The Best Treadmill for 2020

 The Best Treadmill

If you’re going to run or walk on a treadmill, the best-case scenario is that the machine serves up minimal distractions: You don’t forget you’re on a treadmill, but it shouldn’t remind you at every step, either. After walking and running more than 50 miles on 16 treadmills, we think the ProForm 505 CST is the best choice for people who are looking for a sturdy, no-frills treadmill. Its interface is the easiest to navigate of all the treadmills we tested. Its belt is 55 inches long—enough space for all but the tallest runners. It has speed and incline functions that are comparable to those of treadmills twice the price, and it offers 18 workout programs, features that a treadmill that costs any less usually lacks.

ProForm 505 CST

The ProForm 505 CST has all the features most people need in a treadmill, yet it’s also one of the least expensive models we considered. The machine goes up to 10 miles per hour, inclines up to 10 percent, and has a speedy motor that allows you to adjust those settings much faster than on some of its pricier competitors. It feels sturdy underfoot, even at max incline and speed. The ProForm 505 CST comes with 18 interval training programs, and the buttons in the interface are intuitively laid out. The console has two large water-bottle holders, and two media shelves and an integrated tablet holder let you easily read or watch a device while you work out. The belt is 55 inches long and the weight capacity is 325 pounds, specs that accommodate most walkers and runners. (If you are an especially tall runner, namely over 6 feet, look to our upgrade pick.) The warranty lasts 10 years for the frame, one year for the parts (including the motor), and one year for labor. Like the belts on nearly all the treadmills we tested, the belt on the 505 CST folds up to save a small amount of floor space when the machine is not in use.

ProForm Smart Pro 2000

The ProForm Smart Pro 2000 reaches a top speed of 12 miles per hour—2 miles per hour faster than our top pick—and has a maximum incline grade of 15 percent (compared with our pick’s 10 percent). Unlike our pick, it also has decline capabilities (down to -3 percent). Its 3.5-continuous-horsepower motor surpasses that of our top pick by 1 horsepower. This treadmill offers 50 preset programs and, depending on which store you buy from and the promotions that retailer is running, it comes with a one- to three-year subscription to the workout-streaming platform iFit. The uncomplicated console situates buttons to quickly adjust speed and incline under the 7-inch color touchscreen. You’ll find buttons for start and stop, as well as for increasing or decreasing speed and adjusting incline or decline by smaller increments. The Smart Pro 2000 has two commodious water-bottle holders, a foot-long panel above its two fans for media, and an elevated tablet holder above the console. At 60 inches, the belt is 5 inches longer than our top pick’s and offers a bit more room to stride for taller runners; the belt’s 22-inch width (2 inches wider than that of the 505 CST and several of the other treadmills we tested) opens things up nicely. The treadmill accommodates up to 300 pounds, whereas our top pick accommodates up to 325 pounds. Manufactured by the same brand as our top pick, the Smart Pro 2000 has nearly the same warranty, consisting of 10-year frame, two-year parts (including motor), and one-year labor coverage. This treadmill folds up easily, too. 

Who should get a treadmill?

If you go to the gym regularly to use a treadmill, having your own would save commute time and perhaps money. If you have an established walking or running habit but the area where you live has variable or frequently bad weather, a treadmill could be a convenient alternative to the great outdoors. If you are recovering from an injury and need to be in control of surrounding variables while rehabbing, a treadmill can be a great tool. If you want to run while blasting the Taylor Swift discography and performing air guitar moves without risking an auto collision or strange looks, a treadmill may well be your only hope.

But if you have not yet started walking or running regularly, hold off before investing several hundred dollars into a piece of equipment, advised the experts we spoke to. Although fitness equipment is often sold (and purchased) under the pretense that it can transform the body and mind, “there’s no magic machine that’s going to fix everything,” said running coach Elizabeth Corkum. “I think for most people, it makes sense to start running at a gym or outside and see if they like it.” Having goals will help you more than the mere fact of owning a spendy piece of equipment, said sports psychologist Jonathan Fader: “At a core level, what is the reason that you want to get in shape? What will it give you?”

