The History and Development of the Treadmill
Running machine, dreadmill, rat wheel, or whatever you call it, the treadmill is the world's most popular fitness machine. According to a 2016 survey by the Sports & Fitness Industry Association (SFIA), more than 50 million Americans alone said they'd enjoyed, or endured, using one at least once in the previous year. Not surprising then that treadmills also account for almost 40 percent of gym equipment sales in the US, according to a Washington Post report.
For a machine that was once used as a form of punishment to keep prisoners in check in 19th century Britain, this is a remarkable turnaround. It may be odd that the most popular way to keep in shape these days is a session of monotonous motion in a confined space, which not too long ago was an activity formerly used to make criminals think twice about re-offending.
Yet, these days you can't walk into a gym without being confronted by rows of machines. Still, it wasn't until the roaring 1920s and Gatsby-era girls in fetching early activewear that people started to use treadmills solely for exercise, according to a story in the Daily Mail newspaper, and it wasn't until the 1960s that the first consumer running machine appeared.
What's behind the transition from compulsory to voluntary torture machine? For some people, convenience is the treadmill's biggest lure—you can get your cardio in just a short walk from a hot shower and the water cooler. For others, a challenging climate means al fresco training is off the menu (we're looking at you Midwest winters and stifling summers in arid Arizona). Shuffling onto the rubber belt is the only option for logging some aerobic miles.
In the past decade, the familiar, motorized treadmill has even evolved into self-powered, curved, smart connected, underwater and anti-gravity variants. Some are even designed to be used with virtual reality.
But where did the name "treadmill" originate and how has this cardiovascular king conquered all? Set the belt incline to 1.5 percent, the speed to 6 and get ready for a run-through of the treadmill's colorful history.
First Steps
The treadmill's checkered past dates back to the Romans and a human hamster wheel used by workers to lift heavy weights incorporated into cranes. You didn't need an abacus to calculate that by replacing a winch with men inside a much larger wheel, you could lift double the weight with half the muscle. That meant things got built faster and more money remained in the Roman coffers.
This trend for harnessing the power of humans and animals was also popular much later on in Industrial Revolution Britain, where ambitious engineers produced such inventions as animal-powered water pumps, butter churns and of course, mills, according to the blog of the exercise equipment company, Life Fitness.
And thus the term treadmill was born.
Treadmills for Punishment
There's no mincing words, British prisons in the 1800s were extraordinarily bad places—solitary confinement was routine, food was scarce, and discipline severe. Because things were so grim activists fought for new forms of rehabilitation. In 1818, English engineer William Cubitt devised a human-powered treadmill for grinding corn. This, according to the British Library, caught the attention of the Society for the Improvement of Prison Discipline who latched onto the machine as a form of “preventive punishment." They reasoned nobody exposed to it would risk re-offending. Thereafter, treadmills were installed in jails across the land.
Convicts sentenced to hard labor climbed onto a 24-paddle stepped wheel, powering the device with continuous exertion much like the stair climber in your local gym. Some prisoners endured up to 10-hour workouts daily, climbing the equivalent of 17,000 feet—over half the height of Mount Everest, according to a BBC report.
Birth of the Cardio King
Had the Apple Watch been standard issue in Victorian prisons, perhaps wardens would have spotted the soaring heart rates. Instead, it took until 1952 for the first medical use of the treadmill to surface, according to the LifeFitness blog.
Dr. Robert Bruce of the University of Washington, developed a diagnostic test known as the Bruce Protocol, which measures a person's cardiovascular health and fitness by having them run to exhaustion on a treadmill. Still used today, this test positioned the treadmill as a way to realize cardiovascular benefits.
By then machines were motorized. Enter the first home-use treadmill: the PaceMaster 600, a kind of Zimmer frame attached to a moving yoga mat. American engineer William Staub invented it in the late 1960s. Despite Staub's insistence that the treadmill improved your physical condition and eliminated bad weather as an excuse for not running, according to his 2012 New York Times obituary, by the mid-1980s, just 2,000 of the $399 machines sold annually.
By the 1990s, the figure increased to 35,000, and now big brands with newer machines abounded. These included Life Fitness, with its 9500HR, which they claimed was 30 percent kinder to joints compared to running on concrete, according to the LifeFitness blog. Rival equipment companies born in the 1970s and 1980s, such as the American firms Icon Fitness and NordicTrack, as well as the Italian company Technogym, moved into treadmills. The running machine had reached its tipping point.
Treadmills go Tech
Going nowhere fast summarizes the treadmill experience. But when it comes to technical evolution, things accelerated at warp speed after the millennium.
LifeFitness introduced the first integrated touchscreen in 2003 closely followed by USB connectivity for popular MP3 players such as the Apple iPod. Then came treadmill desks letting you work out while you work. Even former Spice Girl Victoria Beckham was pictured in British Vogue using one in customary high heels.
Fast forward and today's treadmills from Sole, Cybex and Technogym can cost up to $15,000. These connected cardiovascular terminals incorporate everything from TV and internet access to heart rate monitors, wireless audio and activity tracker integration. Some store workout data so your personal trainer can keep an eye on you.
All these technological developments have helped athletes push themselves further and even break world records, like British ultra-marathon runner Susie Chan who, in January 2016, completed 68.54 miles in 12 hours … all on a treadmill, according to Kingston University, in London.
Future Fitness
The future of treadmills has so far focused on different designs and some weird and wonderful areas of athleticism.
Self-powered curved machines, such as the Woodway Curve, have a slatted belt with upward tilts at both ends to more naturally mimic running. Technogym's Skillmill features bars and a variable resistance belt that enables users to do drills such as walking sled pushes or sprinting to achieve a more varied workout on one machine, according to sport360.com. These treadmills include everything from fitness apps to data syncing, but because you physically power them, you attack more muscle groups — we're heading back to Victorian prisons again.
Treadmills have even gone underwater. It's not so surprising, really, since hydrotherapy is considered a gold standard when it comes to low impact, high-intensity muscle resistance. H20 For Fitness, one of the companies now making underwater treadmills, even has one for dogs.
And what about running a zero-gravity marathon in space? Yup, totally doable—so long as you are strapped down to a treadmill, of course. American astronaut Sunita Williams completed the Boston Marathon from the International Space Station in 2007, and Brit Tim Peake followed suit in 2016 by running the London Marathon in space, according to the Washington Post.
Since the ticket price to space is astronomical, the NASA-patented AlterG anti-gravity treadmill, brings the space experience to land. NASA claims that the machine offsets 80 percent of your body weight, giving earth-dwellers the same "walking on air" experience.
The result is a run much easier on the joints, which is ideal for injury rehabilitation or chronic conditions, such as multiple sclerosis. The chef Gordon Ramsay even used the $36,000 machine to recover from a soccer injury, according to the Daily Mail.
If that sounds out of this world, virtual reality treadmills like the Virtuix Omni, Cyberith Virtualizer and Kat Walk can now help you move around other universes without bumping into the dining room table as long as you're wearing a virtual reality headset. Who knows one day you could run a digital marathon from the comfort of your home, experiencing it as if you're there, something that virtual racing innovators Zwift and RunSocial are already pioneering, according to the website thestreet.com.
These cutting edge innovations are a long way from the treadmill's prison punishment past. But with sales on the up and continued reinvention, one thing seems clear: These machines with their dark past also have a bright future. Who knows, one day we might even learn to love them.Already love running on the treadmill? Inspired to give them another go? Make sure you've got the best running shoes for treadmill.
