Albert K. Park

Even Slater Likes to Run outside

Running outside Vs. Running on the treadmill

The early mornings luxurious 65 degree weather spoiled me on my run. The sun bathed me in warm rays that pierced through crystal blue skies all while a cool breeze motivated me to finish. Any time we get great weather like this here in the PNW, I like to take advantage of it by getting outside to do some cardio and workouts. Why spend an hour in a gym overflowing with funky testosterone when you can get outside under the sun. What surprises me is how reluctant people have become to working out outside. I’ve heard as many excuses as there are grains of sand on the beach but hopefully the following information will coax you out of the confines of the gym and into the awesome great outdoors.

Downfall of the treadmill
The treadmill, don’t get me wrong is good for some things. It does a fantastic job of keeping track of time, recording calories burned, and humiliating you when you step even a little off the belt ending with a loud noise and everyone in the gym looking at you trip. It also boosts self esteem by giving you an over exaggerated sense of accomplishment. But the truth is that it really can hurt you more than help. Sure it helped burn 500 of the 1000 calorie fettucine alfredo you ate last night but did it really work you out. I have already talked about the importance of EPOC and high intensity training supplemented by healthy eating for effectively losing fat so I won’t stress it again. The treadmill will burn calories for the work put in but there are much more efficient ways to help you burn more and efficiently like circuit work, high intensity cardio, and etc.

Now for the BAD!
The treadmill is a man made machine, meaning it doesn’t naturally work your body. Your running on the treadmill is completely different from you running outside. How is this so Albert? You might be asking yourself. Well listen up and I will tell you….

When you run, the main muscles that are worked in this movement are your gluteus maximus (butt) and your hamstrings (the back of your thighs). The glutes propel and push you forward into your stride while your hamstrings pull you through it. These are the natural and healthy movements that your muscles perform while running. By utilizing the treadmill, the gluteus maxmius and hamstrings are deactivated by the moving belt. The running movement changes from being hamstring and glute dominant to being a quadriceps (thigh) dominant movement. The rotating belt on the treadmill actually propels and pulls you while your quads push your legs up to keep moving. The moving belt does nearly all the work for you while triggering an unnatural movement. Running on the treadmill becomes an exercise that hits somewhere in the hundreds of thousands of quad dominant reps (obviously depending on how long your run). Ladies this means less toned butts and huge thighs. ( Not very cool) So if you think about it, you do somewhere in the thousands of reps of a quad workout on a treadmill and no hamstring and gluteus work which can cause serious muscle imbalances.

Running outside on the other hand is natural movement that utilizes all the proper muscles to perform there natural functions. For people who are obsessed with burning calories, think about it. The more muscles you work, such as when you are running outside, you burn more calories. Why wouldn’t you always do that if you want to lose fat. I know! Crazy!

Attention athletes!
If you are an athlete consider the dangers the effects a treadmill can have on your performance. Sure your cardio capacity will increase from the cardio respiratory stress but it comes at the cost of losing your natural running/athletic mobility. Your glutes and hamstrings will slowly become conditioned to not fully activate and not fire at full capacity. This means you will lose jumping capacity, explosiveness, agility, body control in lateral and forward/backward movements, deceleration muscles, and you will be more susceptible to glute and hamstring injury. (pulling your ass or hamstring OUCH!) Another danger the treadmill poses for athletes is in the overextension of your running stride. Often athletes will push themselves on treadmills to reach higher gains and in the event of increasing speed, overextension becomes a common by product. Because the belt can allow you to move in a longer stride than you should be able to, your hips and paths of extension become distorted. By running at a speed where your body doesn’t work fully functional you over stress your hips and deform your stride by practicing unnatural quad dominant movements.


Excuses:
Albert, I can only get myself to run on a treadmill!
Okay, Okay so I will give in and say running on a machine is better than not running at all. But how hard is it to just run around a beautiful park, sucking in fresh air than it is going into a stinky gym. Get outside and live a little.

But Albert I have chin splints!
Hmmm, are you doing any active soft tissue release to fix them, or doing any corrective stretching to help get them better. If not, stop using them as an excuse. There are thousands of areas that offer trail running and running on gravel/natural surfaces that will help dissipate some of the stress on your chins you can get form running on hard surfaces like concrete. If you have goals, motivate yourself to get over your excuses. Also don’t run for a long distance, which will only make them worse. Try short and high intense work like sprints.

I am sure the excuses are endless, I definitely had one for every day, but consider the fact that by utilizing more muscles when you run outside, you burn more calories. Start melting the fat off by starting to run outside more. By no means am I saying to ditch your loyal time/calorie keeper. I am simply suggesting running outside to burn more calories when you can and to keep your body fully functional. Count your own time and calories.

Outside 1 / Treadmill 0

“No excuses, Just Hard Work”