Believe it or not, you can genuinely transform your life with the help of a good treadmill; this is precisely the reason we have created The Ultimate Treadmill Buying Guide. Even if you decide to explore good treadmills on a budget, any piece of fitness equipment is an investment. Choosing a treadmill and buying a treadmill is form a tricky process that can be eased with the help of well-documented advice. Our treadmill buying guide will teach you what to look for in a treadmill, how to pick a treadmill, the best time to buy treadmill, how to buy a treadmill (and buying a treadmill tips) – in a nutshell, how to buy a treadmill for home use like a pro.
1. Should I Buy a Treadmill? Treadmill Buying Guide #1 FAQ
Like we previously mentioned, a treadmill buy is a big deal. Before thinking about treadmill buying tips, the first question that probably pops into your mind is whether you should buy treadmill or not. The answer is crystal clear: no matter how healthy you may be at the moment, no matter how little free time you might have at hand, you have every reason to buy a treadmill. It is a minimum investment that will deliver maximum results, especially if you tend to be tight on time. A good treadmill for home will save you hundreds of dollars on gym subscriptions and hundreds of hours lost in traffic on the way there.
Choosing a treadmill for home very well might be one of the best decisions you make for yourself and your entire family. You can exercise anytime you want and however you want from the comfort of your own home. Regardless if you live in a spacious house or a one bedroom apartment, there are good used treadmills or new treadmills designed for all kinds of spaces (wait ‘til you discover the magic of the folding treadmill). Thinking ‘Ok, I want a treadmill’? Let’s get started.
1.1. Different Types of Treadmills
When you think of the idea of a personal treadmill, you probably imagine a standard piece of fitness equipment with a running belt and handles, right? Wrong; there are quite a few good home treadmills that you can choose from.
Manual Treadmills
As the name suggests, a manual treadmill works by your movements on the deck. If you are caught between a motorised or manual treadmill, you should know that the latter does not require electricity and are usually the cheapest treadmills on the market. Still, are manual treadmills good for running? If you really want to put in a hard workout, manual treadmills can be good quality treadmills to efficiently boost your exercise sessions. This is an excellent solution for buyers who are doing their treadmills online shopping on a budget and who aren’t afraid to work for their fitness goals.
Folding Treadmills
Is a small motorized treadmill at the top of your shopping list? This means that the term ‘folding’ is what to look for when buying a treadmill for you. A popular treadmill for home use, the folding treadmill stands out from the highest rated treadmills for home through its versatility and space-saving super powers. If you live in a big city, you most likely reside in an apartment (and we all know that apartments don’t have nearly as much space as we’d like). If this is your case, one of the best tips on buying a treadmill for you is to go with folding. A few examples are the Sole Fitness F80 Folding Treadmill, the LifeSpan TR1200i Folding Treadmill or the 3G Cardio Pro Runner Treadmill.
Motorized Treadmills
Motorized or electric treadmills are the opposite of manual treadmills – they run on electricity. Even though its manual counterpart is known for being the least expensive, you can still find quality electric treadmills under 200 dollars (or opt for a used motorised treadmill). If you want the benefits of a motorized treadmill without paying a small fortune, you can easily look for the cheapest electric treadmill on the market. Some of the best treadmills that run on electricity and that are not expensive are the Confidence PowerPlus Motorized Electric Treadmill, the Weslo Cadence G 5.9 Treadmill or the Merit Fitness 715T Plus Treadmill.
Hybrid Treadmills / Treadclimbers
Why settle for just a good home treadmill when you can enjoy a super-efficient machine like a treadclimber? Our treadmill buying guide continues with treadclimbers – the ultimate combination of treadmill features and step climber features, all in one. When considering what treadmill to buy, maybe a treadclimber should be your choice. You can look into the Bowflex Treadclimber TC10, the Bowflex Treadclimber TC20 or the Bowflex Treadclimber TC5000, just to name a few popular models. Turn your treadmill shopping into treadclimber shopping and make your first treadmill a treadclimber.
1.2. How to Choose a Treadmill
Learning how to select a treadmill is the most significant aspect of buying a treadmill for home. Even though the idea of ‘what is a good treadmill’ is relative, there are still a few general tips for buying a treadmill that you really should consider in advance.
