How to Choose the Best Treadmill

Which is the best treadmill for you ? Well a good point to start is to decide how much you have to spend & how much space you have. Treadmills start at approx $299 for a self powered one up to over $5000 for a motorised commercial type. If you have limited space then choose a folding type.

If you are serious about your fitness goals then the best treadmill to choose would be a motorised one. You should make sure you choose one with a motor powerful enough to meet your needs. The faster you want to run the more powerful the motor you should choose. Be careful when choosing the power rating for the best treadmill for you, power ratings are in HP (Horse Power) & you should make sure the HP rating is the continuous duty HP & not the max duty HP. Treadmills are not designed to run at the max duty HP as this will burn out the motor.

The best treadmill for walkers & joggers should have a continuous HP rating of 1.0-1.5 and for runners 1.5-2.0

After the power rating the next most important factor to consider is the thickness of the treadmill deck, in general the thicker the deck the more cushioning there will be for your body joints. If you have knee, hip or back problems the best treadmill for you will be one with plenty of cushioning.

The width & length of the belt is decided by the length of your stride, the best treadmill for an average stride would have a width of approx 16-18" & a length of 45-50". For taller people & those with a longer stride the best treadmill would have a belt width of 18-22" & a length of certainly over 50" preferably 55-60".

Another factor you should consider is wether you want to make your workouts harder by having an incline facility. Inclining the treadmill bed copies the effects of walking or running uphill. You can choose to have a manual incline adjustment or a more expensive motorised adjustment. A motorised incline adjustment can be made during your workout making it a much more preferable method than the manual one.

Your best treadmill will have a computer controller, the more features the controller has, such as heart monitoring, stored workout programs, memory capability etc the more it will cost you. Whilst some features may be useful you will have to decide if they are worth paying the extra money for.