Buyer's Guide to Purchasing a Treadmill

So you've decided to take that final step towards physical fitness and want to purchase a treadmill. Then instead of going to the gym every day you can exercise in the safety and security of your own home. But what should you look for and what should you avoid?

First, consider exactly how much money you want to spend on this piece of home equipment. One possible way of establishing a budget is to consider what you would pay for a gym membership over a single year, divided by how much time you spend at the gym on a treadmill. Remember, you use a lot of different machines at the gym, so take only a percentage of what you realistically use the treadmill for and establish a bottom line financially. It's easy to get enthusiastic over a flashy treadmill, with computerized results and multiple choices for speed, but if you blow your budget you may end up spending more time running from your debtors than on the treadmill.

A major consideration to take into account is the simple idea of having an electric treadmill vs a manual one. The track on an electric treadmill runs whether you're standing on it or not, the speed determined by a computer program that you will access when you turn the machine on. A manual treadmill is exactly what it sounds like - no computer deciding how fast the track moves. Usually the track is set up on a slight ramp of approximately forty-five degrees so that as you begin to walk the rubber track slides around the machine with little effort, but when you stop it stops. You may find this to be a major factor in determining your budget and pricing the models. Sure, a manual may seem rather low-tech, but having a treadmill that doesn't draw power can be an advantage if your area has a history of power outages.