well ventilated environment and see what you can do. It should be almost the same as outside
Looking to buy a treadmill for the house, can you recommend one ?
Depends what you can afford. Woodway over everything if you can. Technogym MyRun is my machine. Noble Pro Elite is a good budget option.
Running on the treadmill is harder for me.
For me running on the treadmill is harder I hate it even 6 miles per hour feel fast on the treadmill I rather run outside
My fastest 5k outside is about 29mins but I have managed 22min30 on the treadmill.
I would wonder how accurate the treadmill was. That big a spread over that distance is absolutely huge.
@@chocolate_squiggle To be fair I havent gone 100% outside but I seem to zone out on the treadmill yet cant find that mental fortitude outside. It doesnt seem to make a difference for my wife. She can run almost the same inside and outside.
Treadmills waaaaay easier.
Just have someone run 400m n see the times
Yea, I guess it also depends on the quality of the treadmill.
You can't trust all those numbers. Arbitrary algorithms.
Outdoor running way harder to me
It's taken a while but I think I am now at the point where the two are pretty much comparable for me. You need a good treadmill though.