Buying Treadmill

There are several genuine and advantageous health reasons why one should buy a treadmill. One reason is that you might have a family that restricts your schedule curbing the flexibility you once had or you might be worried about suffering injuries. A treadmill would solve all your problems. Running on a treadmill is less likely to cause injury than running outside. There are no denying the merits of buying a treadmill. But what are the important things that you should remember when you plan to buy a treadmill?

A treadmill is a big investment. It might not be a car. It certainly isn’t a house. But you do spend around $1000 of your hard-earned money on a piece of metal that is supposed to help you burn down calories and generally stay healthy. Why would you waste your money on something that doesn’t work, or has very low shelf life?
Listed here are some of the “don’ts” you should think about when you buy a treadmill.

Don’t skimp on a weak engine
The treadmill is made of seven components and each one of these is important in their own sphere. However, what really makes a treadmill work as it does is the engine, or its motor, as what it’s more commonly called. When you buy a treadmill, don’t try to save money by buying a cheap treadmill with a weak engine. Not only do you have to avoid weak engines all together, but you have to make sure that the treadmill you choose has the “continuous duty” horsepower, abbreviated as CHP in the specs.

A decent treadmill would have a horsepower of around 1.5. Commercial grade treadmills could as much as 5.0 horsepower (HP).

One way to find out how much HP you need is to ask yourself how often you’d be using your treadmill. If you are only planning to use it occasionally when running outside is out of the question because of bad weather, then you can probably get away with something less than 2 CHP. However, if you plan on putting lots of mileage on your treadmill, or perhaps you’re a heavier runner, then look for something that has more than 2 CHP.

Don’t overlook speed
An average treadmill would have a maximum speed of 10 MPH – that is 6 minutes per mile. If you’re like most people (who run twice every week or some such), that should be enough. However, if you tend to run repeats or you run at a much faster pace than that, then don’t overlook speed when you go treadmill shopping. Obviously, you want a machine that can keep up with your pace, and you can’t have that from a machine that is only capable of 8 MPH or below in terms of speed.

If speed is what you want, choose a machine that will move at your pace. That should be the rule. Stay away from machines that can’t even move at 10 MPH, because that’s very telling on how the treadmill was constructed. Hey, we all want to move faster and if the treadmill can’t even keep up with the average speed, then why would you want something like that?