Pictured are a row of treadmills at the Addison Athletic Club. While I am not using a treadmill right now because of my knee strain, I have used them many times in the past. You can adjust the incline and speed. If the incline is too steep, you may fall off the back. If the speed is too fast, you may fall off the back or on the side. You have to be very careful about the settings on the treadmill. I have seen people at a full sprint for what seemed to be a long period of time. I do not sprint on treadmills or anywhere else for that matter — unless a criminal/monster is chasing me. I only walk at a medium pace — not too fast and not too slow. Treadmills are good at keeping track of how many miles you have walked. My parents used to have a treadmill in the family room that was mainly used to hang clothes on while you were ironing. I am grateful my gym has a walking track and treadmills, so I can walk in air-conditioned comfort instead of the blast-furnace Texas heat. Let’s learn more about treadmills.
According to Wikipedia, a treadmill is a device generally used for walking, running or climbing while staying in the same place. Treadmills were introduced before the development of powered machines to harness the power of animals or humans to do work, often a type of mill operated by a person or animal treading the steps of a treadwheel to grind grain. In later times, treadmills were used as punishment devices for people sentenced to hard labor in prisons. The terms treadmill and treadwheel were used interchangeably for the power and punishment mechanisms.
More recently, treadmills have instead been used as exercise machines for running or walking in one place. Rather than the user powering a mill, the device provides a moving platform with a wide conveyor belt driven by an electric motor or a flywheel. The belt moves to the rear, requiring the user to walk or run at a speed matching the belt. The rate at which the belt moves is the rate of walking or running. Thus, the speed of running may be controlled and measured. The more expensive, heavy-duty versions are motor-driven, usually by an electric motor. The simpler, lighter, and less expensive versions passively resist the motion, moving only when walkers push the belt with their feet. The latter are known as manual treadmills.
Treadmills continue to be the biggest selling exercise equipment category by a large margin. As a result, the treadmill industry has hundreds of manufacturers throughout the world.
History
William Staub, a mechanical engineer, developed the first consumer treadmill for home use. Staub developed his treadmill after reading the 1968 book, “Aerobics” by Dr. Kenneth H. Cooper. Cooper's book noted that individuals who ran for eight minutes four to five times a week would be in better physical condition. Staub noticed that there were no affordable household treadmills at the time and decided to develop one for his own use during the late 1960s. His son Gerald, designed an on-off switch for the machine. He called his first treadmill the PaceMaster 600. Once finished, Staub sent his prototype treadmill to Cooper, who found the machine's first customers, including sellers of fitness equipment. Cooper has described Staub as “a pioneer in exercise — not for the athlete, but for the masses.”
Staub began producing the first home treadmills at his plant in Clifton, New Jersey, before moving production to Little Falls, New Jersey. William Staub died on July 19, 2012, at the age of 96. Interestingly, he used the treadmill until May 2012.
According to Dan Koeppel’s July 11, 2019 article “The Tortuous History of the Treadmill” in the New York Times Wirecutter, Dr. Kenneth Cooper had been an Army and Air Force physician in the 1960s, and he’d used treadmills to measure oxygen consumption and endurance in test pilots and candidates for the space program. When he left the military, he began conducting similar tests on regular patients at his Dallas clinic. In some cases, he found hidden heart problems and ended up saving lives. His initial work was controversial. The idea of stressing the hearts of healthy people was seen as reckless by some members of the medical community, who categorized the device as one that endangered human health: “They thought we were going to kill people on the treadmill,” he recalled. Instead, he said, “the treadmill became a way to determine whether somebody is sick or is going to get sick.”
Cooper’s work in detecting heart disease led to a bigger career shift. He’d always been a runner, and after completing a master’s degree in public health, he came to believe that regular exercise —specifically, the kind that got you breathing hard and raised your heart rate — could help prevent a heart attack. In 1968, Cooper published a book outlining his exercise plan. The title of the book, and the name of the form of exercise, was “Aerobics.” And his version of aerobics was centered on running.
