Whether you’re zoned into your iPod or absorbed in the landscape you’re travelling through, most outdoor runners don’t enjoy moving indoors to use treadmills when the weather turns bad. Many continue to slog it out through freezing rain, ice and even snow, risking injury and illness through exposure. Yet the benefits of using treadmills and gyms can have far-reaching ramifications for the dedicated runner, from fitness and technique to injury prevention and management.

Form and Technique
Moving indoors to a well-lit gym surrounded by mirrors can often help runners analyse their posture and technique. Niggling lower back problem? Perhaps you stick your butt out when running. Persistent knee ache? Does it twist in when your foot lands? Using mirrors to analyse your posture and form when you run can be the difference between painful and pain-free running. 

The gym is also the perfect place in which to try out new running styles. We’ve all heard of ‘barefoot running’ and you may be curious about giving it a go. Your first barefoot session – whether wearing ‘barefoot trainers’ or truly going without – probably shouldn’t be along the roads in the dark in the winter. But it can be safely performed on a treadmill, with its stable surface, allowing a novice barefoot runner to adjust his or technique and style to this new way of running. 

Strength Exercises to improve Performance
If you are going to utilise a gym in London during the winter, you may as well get the best out of the facilities. Weight training is an excellent addition to the serious runner’s regime. You have strong muscular legs, but your upper body may well benefit from a weights workout. Stronger arms result in more driving power when you run, after all. 

Using weights is also great for stabilising and strengthening knee and ankle joints, helping prevent injury. Barbell squats will work your legs, glutes, hips and lower back, and driving upwards through your feet and ankles will encourage them to align correctly, whilst powerlifts will do all that and work your arms, shoulders and core. Standard push ups, planks and sit ups will ensure all round strength and health and help you if you decide to go trail or fell running.

Interval Training
Interval training on a treadmill is one of the best fat burning and endurance-building exercises out there and can be approached in a variety of ways using some of the pre-set programmes on the treadmills:

1. Hill intervals – alternate flat (or slightly inclined) runs with steep runs, keeping the speed constant and forcing yourself to work harder as a result. 

2. Run/Sprint intervals – alternate steady runs of two minutes with sprints of one minute. 

3. Random – start a long steady run. At random intervals whack up the speed or the incline for a minute. If you want to go really hardcore, get a friend to do it for you so you have no control over speed, incline or even both. 


Time
Speed
Gradient
Notes
5 min
Starting at a walk to comfortable running speed
2%
This is a warm up, make sure you are slightly red, breathing deeply.
1m
12.5km/h
4 %
Focus on your breathing and hand movements as run at a decent speed.
1m
12 -11.8 km/h
6 %
You will start feel it getting tough; look at your posture, foot displacement. Use your arms to aid you.
1m
11km/h
8 %
Bear in mind it’s still going to harder. Keep the pace fluid and steady. Take note of foot displacement and posture again
1m
10km/h
10 %
Lift your knees up, look up and breathe deeply. Use your arms to help momentum
1m
12.5km/h
0 %
Focus on your pace, it feels like you are going downhill. Keep it controlled. This is your recovery interval so Repeat this cycle 4 times
5 min

10km to a walk
2%
You should be fatigued. Focus on your posture and straightening your shoulders. Take a note of your distance and try to beat it over the coming weeks



There may be nothing to compare with the feel of the open road beneath your feet, but using the gym during the winter months can be a powerful inducement to improving form, technique and overall strength, meaning when you head back outdoors in the spring, you’re ready for anything the world can throw at you.
There may be nothing to compare with the feel of the open road beneath your feet, but using the gym during the winter months can be a powerful inducement to improving form, technique and overall strength, meaning when you head back outdoors in the spring, you’re ready for anything the world can throw at you.

The scientific bit
There are 2 different fibres in muscle. High intensity running programs use fast-twitch muscle fibres. These fibres are designed for short-lived, powerful bursts of energy. Steady-state cardio use slow-twitch muscle fibres, which are structured for endurance. Fast-twitch fibres need more fuel than slow-twitch fibres to function and to recover from a workout. Thus, if your session primarily targets fast-twitch fibres, you’ll burn far more calories during training, as well as calories after the training.

Example Treadmill routine
This workout below is aimed at toning, improving speed and overall recovery. It also produces an after-burn that can last for many hours, depending on your fitness level and how gruelling your session was. Give it a try!

The speeds on this workout are a rough guide, use a speed that you feel comfortable with and bear in mind the cycle gets repeated FOUR times, so don’t fatigue too early. 

Guest post by Ruth Cole.