Is it better to run on a flat surface?

If you plan your running route to avoid hills or never touch the incline button on the treadmill, you might want to rethink your workouts. While running on a flat surface burns calories and trains your heart, incline running also increases your muscle strength and power. Hills can help you build greater aerobic capacity and builds a more efficient stride. Because it puts great demands on your body, you shouldn’t run hills every workout. Take advantage on non-hill days of the benefits a flat road can provide.

Muscle Recruitment

Dr. Matthew Rhea, Director of Human Movement at A.T. Still University, performed research for Free Motion Fitness in 2008 that found exercising on inclines of more than 15 percent activated the leg muscles about three times as much as exercising on a flat road. An earlier study published in “Medicine and Science in Sports and Exercise” in June 2000 found that running sprints on a 30 percent incline enhanced the workload on muscles key to running significantly more than running on a 0 percent grade. This means you build greater muscle strength and power when running on an incline so that when you run on a flat road, you can go faster more efficiently.

Injuries

Running on an incline can diminish injuries. Rhea’s research showed that walking at 3 mph on an incline of 12 percent yielded the same heart rate as running at 6 mph on a flat speed. If you cannot run due to injuries, high speed incline walking is a lower impact alternative for you. Flat road running can also aggravate shin splints or knee pain. Running on an incline reduces that stress.

Calorie Burning

Running up a five percent incline on a treadmill burns about 100 more calories than running on a flat road, says “Shape” magazine. The exact difference in how much you burn depends on your speed, body weight and running fitness levels. Rhea’s research found that going slower up an incline utilizes a greater amount of fat. Running fast on a flat road still burns calories, but more of them come from carbohydrates.

Running Efficiency

Your form going up an incline is not really different than running on a flat road, notes Rick Morris, author of “Treadmill Training for Runners.” Because long strides uphill can cause a braking effect, you need to stick to short, quick strides. A short, quick cadence also makes you efficient on a flat road. Flat road running does have value in helping you hone speed. You can get used to turning your legs over quicker so that when you face a flat race, you have the muscle memory.

One Percent

To run the equivalent of an outside flat road on a treadmill, set your incline at 1 percent. When you run on a treadmill, you don’t have wind resistance which has an energy cost of about 7 percent, says Greg McMillan, M.S. in a January/February 2009 issue of “Running Times.” When you run on a treadmill, the belt runs under you so you don’t have to push off in the same way you do when outside. A treadmill is also a smooth surface, so you don’t have to adjust for micro terrain changes outdoors that slow you down slightly.

References

Writer Bio

Andrea Cespedes is a professionally trained chef who has focused studies in nutrition. With more than 20 years of experience in the fitness industry, she coaches cycling and running and teaches Pilates and yoga. She is an American Council on Exercise-certified personal trainer, RYT-200 and has degrees from Princeton and Columbia University.

You might encounter a number of surfaces during the course of your daily runs. If you run on different surfaces frequently, you may notice that your running speed seems faster on some surfaces than it does on others. The running surface you choose can affect how fast you run, though a few factors determine exactly how much of an effect the surface has on your speed.

Ground Contact Times

Some surfaces slow down your running speed by increasing your ground contact time, meaning that your feet stay in contact with the ground for longer than they do on other surfaces. Surfaces that have a lot of give or malleability, such as sand beaches and soft soil, can increase ground contact time significantly as they actually deform when you make contact with them and your body can't stabilize itself and continue its stride until the surface is solid and stable again. While differences in ground contact time may not be noticeable while you are running, these small differences can have a large impact on your overall speed.

Shock Absorption

One important factor in how much a surface affects your running speed is how well the surface absorbs the shock from your strides. Surfaces that absorb a large amount of the shock from your stride are often softer and springier, while surfaces that absorb very little shock are hard and rigid. Softer surfaces such as grass, sand and soft soil slow you down slightly because they conform more to your feet when you make contact while more rigid surfaces such as concrete and asphalt may speed you up by allowing more of your force to propel you forward. Surfaces that are firm without being hard may offer a happy medium between the two; they are soft enough so as not to be jarring to your joints while you run but are hard enough that a large portion of your impact force is still used to propel your stride.

Texture

The texture of a surface can have a significant impact on how fast you can run across it. Surfaces that offer more grip such as rough-textured concrete and synthetic running track surfaces allow you to stabilize your body faster and provide you with sufficient friction to make your next stride quickly; this results in a lower ground contact time and a faster overall running speed. Smoother or slicker surfaces such as some types of packed earth and snow-covered ground may be harder to stabilize your body on, increasing your ground contact time and slowing you down.

Surface Angle

Angled surfaces can slow you down more than flat surfaces depending on the specific angle and the direction in which the surface angles. As you run on an angled surface your body has to work to climb or descend the surface as well as maintain your running technique. If you are running up an angled surface like a hill, then this means your muscles work harder and your running speed slows down. Running down an angled surface provides the opposite effect; your muscles don't have to work as hard because gravity and momentum carry you slightly farther, resulting in a faster running speed. The greater the angle of the surface is, the more prominent this effect will be when running up or down the surface.

Injury Rates

Some running surfaces that negatively impact your speed can increase your likelihood of becoming injured as well. Surfaces that are smooth or that deform easily take longer for your body to stabilize itself on, increasing the likelihood of losing your balance and slipping or falling. Angled surfaces can also contribute to injury, by causing you to overwork your muscles without realizing it or causing you to trip when your running speed increases faster than you can adjust your stride to compensate.

Writer Bio

Born in West Virginia, Jack Gerard now lives in Kentucky. A writer and editor with more than 10 years of experience, he has written both articles and poetry for publication in magazines and online. A former nationally ranked sport fencer, Gerard also spent several years as a fencing coach and trainer.

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