One person who became preoccupied with running was a mechanical engineer named Bill Staub, who set a goal of running an eight-minute mile, a time Cooper had prescribed as being a standard of proof for high fitness. But Staub, who lived in New Jersey, encountered a problem that nearly all runners who lived in four-season climates faced: a wall of winter cold. The medical treadmills housed in Cooper’s clinic were never meant to be used in homes. They were huge and expensive. Some gymnasiums had similarly bulky and expensive treadmills, but they were hard to use and sapped the get-up-and-go convenience that had made simple running so popular. Gyms weren’t terribly common in the 1960s and ’70s. And where they did exist, they were mostly focused on weight lifting. What Staub wanted to do was bring that convenience indoors. In his machine shop — which had previously been dedicated to building fuel nozzles for jet engines — he cleared space and built a simple prototype: a pair of smooth wooden cylinders linked by a wide belt and powered by a motor with a simple on/off switch. That ultimately developed into a production model that featured 40 steel rollers, an orange belt and a pair of dials — one to automatically turn off the device after a set session time and the other to set the speed of the motor. Staub, in a tribute to Cooper, named his company Aerobics Inc. His treadmill was called the PaceMaster, and it cost $399 in the late 1960s which is about $2,800 in 2019 dollars.
Treadmills for power
According to Wikipedia, treadmills as power sources originated in antiquity. These ancient machines had three major types of design. The first was a horizontal bar jutting out of a vertical shaft. It rotated around a vertical axis, driven by an ox or other animal walking in a circle and pushing the bar. Humans were also used to power these. The second design was a vertical wheel — a treadwheel — that was powered by climbing in place instead of walking in circles. This is similar to what we know today as the hamster wheel. The third design also required climbing but used a sloped, moving platform instead.
Treadmills as muscle-powered engines originated roughly 4,000 years ago. Their primary use was to lift buckets of water. This same technology was later adapted to create rotary grain mills and the treadwheel crane. It was also used to pump water and power dough-kneading machines and bellows.
Treadmills for punishment
Treadmills for punishment were introduced in 1818 by an English engineer named Sir William Cubitt, who was the son of a miller. Noting idle prisoners at Bury St Edmunds jail, he proposed using their muscle power to both cure their idleness and produce useful work.
His treadmills for punishment usually rotated around a horizontal axis, requiring the user to step upwards, like walking up an endless staircase. Those punished walked around the outside of the wheel holding a horizontal handrail for stability. By the Prison Act of 1865 every male prisoner over 16, sentenced to hard labor, had to spend at least three months of his sentence in labor of the first class, which consisted primarily of the treadmill.
Punishment treadmills remained in use until the second half of the 19th century; they were typically 20-foot long paddle wheels with 24 steps around a six-foot cylinder. Several prisoners stood side-by-side on a wheel and had to work six or more hours a day, effectively climbing 5,000 to 14,000 vertical feet. While the purpose was mainly punitive, the most infamous mill at Brixton Prison was installed in 1821 and used to grind grain to supplement an existing windmill which Cubitt had previously installed nearby. It gained notoriety for the cruelty with which it was used, which then became a popular satirical metaphor for early 19th century prisons. The bottom illustration, circa 1850, shows the Surrey House of Correction; it’s now called Brixton Prison.
The machines could also be used to pump water or power ventilators in mines.
Exercise treadmills
The first U.S. patent for a treadmill "training machine" was issued on June 17, 1913.
The forerunner of the exercise treadmill was designed to diagnose heart and lung diseases and was invented by Robert Bruce and Wayne Quinton at the University of Washington in 1952. Dr. Kenneth H. Cooper's research on the benefits of aerobic exercise, published in 1968, provided a medical argument to support the commercial development of the home treadmill and exercise bike.
Among users of treadmills today are medical facilities (hospitals, rehabilitation centers, medical and physiotherapy clinics and institutes of higher education), sports clubs, biomechanics institutes, orthopedic shoe shops, running shops, Olympic training centers, universities, fire-training centers, NASA, test facilities, police forces and armies, gyms and even home users.
Treadmill ergometers are now mainly motor-driven. Most treadmills have a running deck with a rotating belt. Before and after the running deck, there are two shafts. The belt is stretched between the shafts and the running deck.
Medical treadmills are class IIb active therapeutic devices and also active devices for diagnosis. With their very powerful — e.g., 3.3 kW = 4.5 HP — electric motor-powered drive systems, treadmills deliver mechanical energy to the human body through the moving running belt of the treadmill. The subject does not change their horizontal position and is passively moved and forced to catch up with the running belt underneath their feet. The subject can also be attached in a safety harness, unweighting system, various supports or even fixed in and moved with a robotic orthotic system utilizing the treadmill.
