There are many reasons to buy a treadmill. Workout objectives vary widely. Some people get a treadmill for walking workouts, while at the other end of the spectrum people buy a treadmill for peak performance training.
Naturally your desired treadmill speed will vary according to how you use a treadmill.
Regardless of your purpose for buying a treadmill, one feature to look at when choosing your treadmill is treadmill speed.
Treadmill speeds may not seem all that important of a consideration, and it’s certainly not one of the most important features to base your buying decision, but there are some treadmill speed features and considerations to keep in mind when buying a treadmill.
Treadmill Speed Considerations
1. Speed Range
Treadmill speeds commonly range from .5 to 15 miles per hour. Most treadmills top out at 10 or 12 mph.
When buying a treadmill, you need to know what top speed you need. For most people 10 mph will be more than fast enough. However, if you do any kind of sprinting, then you will want a treadmill with at least a top speed of 12 mph.
2. Adjusting Speed
There are 3 mechanisms treadmills offer to adjust treadmill speed. Not every treadmill offers all 3. Therefore, if you have a preferred treadmill speed adjustment mechanism, be sure to buy a treadmill with your preferred mechanism. The 3 speed adjustment mechanisms are:
i. Incremental on the console
Incremental treadmill speed adjustment is the most common speed adjustment, but it’s also the most inconvenient. You adjust speed up or down using arrows. The increments are generally .5 mph. This means you must hit a button several times to make any serious speed adjustments.
ii. One-touch
One-touch speed adjustment is a convenience feature. The treadmill console has a full number pad and you simply hit the number, such as 4 and the speed adjusts to 4 mph (km if you set it to km). One-touch makes it much faster to adjust your speed, which means less time not in full stride.
iii. Handlebar adjustment
Reaching to the console to make any adjustments is inconvenient because you must reach forward and therefore breaks your stride.
Some treadmill manufacturers recognize the inconvenience of reaching to the console and therefore offer treadmill speed adjustment buttons placed on the handlebar which is much closer to you. This considerably reduces interruption to your stride.
3. Miles per hour and Km/hour
If you’re more familiar with the metric system (Km), then you’ll want to be sure your chosen treadmill provides speeds in Km. Most do, especially if outfitted with a computer.
4. Speed Adjustment Delay
Most treadmills have a slight delay in speed adjustment. ven high-end treadmills have a delay. In fact, the delay is a safety feature. Can you imagine if you adjusted speed from 3 mph to 8 mph and the change was immediate. That’s an unsafe speed adjustment, and could even be worse going from 8 mph to 3 mph.
5. Accuracy
Performance accuracy on a treadmill is not perfect if your benchmark is running on solid ground. The reason for this is 3-fold:
- The tread belt moves and requires slighly less effort because you aren’t propelling yourself forward as much as you do on solid ground.
- There is no wind or air resistance.
- When your foot strikes the treadmill running surface, there’s a slight adjustment to the treadmill deck speed. It’s miniscule and not noticable, but it’s there because your foot is moving forward and is an opposing force to the tread belt.
Therefore, if you notice that you perform much better on a treadmill, it’s likely a result of one or all of the above reasons. You can compensate for the above by slightly inclining your treadmill deck. I typically use a treadmill with at least a 2 percent incline to compensate. Anywhere from 1 to 3 percent is sufficient.
Related posts:
