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Treadmill Components

Frame: One of the most important and overlooked components is the treadmill frame.  There are two types of frames: steel and aluminum.  I much prefer steel because with a steel frame you will feel a more spring-like feel when your foot strikes the deck, and generally the steel frame lends itself to a tighter, quieter unit.  Aluminum frames are strong and last just as long as steel, but those aluminum units have a deadpan feel which is really bad for runners (why?).  Understand that companies that use aluminum rivet the frames, and that is just not as good as a unibody steel-welded frame.  As a rule of thumb, look at the specs of the treadmills you are considering.  For the price point of $1,000 or less, look for a unit over 200 lbs.  For a unit over $1,500, look for at least 250 lbs.

Motor: Unfortunately there is no such thing as motor horsepower police, so you will not be able to compare the motors of each treadmill manufacturer on an apples-to-apples basis.  The actual HP rating—believe it or not—is solely determined by the treadmill manufacturer itself!  There is no industry standard as to how to rate your DC motors.  Manufacturer A may call their motor a 2 HP continuous duty motor rated at 2,000 rpm and 15 amps.  Meanwhile, Manufacturer B may buy that very same motor and label it as a 3 HP commercial grade continuous duty motor. You might ask how this is possible: it’s quite simple Manufacturer B just rates their motor at a very high rpm speed (around 5,000 rpm) in order to achieve a bigger HP number strictly for marketing purposes.  As you can imagine, with more than a million treadmills sold in sporting goods and big box stores annually around the country, many consumers just look for the highest HP rating at the lowest price.    My experience is that all of the top brands of treadmills are using good quality motors now.  Generally, they will last a very long time, and you should look at the motor warranty to separate the high quality ones from the junk.  Don’t consider any motor that comes with less than a ten-year warranty.  The good news is that there are probably a dozen or so brands that fall into the high-quality bucket.  Now that you know your motor will likely last a good long time, you should know to look for one with a precision-balanced flywheel.  At Smooth, we put each and every motor we make onto a balancing machine. During the process, the motor runs at a very high speed while a technician drills small holes into the cast aluminum flywheel until the motor is running perfectly smooth.  It is that added inertia which is provided by the flywheel that provides that smooth-as-glass feel.

Treadbelts: Most high-quality treadmills have two-ply belts which consist of a black polyurethane (not rubber) top layer and an under-layer which should be made of a nylon-polyester weave.  It is the underside of the treadbelt which will wear out first.  In over 22 years in this business, I have never seen a customer peel back a treadbelt to look at its underside.  Go ahead and do it, pinch the edge of the treadbelt at the seam, peel the treadbelt back and take a look. Here are the three simple things you should be looking at:

1. Determine whether the seam is a horizontal or a diagonal cut. Diagonal is the preferred method of making a long-lasting treadbelt because the extra bonding area creates a stronger bond where the belt is glued together.  Furthermore, with the diagonal method of cutting and gluing, you will not get that THUMP-THUMP sound with each rotation of the belt traveling over the front and rear rollers.

2. Look at the weave of the belt itself.  Like an oriental rug, the tighter the weave, the more expensive the belt is to make.  The belts with the tight, soft weave on the bottom will last for thousands of hours of use.

3. Rub your fingers across the underside of the belt. You should feel a soft (almost cottony) feel from the polyester. It is a common cost cutting measure of many manufacturers to use only nylon in their belts.  You will only be able to know this by feeling the underside of the belt or by listening to the sounds of the machine while in use. (If you hear a sound that is akin to bees buzzing, don’t buy the treadmill!)  You can imagine that if the underside of the belt is rough, it will wear away the top (phenolic resin) coating of the deck which again will make the unit run hot and cause the treadmill to break down.  On very high-end machines, you may see what some call 4-ply or multi-ply belts.  Those belts generally are geared for very heavy use such as high-speed running or large-family use. 

Decks:  Most of the top treadmill manufacturers are using ¾”-1” thick solid wood decks which are usually mounted on top of elastomer rubber grommets laid upon the steel frame.  The rubber grommets are designed to absorb impact and are commonly referred to as a floating deck in the industry.   Cheaper machines will use pressboard and not solid wood and those will surely break if you run on the machine at all.  You should know that although decks are not the most expensive component, they can be very expensive to change since it requires a few hours of labor to completely disassemble and break the machine down to the base frame.  Since belts and decks are designed to wear out at about the same time if you do change your deck you should also change the treadbelt at the same time.  The deck and treadbelt on a high-end unit usually last through a few thousand hours of use.  It is not unusual for sporting-goods sold treadmills to have belt and deck combinations that will only last about 500 hours.  Some of the high-end manufacturers like Life Fitness, Landice, True and Smooth use triple-laminated phenolic resin coatings on their decks. These reversible decks offer twice the life-span since they can be turned over once before they need to be replaced.

Rollers: Look for a roller that is anywhere from 2”-3” in diameter.  Bigger is not necessarily better, though.  The most important thing about a roller is not the size of the roller but the size and type of the bearings.  Every treadmill has two screws in the rear of the machine which are used to adjust the treadbelt tension.  High-end machines have several features like crowned rollers, rubber-coated front rollers or even auto-tracking computerized rollers.  During your machine’s break-in period, the treadbelt may stretch.  If you notice any slippage, you may need to tighten up the rear roller.  Cheap machines are a constant headache because it tends to be very difficult to keep the belt centered—you’ll find yourself continually having to adjust the rollers.

Electronics: Each treadmill has both an upper electronics package (usually called the console) and a lower motor control board which is the brain of the treadmill and typically the most serviced part—especially on cheap models.  Today, most treadmills have hill profiles, custom program storage and user profiles which can be set up for each user in the family.  Look for at least a three-year warranty on your electronics.  If you spend over $2,000, you can even find lifetime warranties now on all components including electronics.  Now that is a great deal!