TREADMILL

Have you noticed that your body has a certain way of doing things, I mean, when you acquire proficiency at something, the body sets about doing it in its own pace and rhythm. If you had a twin brother and both of you were asked to answer the same question with some chosen words as answers, you will find that both of you have different style of saying it. From your mannerism to how much space you provide between words, even the passion with which it is said.. all will be so unique. Now try saying the same answer without following the same mannerisms and body language. You will find that you are starting to stammer and grope for the answer. It will not be smooth and controlled as before. Have noticed the way you ride your bike, or drive your car? You have your own way of doing it.

It is the same with jogging too. Even when you set about to run at 5 km/hour, you will probably do it at 4.9km/hr for some time, then 5.1km/hr etc etc and it is your body that decides its own rhythm and pace , not your conscious mind. The body is very aware of your stamina, strength and when your conscious mind gives a command that it has to run non stop for 3 or 4 km, the body decides on the speed which may not be exactly the same as you decided but close to it. You try to break the rhythem and anything from ankle to hip injury may occur. You may even tire out faster because you have chosen to break your body’s natural and most efficient way of handling things.

 This is what happens on a tread mill. You set the treadmill in motion, let’s say at 5km/hr and start to run on it. There is no way you can slow down or speed up once the pace is fixed on the treadmill. You start to break your body’s rhythm after a few minutes and then it becomes less efficient at handling the stress developed on the joints. Some say, you burn more calories that way. How much can it be? 300-400 calories?, which is nothing . A good exercise routine will make the body burn energy for more than 48 hours and there is no way you can measure that. It is not calories that matter, but how efficient the body has become at handling the energy that you supply. And to do that, it is a good idea to let the body decide how best to do it. Some of the heavy weight training sessions burn upto 15 calories a minute and it would seem that heavy power weight training is what that counts to burn fat efficiently But looking at the power lifters , it is very obvious that it is not fatthat they have used up with power lifting exercises. Slow, steady and sustained effforts do burn up fat consistently and that is why jogging burns a lot of fat. You can jog longer on the road [ with the right kind of footwear] than you can on the treadmill. Another reason for the tread mill for being not so good is the steady, continuous pounding the ankles, knee joints and hips take, on the tread mill. The pounding and the beating is so well timed and bring about injury faster than when you do jog on the road, where the body is allowed to slow down or adjust to the impact on the joints. Military personnel, marching [ which is rhythemic pounding in itself] on a bridge are always asked to break the march ,as such steady beating by so many people can bring about instability and cracks to the structure of the bridge. That is pure civil engineering.

 Brisk walking on the treadmill  may not be as bad as jogging. But definitely the hip joints are going to tire out and give way fast. It is so painful for the body to sustain such regularity of pace [ however slow it may seem] . It has to be allowed to adjust and rejuvenate. Have you noticed that simply sitting somewhere without moving, for sometime is also strenuous. The body will, after a few minutes, shift and turn to release stress and settle down again. Try not to do that and it will become very stressful to stay put in that position. But let the body shift a little bit and settle down and you may be able to hold that position for hours. The same happens with every action of the body. The bottom line is that never fight the body natural way of doing things. It always knows what is best. You just give the command to do certain things and try doing it and soon the body will come up with the best way to do it. How did you learn to cycle? You just sat on seat and tried to get it to move. You fell down a few times and one day…lo!! you were balancing the cycle so well. How did you do it? You know so well that you couldn’t do by reading how to cycle, now could you? But the body has its own unique way of handling and adjusting to circumstances and sometimes it is a good idea to sit back and watch things happen. Believe me, when you learn to trust your body’s gut feeling and abide by it, things will start to happen as smooth as breathing itself. For the above mentioned reasons, I never recommend the tread mill to anyone. But  you can use it once every now and then, when you cannot go for jogging on rainy days or do not have much time. But then elliptical cycle is certainly much better for it