Size
First and foremost, when you are pondering on which treadmill to buy, you need to take size into consideration. One of the best buying a treadmill tips is to measure the space you have available and analyze the models that fit in that range. If you want to save space but have a generous budget, you should consider the Sole Fitness F80 Folding Treadmill, for instance. For those blessed with larger homes, top rated treadmills like the Proform Pro 4500 Treadmills could fit your requirements perfectly. For smaller and less expensive alternatives, a manual treadmill could be the best treadmill for home for you.
Features
If you’re preparing to do a quick Google search for ‘treadmill what to look for’, ‘what to look for when buying a treadmill for running’, or ‘things to look for when buying a home treadmill’, you don’t need to search and further. Not only will we sum up what to look for in a treadmill for running, jogging or walking in this section of our treadmill buying guide, but we also have a dedicated section below with details about programs, heart rate monitoring, usability, customization and motor. Keep in mind, however, that the more features a treadmill has, the most expensive it will be (the 3G Cardio Pro Runner Treadmill is one of the best examples in this case).
Budget
A critical buying treadmill guideline is price. Sometimes the best treadmill is the most accessible one, while other times the treadmill for home for you is a genuine investment. Our treadmill buyers guide suggests that you consider these categories of the best treadmills for home use according to their price tag:
- Treadmills under 200 dollars
- Treadmills between 200 and 400 dollars
- Treadmills between 400 and 800 dollars
- Treadmills between 800 and 1000 dollars
- Treadmills between 1000 and 1500 dollars
- Treadmills over 1500 dollars.
Questions like ‘how to select treadmill?’, ‘how to buy treadmills for home?’ or ‘how to buy a good treadmill?’ can easily be answered with this criteria. In fact, if you take just one piece of info away from this treadmill buying guide, let it be this: if you’re looking for a particular feature in a treadmill, the best bet is to not search too far away from the initial price range (of the first model you saw which was equipped with the feature you wanted).
Warranty
A treadmill guide tip from the pros is keeping your eyes on warranty. When deciding on ‘what treadmill should I buy’, you should always check what warranty comes with your treadmill purchase and decide if it seems reliable enough in the long run. This is a decisive factor on how to choose treadmill that will make the difference. Think about it like this: buying treadmills is like buying electronics: the longer the warranty, the better. You will notice that treadmills to buy usually have different warranties for different aspects, like parts, labor, frame, electronics etc.
Safety
Last but certainly not least, safety should be one of the top 3 features when thinking about which treadmill should I buy. Do some research on safety when judging which treadmill is best for you and see how it would fit in with your children, pets, higher speeds etc. Once you have your treadmill, you should always make sure to wear suitable clothing (that won’t get caught on the edges of the deck in the belt) and to avoid stepping on the belt from the beginning. All best quality treadmills or best treadmills for the home will have either a safety clip or a safety button.
2. Treadmill Features to Look For
Even though it might seem like the most complicated aspect of how to choose a treadmill for home, the features play a fundamental role in buying a treadmill for home use. Regardless if you want a basic treadmill to buy cheap or you’re interested in hi-tech treadmills top rated, you need to know what features will benefit you as a customer. Find out what to look for when buying a home treadmill below.
Programs
When learning how to choose a treadmill for home and whats a good treadmill, the number of programs available is always something to consider. The ‘recipe’ in this case is pretty simple: the more programs a home running machine has, the better. A larger number of programs will offer you more possibilities for using the automatic treadmill to its fullest potential. Customizable programs are highly desirable, but we will get into them a bit more in a dedicated section of our treadmill buying guide below.
Heart Rate Monitoring
Monitoring, in general, is an aspect that will help you decide what is the best treadmill to buy for home use for you. Some of the basic monitoring options you should look for in a best threadmill are time, distance and speed, and especially heart rate monitoring. Either via chest strap or handgrip, heart rate monitoring is essential for keeping track of your fitness goals and all-around evolution. Take note that those with chest straps are generally the best treadmills for running at home and, as a result, the most expensive.
