Pro-Fitness Value Treadmill

I bought this treadmill because I wanted to learn to run - obviously! I suppose that before really going into the details on what this machine is like, I should probably tell you about my own personal fitness levels beforehand. First of all, I am not overweight and so was not buying it for weight reasons - my BMI is actually right on the border between underweight and ideal. I'm not a stranger to exercise and am a gymnastics and horse riding teacher ...
...running. My original plan was to run outside, but it was cold and it was embarassing, plus I had absolutely no idea how far or how fast I was running. Next step was to join the gym, but by the time I had walked to the gym I generally concluded that I had gone enough distance that there was no longer any point, and had to really force myself to actually go!

My next step was to take a look at treadmills. In general it seemed like treadmills ... more

I bought this treadmill because I wanted to learn to run - obviously! I suppose that before really going into the details on what this machine is like, I should probably tell you about my own personal fitness levels beforehand. First of all, I am not overweight and so was not buying it for weight reasons - my BMI is actually right on the border between underweight and ideal. I'm not a stranger to exercise and am a gymnastics and horse riding teacher (not at the same time!), however I AM new to running. My original plan was to run outside, but it was cold and it was embarassing, plus I had absolutely no idea how far or how fast I was running. Next step was to join the gym, but by the time I had walked to the gym I generally concluded that I had gone enough distance that there was no longer any point, and had to really force myself to actually go!

My next step was to take a look at treadmills. In general it seemed like treadmills cost thousands of pounds, the exception being manual ones which I didn't really understand the point of, as if I wanted to just jog on the spot there was nothing to stop me from doing that already! Finally we noticed this Value treadmill. At £200 it was quite significantly cheaper from a lot of the other models. Despite this it had many of the same stats as the pricier models and it was hard to see any sort of difference between them aside from the obvious price. Despite this, as it was SO much cheaper, myself and my mother were both very wary of buying it, with me convinced that it would break in two the first time one of us used it. After about two weeks of considering it, we finally gave in and bought it.

Setting up the treadmill was quite easy, although you do need at least two people. For the most part everything is connected already, it's just a matter of adding on the random small parts and actually standing it up. Once you figure out what you need to do it's easy enough, but initially we had trouble working out what the diagram was talking about and where exactly a certain part was - but this is a problem with most manuals!

This is a good sized treadmill, and before buying it please actually take a look at the size of it! It really is as long as the treadmills you'd find in the gym. We looked at the dimensions of it online but to be honest the figures didn't really mean much to us. However, once it's actually taking up the entirity of your living room, they become a lot more meaningful! It literally takes up half of the living room for us, which is ironic as we wanted it so we could stick it in front of the TV, but it takes up too much room for us to be able to face that way and so at the moment it faces out the window. On a brighter note though, as annoying as the length is for where you want to place it, it is obviously very good for when you're actually running on it, as there are no worries about stretching out too much when you run on it and accidentally jumping off the back of it! It's also extremely sturdy, which was our biggest worry when getting a value treadmill. It's a big, heavy machine which I feel very safe on, it's very solid and doesn't wobble about at all when you use it - again, it literally feels as if you were using a gym machine.

Whilst the treadmill itself is nice and sturdy, the screen selection is just as good. The screen itself displays calories, distance ran, speed, heart rate and time. It has nice big buttons allowing you to change the speed etc. As well as this there are two handles at the side, one of which allows you to start it and stop it, and one which allows you to change the speed. This is a great feature as they are very easy to reach. As with the gym treadmills, it has a little clip that you can clip onto your shirt to cause an emergency stop if you happen to fall off it. This does work, though because I like to run quite a bit further back than I'm probably supposed to I have a habit of accidentally pulling it out all the time, so most of the time I don't actually use it. The only thing the screen is really missing is a pause button, as it's quite annoying to notice that my shoe is becoming loose and having to stop it and start all over again. I have found that it seems to pick my heart rate somewhat randomly - it always gives me the exact same figure, no matter what I've been doing. But in fairness, even the giant machines at the gym can very rarely find my heart beat, so I appreciate it for pretending it can! It reads my mum's just fine, so I assume that it's just me.

The treadmilll does fold up and is advertised as such. Basically the actual treadmill can be lifted and secured to be right up against the top screens. It's a bit ominous at first when you screw it in place and we were constantly convinced that it was going to randomly fall down and kill the dog, but it's been a few months now and we are almost entirely confident in it's ability to not randomly murder passers by. Seriously, it is very secure, but it's hard not to be a little wary when you see the sheer size of it staring down at you. Though it does have wheels, it's quite difficult to move, especially with just one person. While technically it can be done, we never bother because it's too much hassle and just leave it exactly where it is.

So, let's get on to the running itself. As mentioned already, it's easy to set it up how you want it, it's very sturdy and it feels completely safe to use it. It also comes with 18 set programs with quite a bit of variety between them. It's easy to set it up to the program you want to run on, and then if you'd like you can adjust it further like change the length of time the program goes on for. Then you hit start and leave it to do it's own thing! My personal favourite is a program that varies two minutes top speed running with one minute of a slow walk over and over again, whereas my mother likes a program that slowly moves up to a fast walk and back down to a steady pace again. I've found the programs are quite helpful for when I am losing interest with the running as until you get used to one it can be quite unexpected. On the previously mentioned setting that causes it to vary between a slow walk and different speeds of running I tend to live in fear every single time the beep to signify it's about to change speed goes off! Other settings you can go with are the obvious ones like having it stop after a certain amount of minutes, etc. It has a great variety of programs, although it does not allow you to create your own as some more expensive models do - but it's easy enough to just change the speeds yourself!

Getting more technical - this treadmill measures in km/h, and goes up to 12 km/h.

Overall I am happy with this treadmill, especially for the price we got it at! Despite the 'value' in the name and the cheap price tag, this is an extremely good, solid and reliable machine which we have had no issues with. Really the only way we can fault it is because of how big it is, but that's actually a good thing and completely our fault for not measuring the room first. I would definitley recommend it. Though it doesn't go up to the speed the machines in the gym go to, I'd imagine 12 km/h is more than enough for most people - and doesn't require a £10,000 price tag, which is always nice! Aside from not quite reaching those speeds, I've found everything else about it to be up to exactly the same standards as a regular gym treadmill, and definitley equal to other pricier home treadmills.

 

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