Wednesday, March 25, 2009

How To Choose The Best Home Treadmill

By Richard Brown

Buying a treadmill to use at home is a popular thing to do when you are looking to workout outside of the gym. These machines can give you a variety of fitness benefits in a single piece of equipment and they are easy to set up and to use so they tend to suit all kinds of fitness needs extremely well.

When it comes to choosing the best treadmill to set up in your home you need to think about a few things first rather than simply picking a model that catches your eye and that looks good in a store. For example, although treadmills aren't as big as many home gym equipment options, they can be bulky so you do need to think about how much space you have at home first of all.

If you don't have a lot of space and you don't want to have your machine standing around in sight all of the time then you may be best advised to look at a folding treadmill as your first choice. These treadmills are relatively compact and they can be folded down once you are done using them and stored away out of sight.

However, many trainers find that they don't get enough features from folding treadmills. Most of them are, for example, manual treadmills rather than motorized ones. When you use a manual treadmill you make the belt run by walking or running on it. A motorized model has a powered belt that you turn on before you start using it.

Another reason to look at the size of the treadmill that you buy is the comfort factor that you will get when running or walking on it. Smaller treadmills come with smaller belts which may affect your stride pattern. If you can try to have a go on a few sizes at the gym or in a store to see which one suits your stride pattern best.

You also need to think about the features that you need from more advanced models. Many motorized treadmills, for example, will have settings that allow you to increase resistance and slope so that you can vary your workout and increase the effort that you need to put in (and the results that you can get!) as you make progress.

In some cases you can also buy treadmills that will give you reports and data on the progress that you are making. The features on offer here range from step rates through to miles covered and speed, for example. You can also sometimes use functions that monitor your heart rate and that count the calories that you are burning which can be useful.

At the advanced end of the scale here you can also find machines that will let you set up individual training programs to make sure that you do the most effective workout. These can be useful ways of monitoring your progress and making sure that you do move on with your overall fitness aims.

Do remember, however, that the best treadmill that you can buy will be the one that best suits your budget at the end of the day. So, don't be tempted to buy a machine that comes with a load of 'bells and whistles' that you simply won't use.

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