I have done all of my training on a treadmill. Recently the reason for my existence (wife) bought me an IPod Nano.
On this nano is a fitness app that I have been trying to use. Yesterday according to the app I did 5.15 kilometers, which according to Running Bug is approx 3.2 miles, however the treadmill said I ran 2.8miles.!!
Has anyone had this problem before.? Am I at nearly 46 to old to be using such things.?! My wife would probably say "yes"!!. Or is the treadmill telling me porkies?
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Daftpaddy
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I have read recently that the apps are not very accurate when it comes to calories and distance (can't remember where I read it). But then I have also read that cardio machines are not accurate either and can by miscalculating by up to 15%! One cannot believe everything you read ...
Maybe test the app - measure a distance of say 5 km by car and then run it with the app measuring and see if the two correspond!
I suppose absolute accuracy is not vital- just comparitive... Did you run further this week than last, faster this week than last... And for calorie purposes, I always choose the worst case scenario just to be safe! Frustrating though, when we assume these things do what they say!
Just to check, have you had to input stride length or anything? My pedometer is wildly inaccurate as I have told it the wrong size stride and can't remember how to change it!
Ditch the app and use mapmyrun. Website that you input the route you ran using something similar to google and it measures distance, hills etc it's brilliant all runners use it. I use it personally and it's been very accurate. Never had a treadmill tell me different, however you should be running on a 1% incline to mimic wind resistance of outside running
I should have added that I do all my running on a treadmill due to the fact I live and work in The Gambia, West Africa.
To run on the roads here would be extremely dangerous. There are no paths to speak off and the driving leaves a lot to be desired.!!
When I do my runs on the treadmill I have it set on a 2 incline to allow for outdoor conditions.
I'm sure I read somewhere that running on a treadmill is up to 33% less effective than outside but with an incline you can bring this down.
Another reason for the treadmill is because of the heat and humidity at this time of the year. At the gym they have fans going so it helps and I normally go 2-3 times a week at 6.30am.!!
Yeah your right 1% is the strands but varying your incline throughout your workout is killer I increased incline from 1-5 every 1 minute after 20mins of running when you get to max 5% increase speed slightly every 30-60 seconds and tell me it's not the best run you have had in ages
For me, this would come under the heading of 'don't sweat the small stuff'. There might be a 0.4km discrepancy. So what? You're getting up and going running for, just a guess based on my own experience, 30-35 minutes! Ooo-rah as the marines would say. That's something you should be damn proud of. If it were me I wouldn't use the fitness app for distance on the treadmill. Use what the treadmill tells you. You'll never know which one is more accurate, chances are they're both slightly out anyway so just use what you have in front of you. At the end of the day, that 400m won't make or break your fitness or weightloss, it's good to have an idea of how far you're running, but it's the effort that really counts!!
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