Usability
We have to face the facts: not all of us are health or tech geeks and most of us won’t know what to do with fifty buttons framing a fancy display. Even if you decide to go for the most expensive and best treadmills for home use, you should see how user-friendly they are beforehand. While some best rated treadmills for home use have a practical approach to their abundance of features, some of them might be super expensive and difficult to use. Generally speaking, the more straight-forward the treadmill is, the better. This way all members of the family, both young and old, can use the treadmill, provided it’s safe, of course.
Customization
Our Treadmill How to Buy 101 continues with one of the most sought-after features the best tredmills: customization options. We would all love to be able to tailor our programs and treadmills according to our personal needs, and thankfully there are quite a few good deals on treadmills that allow us to do so. When buying a treadmill for running (especially a pricey one), always look for one with custom programs (like the LifeSpan TR1200i Folding Treadmill, which comes with 2 custom programs). Not only will this help you adjust your workout as you please, but it will also aid more than one person in using a treadmill as a personal experience. If you have a partner or family member who’s interested in being your training buddy, then this is definitely a feature you shouldn’t oversee, although it isn’t traditionally emphasized too much in a treadmill buying guide.
Motor
With seemingly more important problems like ‘where to buy a good treadmill?’, ‘how to buy a treadmill for running’ or ‘what is the best treadmill?’, motors are probably one of the last aspects you think about when purchasing a treadmill. However, good treadmill speed is an irreplaceable part of your workout experience. When it comes to motors, treadmill buying advice refers to CHP (Continuous Duty Rating). In this regard, this part of our guide to buying a treadmill has the following three categories: running (3.0 CHP and up), jogging (2.5 CHP and up) or walking (2.0 CHP and up).
3. What Brand of Treadmill is the Best?
If you are wondering ‘what is the best brand of treadmill?’, we regret to inform you that you can’t crown just one king in this game. While there are several best treadmill companies, best brands for treadmills or best treadmill brands for home, there isn’t just one brand that surpasses them all. Instead, we can speak about a treadmill brands list with popular choices, based on quality-price ratio, reliability and demand. The last part of our treadmill buying guide will walk you through the strengths (pros) of each particular brand, as well as the most popular choices for each.
LifeSpan
If you ask treadmill owners what is the best treadmill to buy for home, many users will point to LifeSpan as a top choice. With innovative technology like the one applied for the Lifespan TR1200-DT5 Treadmill Desk or the LifeSpan TR1200i Folding Treadmill, LifeSpan treadmills are some of the best-selling treadmills on the market. Their popular Treadmill Desk is a fantastic alternative for individuals who work from home and who want to keep in shape while working. Likewise, their folding treadmill is amazing for apartments or homes that don’t enjoy a lot of space.
Sole
In addition to designing and manufacturing great ellipticals (like the Sole Fitness E35 Elliptical Machine), Sole is known for its fine treadmills (many consider the Sole Fitness F80 Folding Treadmill to be the best home running machine / best treadmill machine on the market). With increased weight capacity, quiet functioning and amazing value, a Sole treadmill just might be the best treadmill for your money.
Precor
Like Sole, Precor sells multiple ellipticals (such as the Precor EFX 5.33 Elliptical Trainer) and treadmills that have gained great admiration among customers. Even though Precor treadmills can get in the thousands range when it comes to budget, they are top rated machines that are known to deliver. Treadmill for home use reviews show that Precor machines use state of the art technology for purposes such as lowering stress on hips, knees and joints.
ProForm
Proform products are some of the best-selling treadmills on Amazon, with multiple models making the top 10 list. Running machines like the Proform ZT3 Treadmill, the Proform Pro 4500 Treadmill or the Proform 6.0 RT are all fantastic products that are greatly appreciated by customers. They were designed to be friendly for all users, while offers top notch quality that you can’t always find in running machines. Regarding their price, Proform machine prices vary, but they are more accessible than Precor models, for example.
Weslo
Weslo enjoys the title of having the best-selling treadmill on Amazon, the Weslo Cadence G 5.9 Treadmill. However, the Weslo Cadence R 5.2 is just as popular, making the top 10 best-selling list as well. One of the reason why Weslo treadmills are so popular is that they are very reasonably priced (most models are under $400, with one particular model costing just over $80). Moreover, Weslo products also deliver awesome value, so consider a treadmill for this brand if you are shopping on a budget.