Let's Talk Running

Let’s Talk Running

We Look at Beach Running, Road Running, Treadmill & Grassland Running!

We have had people asking what surface is the best place to run on, we hear people saying they prefer the treadmill, road, some say the beach and others love to go up muddy grassland, we decided to look into this .

We decided to do some tests on runners that use these multiple surface for running.

We took 20 runners that did a minimum of 5 miles a week road running, 20 runners that did a minimum of 5 miles a week of treadmill running (0 incline), 20 runners that did a minimum of 5 miles a week of beach running and 20 runners that did a minimum of 5 miles a week of grassland running. At least 5 runners from each group participated in some form of hill-based running or incline (4.5+). The tests we carried out were:

- Flexibility of major muscle groups – Hamstrings, Quadriceps and Abductors

- Strength measures by 3 rep max leg press

- Injury occurrence within last year

- VO2 Max – Multi stage fitness test

In the UK alone there are 3million people running on a regular basis for exercise, but they all run on differing surfaces and all believe that their method of running is best. Whilst there are many different types of running, you can sprint, intervals, long distance or any other form that you can come up with. However, what does the surface matter? Well, here are the results of those tests:

As you can see from these results the runners on the beach have superior flexibility (flexibility was tested by a therapist after a set warm up) in all three muscle groups! On the other end of the spectrum the road runners had the lowest amount of flexibility. Possible theories for this would be that whilst running on softer surfaces our muscles adapt to a longer contraction, when you run on the road the muscles contract at a faster rate which may lead to shortening on the muscle fibers. It is also possible that there is a link between harder surfaces and joint injuries, which could be a reason for the loss of flexibility in these runners.

So can the road make it up somewhere else or will beach destroy the competition? Well let’s take a look at the strength results!

So looks like beach running has managed to do it again, too bad we don’t all live near the coast. We believe that this is caused by the amount of force needed to propel yourself forward when running on a softer surface, this is also matched by the grassland results. However, it appears that the road runners have performed better than the treadmill however the difference was negligible (0.5kg).

So looks like beach wins again, well the next results into injury occurrence will probably not be very friendly to road runners!

So treadmill running has won this round with only 15% injury occurrence amongst the group, against what we imagined road runners didn’t have the highest injury occurrence. Grassland seems to bring about a greater number of injuries with a massive 38% injury occurrence. This could be down to the uneven surfaces which will lead to many inversion and eversion ankle injuries. Road runners did have a high occurrence with 26%, this is a well-known phenomenon due to the force traveling through the joints of the three major lower limb joints (hip, knee and ankle).

Maybe the most important test we performed was a multistage fitness test, will beach prove to be the favorite or will another surface show its strength.

So from these results it is a clear that grassland has managed to incur greater improvements in VO2 max. This may be caused to uneven surfaces causing the body to adapt and work at differing levels. However road runners also showed some excellent results, with beach lagging behind.

It is plausible that the beach runners are not accustomed to the hard surfaces that were used when the test was carried out leaving them at a disadvantage, however grassland is similar to beach and that incurred top marks.

WHAT ABOUT THE HILLS AND INCLINES?

Well, when we looked at the participants from each group that performed some form incline or hill running within their training we found:

- Injuries increase by 3.8%

- Strength increased by 4.9%

- Flexibility increased by 2.1%

- VO2 Max increased by 3.6%

CONCLUSION

We take all these results and we come up with this:

Hill running or incline seems to be better for strength, flexibility and fitness however it increases injury likelihood. Running on the beach is great for strength, flexibility and a lower chance of injuries, however may not be too good if you are intending on running a marathon. Grassland running is great for fitness however you may end up with a twisted ankle which isn’t so great for fitness and the treadmill is a reasonable alternative with good performance on fitness but poor performance in strength. So is there an overall winner? Well, we should suppose beach running wins, but it’s not very accessible and probably not the best thing with UK weather.