Treadmill Applications

Traditionally, treadmills are used as workout machines that promotes cardiovascular exercise as their primary function. If you’re on a treadmill for exercise, plan on being on one for a few hours a day: the Surgeon General recommends 10,000 steps a day – which is achievable in three to four hours – for optimal health.

Sometimes, people use treadmills as an indoor activity because running or walking outdoors may not be feasible (due to bad weather conditions, dangerous neighborhoods, uneven road surfaces, etc).

Some people turn to home-based treadmills because like the convenience of not having to trudge to a gym and workout in front of others. Often, home exercisers will trick out their treadmills with mounted televisions, or reading stands, even a TrekDesk, which enables students and employees to get some work done as they exercise.

So those are the customary applications of treadmills. What about the more esoteric stuff? In other words, sure, you can walk on it. But what else can it do? Turns out, treadmills can and do many other things…

Treadmills are basically conveyor belts. As such, there are many different uses that people use treadmills for, aside from running. For example, when horses are being tested in jockey racing, they’re often put on specially designed treadmills. As well, larger treadmills are used to test cars. People often exercise their leashless dogs on them.

Remember Star Trek’s holodeck? Serious research is being done to create a holodeck, and it turns out that treadmills may be the basis of one. Advanced applications of treadmills are omnidirectional treadmills, which are designed to move in two dimensions. If successful, a holodeck is within reach.

From a practical scientific perspective, treadmills are already very useful. They’re regularly used in the International Space Station by astronauts as a countermeasure against weightlessness.