Starling Fitness: Daily writings on Fitness, Diet, and Health

Laura,

I hate to be a bother, but since I have your attention – do you have any advice on what to look for when buying a treadmill? Hey, what a great idea for a blog entry!

(Of course, I’ll do a search in your archives.)

Ernie

Ernie,

I haven’t written that entry because it’s so complicated. It depends on a lot of things, like your space requirements. We live in an 890 square foot house, so the only spot we had to put a treadmill was a tiny area in Mike’s office. It was essential that we had a fold-up design, so we compromised on horsepower and stability because of space.

We use ours so much that I wish we had gotten an industrial grade treadmill (like the kind they use in gyms). One that works with a Polar heart rate monitor would have been nice also. I thought the iFit thing would be important, but I rarely use it anymore. I used to use it a lot with a program called i2Workout, where I could program workouts that controlled the treadmill, but I haven’t used it lately.

• Pick Me! » i2Workout

The most important thing is to wear workout clothes and running shoes to test them out. If the store doesn’t let you test them, then don’t buy them. And REALLY test them out. Try running on them at top speed and see how they vibrate. Ours makes a lot of noise and it has been a bother because I will wake up Mike when I’m running, even though the treadmill is in another room.

I just remembered that Wendy Bumgardner wrote a few entries back in March about the latest treadmills. Maybe they will help:

• Best Budget Treadmills

• Top Picks for Mid-Range Treadmills

• Top Picks Quality Treadmills

I guess I WILL turn this email into an entry on Starling Fitness, if you don’t mind.

Happy Shopping, Laura