Treadmill Training for Vertical

Right now I'm healing from a knee injury. I set a PR on a 1.3 mile downhill run, about 1,300' of downhill vertical. It's a -19% average, according to Strava. At one point I was doing an 8:00 pace. I normally don't go downhill that fast, but was in a group of 18-20 year olds, and this old man wanted to keep up with the kids. Alas...

I took a few weeks off and then started running outside, but since the trails here tend to go up out, and down back, it was really beating up my knees and they weren't going to heal. So now it's the treadmill for me.

Trail running along a cliff face in Summit County Colorado

Since I have some running specific goals regarding mileage, I had to up the speed considerably from my usual incline treadmill training, which is more specific to vertical goals

Enough about me, here's how it works.

When you up the inclination of your treadmill it changes your speed quite a bit, depending on how far up you go. Running at 2% or 4% or 6% are quite a bit different from one another. When you're walking that isn't a very broad range, but for running it makes a big difference in speed.

In "Summit Success: Training for Hiking, Mountaineering, and Peak Bagging" CLICK HERE there are charts for training at up to 15% for a standard treadmill and even more for a special incline treadmill. They're meant for averaging around 2.0 MPH at 15% to as low as 1.0 MPH at 24%. If you're wanting to go at 4.0 MPH or 5.0 MPH or more, you'll need to drop the incline quite a bit when you first start.

Here's an example of the training goal charts adjusted for 4.0%:

Week	Target Weekly Vertical Ft	Weekly Miles at 4%	Incline Miles Per Session (x4)	Incline Minutes/Session @ 5.0 MPH
5	1,130	5.349	1.337	16
6	1,255	5.943	1.486	18
7	1,395	6.604	1.651	20
8	1,550	7.338	1.834	22
9	1,722	8.153	2.038	24
10	1,913	9.059	2.265	27
11	2,126	10.065	2.516	30
12	2,362	11.184	2.796	34
13	2,624	12.426	3.107	37
14	2,916	13.807	3.452	41
15	3,240	15.341	3.835	46
16	3,600	17.045	4.261	51

Notice that over the course of the 12 weeks represented here you work your way up to 3,600' of vertical per week. That's pretty good for being inside.

The first four weeks are missing in this spreadsheet because it was adapted from the book, and the first four weeks are meant to get you off the couch and up to that first 5 mile week.

If you'd like to see spreadsheets, register (upper right) for the newsletter and I'll send some your way for other common running inclinations, and vertical per week goals.

Stairmaster Stepmill VAM Training Goals

The Stairmaster Stepmill doesn't have as many adjustments as any incline treadmill, so the VAM Chart, below, is quite a bit simpler. The angle of the tread is fixed, so just measuring the height and depth of each step is enough to feed into the calculation for creating the chart.

Stairmaster Stepmill VAM Goal Chart

VAM	200	400	600	800	1000	1200
Steps/Minute	16	33	49	66	82	98
Top 10 Classic/Extreme
Record Qualifier/Extreme
Finish Qualifier/Extreme
Finish Classic
Record Classic
Top 10 Qualifier
Women's Record Classic
Women's Record Qualifier = 900
Women's Record Extreme = 650
< 4000 M Overcompensation Training

For purposes of using the Stepmill in the Elbrus Race Training Program, keep in mind that there is no direct way to correlate mileage on the Stepmill with the plan. Since the depth and height of a step are within an inch of each other, you would have to go approximately 5,280' of vertical gain in order to get 1 mile of horizontal gain. If your weekly goal includes 10 miles of horizontal distance you'd have to get in about 53,000 feet of vertical gain to achieve it. You'll have to do some running, either on a treadmill or outdoors, in order to get in your weekly mileage goals.

Riding the Stepmill

Testing the Qualifier

One of my favorite things to do on a Stepmill is to test an Elbrus Race achievement. The Qualifier is especially easy to test. Once a week get on a Stepmill set to 50 Steps Per Minute and ride it for 2 hours. Here's the stats from that workout:

Time: 120:00

Steps/Minute: 50

Vertical Feet: 4000.00

Miles: 0.85

Average MPH: 0.426

Average Pace: 140:48

Vertical/Hour: 2000.00'

Vertical/Minute: 33.33'

VAM: 609.6

That's a Qualifier well within the cutoff. If you want slightly better specificity then carry a couple of small dumbbells to simulate hauling trekking poles with you, and wear a 10 pound running pack to simulate having extra mittens, jackets, water and food. Monitor your Heart Rate and either work to lower your Heart Rate over the course of a training cycle, or bring up your speed while maintaining the same Heart Rate. Either will do wonders for your performance in the upcoming Elbrus Race.

I feel this is quite easy to recover from, and could be done twice a week as part of the Phase 2 training program, leaving you free to do 2 x 5 mile "runs" at a really low incline to get in your miles.

Testing the Classic

This is a little bit more intense and requires a bigger commitment and expenditure of time and energy so I don't recommend doing this every week. While a measly 33 steps per minute will get your Classic finished under the cutoff, that would be 5 hours on the Stepmill. Set it to 66 steps per minute and you'll be done in 2:30, a much more realistic time for training while maintaining work and family commitments. At that pace you're also training for a Record Classic, which because of the altitude difference will end up being merely Overcompensation Training and possibly a Top Ten Finish.

