Which is better when you are returning to running after an injury, running on a treadmill or just running outside? Well, that is a great question and that is what we’re talking about today on the Doc On The Run Podcast.
A runner who has been recovering from a plantar plate sprain was on a webcam call just to follow up and ask me some questions about her first runs now that she is returning to running and she wanted to know whether or not she should be running on a treadmill or running outside if there was any advantage or disadvantage to either.
There are always advantages and disadvantages. There is nothing free in medicine and for every good thing there’s a bad thing and so I was talking her through these advantages and disadvantages, and I thought you might find it helpful too. Here’s the short story. There are very different things that go on with a treadmill versus running outside.
The first thing is like what is the big advantage overall with a treadmill. Well number one, you don’t ever have to worry about the weather. You can run anytime you want as far as you want without worrying about getting too hot or getting too wet or anything else. It could be dark outside, and you could run on your treadmill inside. Big advantage, right? What’s the disadvantage of the treadmill?
Well, the biggest disadvantage I think of with a treadmill is that it does alter your running form slightly. There is something that happens with the interface when you land on the treadmill, your feet hit the rubber, the shoes that you are using, the length of the treadmill like I’m six foot two. When I run on treadmills at hotels when I’m speaking at medical conferences, a lot of the time they don’t have really nice treadmills. Sometimes they do but not always.
I was just lecturing in Las Vegas. They had very nice treadmills at the facility where I was speaking. A lot of times though these workout rooms are sort of like I think set up just so they can take a picture and say they have a workout room. They don’t have a whole lot of weights. They don’t have a lot of machines and the treadmills they have are pretty cheap and they’re often short. They’re too short for me.
I have to pay real close attention to not kick the footplate in the front or have my feet slip off the back. That to me alters my running form. I would probably run with shorter strides and with a little bit different form than I would running outside because I’m really focused on not hitting the wrong end of the treadmill.
There are other advantages with treadmills though. There are some very fancy ones that you can use that decrease the forces of gravity when you run. When you run outside you cannot alter gravity. Unless you are running on a different planet there’s no way to do that. And so the thing is, is that you are really weighing is just getting moving on a treadmill better or worse for you.
Well, the first thing is if you got injured on the treadmill, I generally reflexively say I don’t think you should do that because that is the thing that injured you. So, if you run with the same form in the same way, you are more likely to get re-injured again right. So, if you were injured running on the treadmill and you start running outside that might be an advantage because you are going to have slightly different form that will stress things in your foot differently and presumably put a little bit less stress on the one injured piece of tissue that got injured.
Conversely if you got injured running outside, maybe it would benefit you to run on the treadmill and maybe it would benefit you to run on a treadmill that reduces the forces of gravity slightly so that you have less stress on all the structures in your foot as opposed to just the one that got injured. These plantar plate injuries are very difficult to heal, and you have to really think about these variables when you are returning to running.
If you want to learn more about the strategies I use with runners who get plantar plate injuries and they’re returning to running instead of just cancelling all their races, well those strategies they’re in the Plantar Plate Masterclass. You can come sign up for free at www.docontherun.com/plantarplatemasterclass. So, come sign up and I’ll see you in the training.
