Why is it that the first thought in my head was 'well, THAT's an oxymoron'

Sorry ... carry on

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"What's your claim?" - Ben Gravy
"Your best work is the work you're excited about" - Rick Rubin

Not a problem!

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Doesn’t matter. One percent is pretty much slop. Does it make a difference if you ran 5.00 miles or 5.05 miles? Probably not. There might be some condition where you could set up a real course and a treadmill workout to be within 1%, but aside from a science/medical experiment or some sort of treadmill world record, I don’t see the point.

I'm not sure you understand what the "1% Rule"

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"What's your claim?" - Ben Gravy
"Your best work is the work you're excited about" - Rick Rubin

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/8887211/

I have the F80 and have noticed the same. i.e. surprisingly accurate at 1% compared to my stryd sensor (which I have calibrated in an indoor track and is surprisingly accurate and precise too) but slow to react to speed increases.

The reaction speed is a bit annoying for short intervals, but I just over speed it and then adjust. For longer stuff, is not as bad, I just ramp it up and down until I get the watch to match the required lap speed. I find this approach very reasonable to simulate transient efforts outdoors e.g. headwinds, hilly terrain, etc.

Like I said, other than some science/medical experiment…

And fyi, I didn’t pay the $61 to read their report ;)

A clip from the abstract:

"When running indoors on a treadmill, the lack of air resistance results in a lower energy cost compared with running outdoors at the same velocity. A slight incline of the treadmill gradient can be used to increase the energy cost in compensation."

It's not the accuracy of the treadmill that is in question, it's raising the incline 1% so that it matches the same energy used in outdoor running.

That is the question the OP has on treadmill running.

Inconceivable!!!

OK, but wouldn't you have to then also go out and measure the incline of the "outdoor running" part (not to mention weather, etc.) to match the treadmill? Maybe they did all this in their paper, but even so this "1%" is insignificant for purposes here.

Not to anyone in particular but I found this also interesting:

"3.6 Oxygen Uptake 3.6.1 Submaximal Running Pooled results indicated that submaximal motorised treadmill running at 0% grade reduced V̇ O2 by 0.55 mL/ kg/min and 1% grade increased V̇ O2 by 0.37 mL/kg/ min (Fig. 2) compared with overground running. These pooled differences were affected by high heterogeneity (I 2 >75%) and were not signifcant at 0% (p = 0.251; Table 2 (continued) Study Year n (M/F) Runners Treadmill (grade) Overground (surface) Workload MT vs. overground Stevens et al. [29] 2015 10/0 Yes NMT (curve) Outdoor (tartan) 5 km time trial N/A (NMT results only) Turner and Stevinson [15] 2017 14/8 Yes MT (1%) Outdoor (track) 3 km; “steady pace” RPE (↔) Wee et al. [14] 2016 10/0 Yes MT, NMT (1%) Indoor (mondo track) 1000 m; 12, 14, 16 km/h, maximum HR, La, V̇ O2 (↔), RPE (↑) White et al. [44] 1998 12/6 Yes MT (0%) Outdoor (track) 60 min; 75% V̇ O2max HR (↑), La (condition × sex) Yngve et al. [11] 2003 14/14 No MT (0%) Indoor (gym) 5 min; “comfortable pace” HR (↔), V̇ O2 (↑) F female, GET graded exercise test, HIIT high-intensity interval training, HR heart rate, HRmax maximum heart rate, La blood lactate concentration, M male, MAS maximal aerobic speed, MT motorised treadmill, n sample size, N/A not applicable, NMT non-motorised treadmill, RPE rating of perceived exertion, V̇ O2 oxygen uptake, V̇ O2max maximal oxygen uptake, ↔ indicates no statistically signifcant diference between treadmill and overground running, ↑ indicates statistically signifcant increase during treadmill compared to overground running, ↓ indicates statistically signifcant decrease during treadmill compared with overground running a Participant sex unclear 770 J. R. Miller et al. n = 116; number of independent studies [k] = 9) or 1% relative grade (p = 0.695; n = 48; k = 5). The GRADE quality of evidence was low for the 0% and 1% subgroups and moderate for the overall motorised treadmill pooled results (Table 3). Motorised treadmill running speed was not a signifcant moderator of the MD in submaximal V̇ O2 (β=−0.03 mL/kg/min; 95% confdence interval [CI] −0.52 to 0.47; p = 0.914; Fig. 3). One study investigating the efect of treadmill grades ranging from 0% to 3% in nine runners indicated that 1% grade resulted in the most closely matched V̇ O2 between submaximal motorised treadmill and overground running [2]. Three case series with only two to three runners or nonrunners concluded that V̇ O2 was similar during submaximal overground and motorised treadmill running at 0% [32, 34, 36]."


From: https://cris.maastrichtuniversity.nl/...rossover_Studies.pdf

I did not. But since this "1% Rule" came from a science paper from nearly 30 years ago, I don't feel too bad about it. And doesn't it seem like treadmills (not to mention other equipment) would have improved since then? Maybe those who still feel the need to have a rule for a treadmill running could update this to the "0.8% Rule" or something.

There's also the question of weight v. aero. A very tall skinny runner (low weight, high drag) will find the 1% grade adjustment comparatively easier than a short stout runner (high weight, low drag).

All this is silly though, just wear your heart rate monitor and pace off of that.

not to hijack but speaking of treadmills the first really important new treadmill innovation in many years is being shown at the Boston Run show this weekend. i wrote about it this morning.

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Dan Empfield
aka Slowman

Looks promising - and I'm in the market for a new TM so hopefully it'll be a good one!

It is however kinda funny that it's basically removing the vaunted 'erg mode' function of indoor bikes for a treadmill. Erg mode was that 'awesome' feature when it came out on Computrainers so it's kinda funny to see all these years later that removing erg mode on a treadmill is now the potential killer feature.

DcRainmaker review

$5k per his review.

Well yeah, ERG mode is the default for treadmills but there's already non-ERG treadmills. The original treadmills in factories weren't ERG mode, those curved woodway's, and probably some dirt cheap Amazon options are all non-motorized and driven by the runner. They just don't translate very similarly to road running. Unlike a bike trainer which is largely the same as road riding as long as force is going into the pedals.

Making a non ERG bike trainer is easy, making an ERG mode treadmill is easy, but making their opposites is hard. A flat treadmill runner has nothing to push against to drive the belt, so a motor is needed. A PID controller for motor speed is much simpler than one for user power input.

To my reading the big difference here is a quasi-free mode while still powering the belt enough to simulate a road surface moving past, without the need for a push bar or slanted surface. I have some reservations about how realistic it will be, and if it's worth $5k to not have to press a speed +/- button.

I saw a blurb about that on Facebag this morning, very interesting.

Yes, the abstract mentioned they chose a flat section. The study was just to explain what they meant by the 1% thing.

As far as I'm concerned it is insignificant, others have different observations. My biggest issue is that very few treadmills are even the right speed so setting it on 1% doesn't mean squat.

Now a long time ago I was on a treadmill that adjusted pace based whatever HR you gave it. You also set the max speed it was allowed to go so it didn't start off too fast, It was interesting to run on and you didn't have to concern yourself with the 1% thing at all.

 DC Rainmaker reported the treadmill cost at $5000. idk if that's a worthy enough source for your article so just a heads up

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