4 Wacky Treadmill Innovations -- Will They Catch On?

There are a lot of cool — and downright wacky — treadmill innovations coming out these days. We decided to take a minute to look at four of them: the anti gravity treadmill, underwater treadmill, treadmill desk, and the treadmill bed.nnAnti-Gravity TreadmillnnHands down, the anti-gravity treadmill is the most amusing thing you’ll see in a treadmill concept, but unlike the other three we’ll review here, this one isn’t a joke: long distance runners are training with it and have made remarkable improvements in their times. It is also being used by professional sports teams to shorten the recovery time of injured players.nnIt works like this: The user puts on a pair of compression shorts which are made of thin neoprene material and resemble cycling shorts. The treadmill is inside a bubble containment unit. The user enters the chamber, the chest and head remain above or outside the top of the bubble. Air is pumped in and the Alter-G anti-gravity treadmill uses this air pressure to give the user the feeling they weigh up to 20 percent lighter. You feel lighter and can work out longer without getting tired. Your endurance improves and you can train 10-20% more in miles every week because the stress and fatigue on your muscles and frame is greatly reduced.nnVerdict: Thumbs up on this machine. If you are training for the Olympics and your organization can pop for the $75,000 price tag, as Nike says, “Just Do It.”nnUnderwater TreadmillnnAnd now for something completely different: an underwater treadmill. This contraption looks more like something Houdini would have dreamed up: it’s a see-through glass aquarium in which the user stands on a treadmill with a water level that covers the legs up to the knees, or as high as the waist. The user can control the water depth, belt speed, and jet resistance to increase the workout.nnTalk about wacky treadmill innovations! Water exercises are great for rehabilitation because combining weightlessness while working flexing the joints of the body is beneficial. People have been walking around the shallow end of swimming pools to help combat circulatory troubles and diabetes for years. But in this case you will want to weigh the steep price tag, about $70,000, against the cost of getting a regular treadmill and hiring a contractor to build a small swimming pool in your back yard.nnVerdict: Will the underwater treadmill catch on? No, not even if you’re super-rich. The cons are that one could suffer a stroke and fall in the tank and drown; or worse, have a child drown in this thing. Or the glass could crack and leak all that water over your basement’s carpet or floor. It also has to refill and dump water like a huge bath tub for each session so it’s hardly environmentally friendly. But the number one reason not to buy an underwater treadmill: you do the same treadmill simulation exercises in the 3’ end at a public pool. Thumbs down.nnTreadmill DesknnThe sitting treadmill desk is exactly what you picture it to be: a treadmill belt attached to a chair and a table-top workstation. A second version is the Walkstation which allows you to stand up and work on a laptop, or do whatever it is you do, while you move your feet and “walk” the belt. Somehow, writing financial reports while exercising just doesn’t seem to be a good mix.nnBasically, this is the ultimate in treadmill innovations for the multi-taker who wants to spend $6,500 on an inferior treadmill … and then attached to an over-priced desk. nnVerdict: How do you concentrate while writing an important paper? Or keep from breathing heavy into the phone during a sales pitch? We can see using a treadmill desk for occasional use, say while watching online videos and reading news and blogs, but not for working. With the Walkstation, there’s no place to sit down, unless you put a chair on the belt at the desk, and how stupid does that look? And for the sitting treadmill, your legs are going through some motions but your butt is still carrying the weight of your body. Walking is a load-bearing exercise; sitting is sitting. We all are attracted to the notion of combining work with play but these desk treadmill innovations are a joke. Thumbs way down.nnTreadmill BednnThis contraption has the same basic flaw as the treadmill desk; the legs and trunk muscles don’t shoulder any weight during the “working out.” The treadmill bed was designed as for physical therapy for the morbidly obese or those with muscular atrophy. nnThis is a bed that can be hydraulically inclined to allow the patient to achieve a full standing position without exertion or leaving the bed. The drawback is that the entire contraption is L-shaped: the treadmill stands erect at the foot of the bed when not in use, and the bed then provides full upright support when the treadmill is on the floor and the bed is in the air.nnVerdict: Doesn’t the bedding tumble down on top of the patient? Isn’t it uncomfortable to be strapped in? We can imagine lots of problems with this thing, but since we don’t work in rehab hospitals we can’t comment on the issues with patient assistance should there be a power outage, hydraulics failure, or medical emergency. As far as treadmill innovations go, this one is a cautious thumbs sideways if it shows it has a useful purpose for the segment of society needing specialized PT. n