TLDR: I'm considering a manual treadmill for very long sessions of brisk walking in front of my TV. My two main concerns are 1) whether the effort to push the belt might cause joint pain that I'd be more at-risk for as someone with runner's knee and 2) whether the effort both to walk at a 10 degree incline and to push the belt myself would make very long sessions unrealistic compared to my past experience with a motorized treadmill. Any advice would be appreciated.
Longer version:
A few years ago, I bought a motorized treadmill from Confidence for around $300. I would set it up in front of my TV and walk while watching movies for hours and hours, typically at a pace between 3.5 and 4 miles per hour. One Saturday I got up early and walked more than 100,000 steps in a single day. That year I lost a lot of weight.
But the treadmill also gave me a lot of problems. The belt often slipped beneath me. The motor just stopped working one day right before my 1-year warranty would have been up, and customer service put me through the ringer trying to fiddle with electronic parts that were clearly not designed to be serviced by the end user. They did eventually send me a brand new treadmill... and then that motor stopped too within a month.
I threw the broken treadmill away, and I've since gained a considerable amount of weight back. I can't run for exercise since I was diagnosed with runner's knee (chondromalacia patella) around 10 years back. There's a park about 15 minutes away that I sometimes walk to and then lap repeatedly for an hour or two while listening to podcasts. But being able to exercise at home is vitally necessary for me to be consistent. Simply being in front of a TV means I'm crossing movies and shows off my list, and I can keep working out for hours and hours without feeling bored. If I go to the park to just walk for 2 hours, that feels like I've lost 2 hours from my day; walking on a treadmill in front of the TV for 2 hours means I've done something I wanted to do with my time anyway and burned a lot of calories as a happy side effect. I need that back in my life.
I bought an exercise bike, but it becomes too uncomfortable to use for longer than an hour. It burns calories at half the rate of walking, anyway. Spinning also feels like work in a way that the natural movement of simply walking doesn't.
So I want to get a treadmill again. But I don't want to deal with the reliability issues I had with my cheap Confidence motorized treadmill. I also have limited funds and very limited space, making a more serious motorized treadmill difficult to consider. I'm thinking about picking up a manual treadmill, which would be more reliable (no motor to quit on me), inexpensive, and space efficient. Another reason for manual is that I don't want a huge spaceship control panel with exercise programs between me and my TV; I only need a simple, reliable treadmill I can briskly walk on.
The one at the top of my list right now is the ASUNA 7700 from Sunny Health & Fitness. You can see it on Amazon here.
But I have a couple of concerns. I've read that the effort required to move the belt on manual treadmills can cause wear on the joints and result in pain for people with arthritis. Chondromalacia patella is also known as 'young person's arthritis,' so I wonder if this could be an issue for me. I don't normally experience knee pain when using stairs etc. unless I have had a particularly strenuous day, though. I'm thinking/hoping that those warnings might be more for people with more serious and constant forms of arthritis.
My bigger concern is whether I could use it with the same kind of longevity I got out of my motorized treadmill. The lowest incline offered by the ASUNA 7700 is 10 degrees, so it would be more work even if I didn't have to push the belt myself. But, assuming I get used to the incline, what exactly is it like to push the belt? How much more exhausting is it? Would it be unrealistic to expect to use a manual treadmill for, say, 5+ hours at a time due to the additional effort required?
Thanks for any help you can offer.
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source https://www.reddit.com/r/loseit/comments/efpot0/looking_for_thoughts_on_manual_treadmills_for/
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