Medical treadmills are also active measuring devices. When connected through an interface with ECG, ergospirometry, blood pressure monitor or EMG, they become a new medical system — e.g., stress test system or cardiopulmonary rehabilitation system — and can also be equipped to measure VO₂ max and various other vital functions.
Most treadmills have a "cardio mode," where a target heart rate is defined and the speed and elevation or load is controlled automatically until the subject is in "heart rate steady state." So, the treadmill is delivering mechanical energy to the human body based on the vital function or heart rate of the subject.
A medical treadmill which is also used for ergometry and cardiopulmonary stress test ,as well as performance diagnostics, is always a class IIb medical device either when used as a stand-alone device in a medical environment or when used in connection with an ECG, EMG, ergospirometry or blood pressure monitoring device.
On the running deck the subject moves, adapting to the adjustable speed of the belt. The running deck is usually mounted on damping elements, so the running deck has shock-absorbing characteristics. A lifting element raises the entire frame including the running deck, simulating a pitch angle for uphill running. Some treadmills can also reverse the running belt to simulate downhill loads. Most treadmills for professional use in the fitness area have table sizes of about 59 inches long and 20 inches wide, a speed range of about 0–12 mph and slope angle of 0-20%.
For athletes, larger and more stable treadmills are necessary. With some weight relief, sprinters reach temporary speeds of up to 28 mph and must therefore run on a large deck of up to 120 inches in length and up to 39 inches in width. With high physical exertion and an increased risk of falling, a fall stop unit is required to prevent the subject or patient from falling. This fall stop device usually takes the form of a safety arch to which a line is attached to an electrical switch. A harness bears the subject, preventing them from falling and shutting down the running belt if necessary.
In some offices, employees are provided with treadmill desks, so that employees can walk while working on a computer or speaking on the phone.
In treatment centers, treadmills are used with built-in seats left and right for therapists, for example, so the therapists can move the legs of a stroke patient to simulate walking movements and help them learn to walk again. This is called manual locomotion therapy.
Oversized treadmills are also used for cycling at speeds up to 50 mph, for wheelchair users and in special applications with sturdy running belts for cross-country skiing and biathlon, where athletes perform training and testing exercises with roller skis on a running deck of up to 180 inches × 120 inches.
Other uses
As it is basically a conveyor belt, the treadmill can be used for activities other than running. If horses are being tested — especially in jockey racing — they will be put on a specially constructed treadmill. Large treadmills can also accommodate cars. Treadmills can also be used to exercise dogs that are accustomed to running on a conveyor; however, tying the leash to the treadmill should be avoided as it can cause serious injury.
Underwater treadmill
Underwater treadmills are a type of treadmill encased in glass or plastic and filled with water to a point where the occupant is partially submerged. They are used for both humans and animals, often for physical therapy.
Dog/pet and underwater pet treatment treadmills are available for both home and clinical use. A variety of makes and models are available, but key features of treadmills designed for pet use include a longer running surface, open front and back entries and side rails to prevent the pet from falling off the treadmill. None are designed to be used without human supervision. Many veterinary and animal rehabilitation clinics also offer underwater treadmill therapy as part of their services provided to clients' pets.
Omnidirectional treadmill
An omnidirectional treadmill or ODT is a mechanical device, similar to a typical treadmill, that allows a person to perform locomotive motion in any direction, allowing for 360 degrees of movement. The ability to move in any direction is how these treadmills differ from their basic counterparts that permit only unidirectional locomotion. Omnidirectional treadmills are employed in immersive virtual environment implementations to allow unencumbered movement within the virtual space.
Advantages to pairing an ODT with an immersive virtual environment include:
- Natural navigational movement of the system user within the enclosure while still providing
contextual cueing which simulates physical traversal through the virtual terrain,
- Reverting immersive navigation tasks from hand-based with a mouse or joystick to mentally
hard-wired whole body- or leg-based.
- Enhancing immersion by providing a whole-body experience that begins at the soles of the
feet and ends at the top of the head.
- Facilitating whole-body haptic or 3D-touch interaction.
Parallel developments are being conducted by researchers working on projects sponsored by the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs to create virtual reality environments for a wheelchair trainer in order to promote therapeutic exercise.
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