How does treadmill speed work?

[Liamnob]

Hello,

I was on the tread mill and noticed that in the Fitbit app, my speed for the run is down as 3mph. this is the same as a brisk walk. However I was running and sprinting throughout.

I used the Fitbit charge 3 "treadmill" option when I started the run and stopped it when I finished.

Is it because my running stride is longer than walking? 

[Heather-S]

@Liamnob That's a great question!  I have moved your post to the Get Moving forum where I believe you will get more responses.

[Dominique]

3 mph (4.8 km/h) is very slow running. My brisk walking is 6+ km/h. Maybe the treadmill fails to correctly calculate speed. My walking/running is performed outdoors, and since my Ionic has a built-in GPS, I know distance (and therefore speed) is in the correct order of magnitude.

[GSaldiveri]

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@Liamnob wrote:

Hello,

I was on the tread mill and noticed that it had my speed down as 3pmh, this is the same as a brisk walk. However I was running and sprinting throughout.

Is it because my running stride is longer than walking? 

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@Liamnob- I used a treadmill for a long time and I used to use the 3mph speed as my warm up/cool down pace. If you are having to run with it set at that speed then it's very possible you need to calibrate the machine.

You didn't say what type of treadmill you have, but most manufacturers will have a support video posted on their site to show you how to do it.

[Liamnob]

Hello,

Sorry, I did not make my original post clear. The Fitbit shows me speed as 3ph, I spent most of the run between 4 and 7mph on the actual treadmill.

I will change the original post

[USAF-Larry]

@Liamnob, try using the Run exercise mode instead of Treadmill when running on it.  It appears that the Treadmill exercise mode uses the Walk Stride Length and not the Run Stride Length. See if that makes a difference.

[emili]

@Liamnob. I am a treadmill runner and my stats are never ever the same between the treadmill and my tracker- no matter which tracker I use. The distance is not measured accurately by your tracker because the stride is off and there is no GPS to capture miles. I have learned not to worry about the differences and I take a picture of my treadmill read out for really good runs to "documented proof". you will notice the faster you go, the less accurate it becomes. 

[exhile]

I too, use a treadmill for my cardio workout. My highest speed is 6.5mph and my lowest speed is 3.5mph alternating.

Fitbit smartwatches are unable to sync with the information metrics from the console of exercise machines yet but hopefully in the future they will.