Time: 150:00
Steps/Minute: 66
Vertical Feet: 6600.00
Miles: 1.41
Average MPH: 0.563
Average Pace: 106:40
Vertical/Hour: 2640.00'
Vertical/Minute: 44.00'
VAM: 804.7

This is realistic, and with a little bit of work you could pull this off once a week. In fact, for the best specificity to the event, do a Qualifier Test on Wednesday, and a Classic Test on Friday. Do nothing on Thursday.

Here's how to get in something like a Phase 3 Training Week:

• Monday: 5 mile low incline run.
• Tuesday: High Rep/Low Weight Strength Training.
• Wednesday: Stepmill Qualifier Test
• Thursday: Rest
• Friday: Stepmill Classic Test
• Saturday: 12 mile low incline run
• Sunday: Rest

Manitou Incline - 2000' vertical in .8 miles - like an outdoor Stepmill

That's a hint of things to come. I'll write more later on Phase 3 protocols with variations for Treadmill and Stepmill Training.

Updated Race Targets

I added in the new records from my previous post and redid the spreadsheet with the VAM numbers so that we could see more precisely what our training goals need to be in order to:

1. Finish
2. Place
3. Come in First
4. Break a Record

Check out the requirements below to begin your own training program adaptations:

Race	Vert Ft	Miles	Avg grade	Top 10	Minutes	vert/min	MPH	VAM
Qualifier	3570	2.5	27.05%	1:19:22	79.4	45.0	1.9	822.6
Classic	6334	4.6	26.08%	3:45:15	225.3	28.1	1.2	514.3
Extreme	10660	7.6	26.56%	5:29:34	329.6	32.3	1.4	591.5
				Top 1	Minutes	vert/min	MPH
Qualifier				1:04:47	64.8	55.1	2.3	1,007.8
Classic				2:28:02	148.0	41	1.8	782.5
Extreme				3:23:37	203.6	52.4	2.2	957.4
				Top Female	Minutes	vert/min	MPH
Qualifier				1:13:10	73.2	48.8	2.1	892.3
Classic				3:21:29	201.5	31.4	1.4	574.9
Extreme				5:04:41	304.7	35.0	1.5	639.8
Qualify Cutoff:	3570	2.5	27.05%	1:59:00	119.0	30.0	1.3	548.6
Classic Cutoff:	6334	4.6	26.08%	4:59:00	299.0	21.2	.9	387.4
Extreme Cutoff:	10660	7.6	26.56%	5:59:00	359.0	29.7	1.3	543.0

Elbrus Race Treadmill Training Guidelines

Calculate your training paces for an incline treadmill based on VAM

VAM is the Vertical Ascent in Meters per hour. For the Qualifier, Classic and Extreme Races, a 1000 VAM will get you a winning finish, based on current course records. A VAM of 600 will get you a Top Ten finish in these events. 

25 minutes at 36% training for Elbrus Race. Later that day I did run/walk intervals at 12%

I put together a spreadsheet showing the VAM for a variety of speeds and inclines on a treadmill. The left-most column is the % of Elevation Incline, which for most treadmills adjusts up to 15%. Remember that this is the percentage of a mile that you would be going upward at that angle. Example: 10% incline would get you 528' higher at the end of a mile. 40% incline would get you 2112' higher at the end of a mile. That's almost a half mile per mile. Treadmills by Freemotion/Nordictrack and a few others will go that steep.

The row at the top is the VAM, from 200 to 1000. For Elbrus Race training that's generally close enough. Notice that at 3% you have to be going really fast to get a VAM over 400. When you get to 6% it's a bit more real, though most people who run on treadmills would be pretty hard pressed to be doing 6:00 miles (10 MPH) to get in their 1000 VAM.

There's also great value in running outside in the snow in spikes at 9% average grade at altitude

For those without access to a steep incline treadmill, going 4 MPH at 15% is the best way to get in your 1000 VAM. It's not sports-specific to the Elbrus Race, but it's a great workout. If you want to be training in a more specific manner, you'll have to get onto an incline treadmill at 30% or greater and do your steady state cardio at 2 MPH and keep that up with a low heart rate for a couple hours at a time.

% Incline/VAM	200	400	600	800	1000
3	4.14	8.28	12.43	16.57	20.71
6	2.07	4.14	6.21	8.28	10.36
9	1.38	2.76	4.14	5.52	6.90
12	1.04	2.07	3.11	4.14	5.18
15	0.83	1.66	2.49	3.31	4.14
18	0.69	1.38	2.07	2.76	3.45
21	0.59	1.18	1.78	2.37	2.96
24	0.52	1.04	1.55	2.07	2.59
27	0.46	0.92	1.38	1.84	2.30
30	0.41	0.83	1.24	1.66	2.07
33	0.38	0.75	1.13	1.51	1.88
36	0.35	0.69	1.04	1.38	1.73
39	0.32	0.64	0.96	1.27	1.59
40	0.31	0.62	0.93	1.24	1.55
Top 10
Record