Treadmills, spec me some advice!

toon_mad

toon_mad

toon_mad

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ok (skip next couple of chapters if you want to ignore the intro :p ), anyway i fubarred my knee in the summer through cycling, i will admit at the time i had only just got back into the whole fitness thing, but i stuck to it pretty good i personally felt, shifted about 2 stone in 4 month until my right knee went dodgee, doctor give no good advice other than rest for a few weeks then ride through it - which i think made it worse.

ok so since about september everything went t**s up, put weight back on, sold my hybrid as i never thought i would get back out there and now feel really low (weighing in at a embarassing 16 clem :mad: ), though to be fair some of it is muscle mass, but im not fooling anyone - its mostly fat.

i have no problems going to the gym as i have in the past, but im feeling pretty crap about myself and was looking to get a treadmill for the house so i can jump on it for a few sessions a day, and i can stick on my own tunes and not worry about looking out of place in the gym.

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now so far i have seen 3 types of treadmills:

manual (im not so sure about these - but they are a lot cheaper)
magentic (no idea if they are good or bad)
motor (same as the gym's im guessing, easy to change speed, angle etc)

Im looking to spend £150-£200, would have been upto £400 but just had to pay my rent.

any tips, what would you experts reccomend me, or advise to steer clear of?

Thanks! ;)
 
you wont get many decent treadmills for under £200.
if you have a bad knee, have you thought about a xtrainer instead?


however, i would say save your money and just get to the gym if that is the plan anyway. you will be able to use more equipment and will be in a better frame of mind when in a gym compared to home.
 
i see your point, i do get distracted easier at home then in a gym, least at the gym i know i cant escape the workouts and look like a plank.

just need to get over the anxiety issues of getting back into it all, i feel a right lump.

forgot to mention my knee isnt too bad now with running, but cycling seems impossible, which i enjoyed the most, strange how that is.

been looking for the last hour and the treadmills look rubbish, i think your right with the gym, just need to stop thinking negative about it all which seems hard at this moment in time :(
 
Treadmills - I've always found them hard on the knees. Maybe not the best fitness tool to get in your case.

Personally I do rowing for a full body low impact cardio workout, though rowing machines are expensive also. Cycling machines might be a cheaper and another low impact option.

I know this doesn't help you decide which treadmill to get, but the truth is my answer would be none of them.
 
no thats fine mate, would rather here none are no good then buy one and find they are no good.

i think im gonna have to see about getting down the gym and speak to one of the training advisors.

cheers anyway
 
I got a good quality 2nd hand one off the bay £200, used only twice according the huge overweight woman I collected it off, lol , it's a Ti21 made by Horizon & has different settings that increase the incline as you run & also change speeds according to the programme you select i.e. golf course , marathon etc. also built in fan to cool you as you run, seek one out & try your luck.

http://shop.ebay.co.uk/i.html?_nkw=...p3286.m270.l1313&_odkw=Horizon+Ti21&_osacat=0
 
toon_mad said:
no thats fine mate, would rather here none are no good then buy one and find they are no good.
Click to expand...

I'm not saying that you can't get a good enough one for your money, I'm just that if I'd hurt my knee they'd be the last piece of fitness equipment I'd be going anywhere near.

Why not pay-per-visit for a week at your nearest gym, see if you enjoy it, then sign up if you do.
 
i think thats probably best, i guess with january new year resolutions for everyone coming up aswell im probably not the only one out of shape person there
 
I know it's a bit late but I've just bought this for £495 from a place called Restyle Fitness in Wakefield - http://www.nordic-track.co.uk/webapp/wcs/stores/servlet/Product_-11_11851_12702_19006_34851

A review here - http://www.treadmill-running-machine-review.co.uk/nordictrack_C2500_treadmill_review.html

I can't tell you how good this machine is but :
It's solidly built
It's quiet
The control panel is a joy to look at and use
Brilliant programs built in and a Journal of what you've done
Built in wireless heart rate monitor
20kph & 12% electronic incline

Last night I had a 3 mile race against 4 imaginary runners that you see in the display on a 3 mile running track from above and from the side.
 
COuple things, magnetic and manual are HORRIBLE things, because they rely on you to push them and theres naturally a slowing down of your leg at the end of your stride anything without a motor will basically be jerky and constantly increase/decrease speed making it very jarring and unnatural compared to normal walking.

Motor based treadmills are where they are at, I had a cheapo crappy magnetic, got rid of that promptly, borrowed a friends low end motor one, he hated it, I hated it. I went out and got a £1400 treadmill basically as it was about to be replaced by a new model for £700, best thing I ever bought.

Having utterly terrible knee's I for years was given advice by doc's, physio's that cycling would be great as its low impact. In theory sounds great but after years of avoiding running I gave it a try and found it worked for me. Theres obviously different types of knee injury and for me a little impact is no problem, it was the bending the knee through the FULL range of motion aswell as doing it at a high frequency, not the impact, so running/walking was infinately better and a treadmill far better than road running in terms of impact.


The best advice I can give is, though you're not comftable at the gym(neither am I ) go to one a few times, when its least busy if possible I guess and try a few different machines, not hard, take it slow and see what your knee and your injury feels most comftable with.

if the treadmill is least painful to use, get a treadmill at home, if a x-trainer is better, grab one of those, if it turns out both are worse than the bike, work over time on knee strength with light squats and other leg weight exercises, strengthing the quads, calfs and support muscles helps keep your knee in better traction though thats not necessarily an issue you have. My kneecap is worn down so has trouble with popping out of its normal channel, so the stronger my leg muscles are the less it does that.


Rowing is another one that sucks, again for me it wasn't a bit of light impact but pushing the knee through its full motion repeatedly, on a bike and a rowing machine you're stretching your knee from maximum extension to maximum contraction over and over. For literally a decade I was avoiding impact exercise assuming it would be worse(as I'd be told over and over) than non impact, while doing cycling/rowing which was killing my knee's.

The other thing with knee's, is weight, I lost circa 3 stone before doing any exercise, and my knee's were massively better just from the weight loss alone, knee's don't cope well with excess weight and the majority of weight loss comes from your diet rather than exercise. It could be worth looking at the diet, trying to shift a little weight again before putting the knee under more pressure(other than a little walking).
 
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Weights that would help strengthen the knees would help too, like squats and leg press. They worked for me when I had issues with my TB band.
 
Captain Planet said:
Weights that would help strengthen the knees would help too, like squats and leg press. They worked for me when I had issues with my TB band.
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Yup, its worth getting to a well regarded physio, even for one session to get some proper advice. NHS physio's, you might find a decent one but the ones I saw all had generic info for a joint, nothing to do with an injury and hence the terrible advice.

Strengthening the knee is good advice, but if your knee pain at the moment is a ligament tear then stressing it would be the worse thing you could do till it was healed. But if its general joint pain from, not being mean, I have it to, too much weight on them, from chronic conditions, from bone damage or some other thing then thats when strengthening will help. Strengthening will help with a ligament tear aswell but ONLY after its healed.

Its worth seeing a great physio as a very good one will often be able to suggest what might be wrong with it based on where and how you get pain. A doctor will often go, oh, pain in the knee, you probably twisted it, give it some rest, because thats all a GP see's.


I've had other joint issues and other injuries over the years and have found generic advice is useless, you really have to find what works for you and workign out exactly whats wrong can help. As said, for lots of knee issues impact will hurt but moving the knee itself doesn't, for other knee issues, the reverse is true. You really need to find what works, then if you fancy buying a nice bit of kit to use at home rather than the gym, go for it. I use the treadmill at home more than I could ever motivate myself to get to the gym to use one.
 
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