It’s all too easy for a treadmill to become an expensive coat rack. According to one estimate, 40 percent of home gym equipment isn’t used as often as the buyer expected it would be. The most important part of buying a treadmill isn’t any specific feature of the treadmill: It’s knowing yourself.

If you do welcome a treadmill into your home, prepare your environs for the new addition. If you have small kids or pets, make sure you have space to place the treadmill in a separate room (or sectioned-off area) so they can’t injure themselves while it’s running. Berkeley Wellness, a University of California Berkeley educational blog, advises keeping a treadmill behind a locked door even when it’s off. Wherever you put the treadmill, for your safety you should maintain several feet of clearance behind the machine as well as a couple of feet in front and to each side, said Harry Pino, an exercise physiologist at NYU Langone Medical Center.

Finally, treadmills can be a pain to set up and get working. You have to schedule a special delivery window, move very heavy boxes to the right spot in your house (you will need more than one person), and then assemble the contents (or pay someone to do so). Nearly every treadmill we’ve looked at sometimes arrives with broken parts or components that break within a few months of use, reviews suggest. In our case, two out of the 16 treadmills we tested needed fixing within a week. It’s not uncommon for treadmills to have a rating below five stars on Amazon because of lemon parts. For this reason, we selected treadmills with excellent warranties.

How we picked

The best treadmill for your home gym isn’t necessarily the same as the best treadmill for your local YMCA or Crunch Fitness branch. That said, we looked at both residential treadmills, of which there are plenty of options under $1,000, and commercial ones, which are generally more expensive and built with ultra-sturdy frames to handle being used day in and day out. “The home versions tend to have a softer frame,” said NYU exercise physiologist Harry Pino. “You’ll see a lot of plastic.” That’s normally fine for typical home use, though we found that an increasing number of treadmills made for use at home feature sturdier frames and stronger materials more commonly seen on commercial models.

If you want a treadmill with advanced features such as a belt that goes 12 miles per hour, decline capability, a touchscreen display, onboard content, and basic connectivity, you can find both home and commercial models that fit the bill. Though these features are not necessary for everyone, they are gaining traction as connected fitness—streamed, on-demand workouts done at home— continues to gain popularity.

We wanted a treadmill that had a belt length of at least 55 inches, the minimum that’s generally recommended for runners 6 feet tall and under. For our most recent round of testing in late 2019, all of the treadmills we tried had an advertised belt length of 60 inches, a length that works well for those over 6 feet tall (our experts recommend it for taller people with longer strides), as well as everyone else. If you’re a walker, you can get away with a shorter belt—just keep in mind that shorter, cheaper treadmills tend to have bare-bones incline features and may not serve you as fully as a more robust offering.

A good treadmill inclines at gradients from just short of flat to pretty steep. This feature allows you to mimic the stress of exercise on hilly terrain as well as to do interval work, which is beneficial for varying your training to help you reach speed goals and for keeping your daily exercise interesting. Form is key: “This means running tall and not hunching over too much,” said Roberto Mandje, senior manager of training and education at New York Road Runners. “A slight forward lean into the grade is acceptable, but that lean should come from the center of the chest, not the waist.” The least-expensive residential treadmills typically have just one or two incline settings. Although one of these treadmills might be a fine starting point for light walkers, a machine that offers variety may be more useful in the long run.

Some treadmills can also decline, which adds another type of terrain to your training. Four of the machines we tested in 2019 offer downhill grades, anywhere from -2 percent to -6 percent (on a treadmill billed as a dedicated incline trainer). Descent on a treadmill isn’t necessary, but it can add some all-important variety to a program. Using the decline setting requires a similar focus on form as climbing. “It’s important to run tall and make sure that your torso is centered and above your legs,” said Mandje. “People [often] run downhill and lean back far too much. When you do that, you apply the [brakes] and heel strike, which can lead to shin, knee, and hip pain.”

Adequate speed is important for a treadmill, and all models that offer a substantial range of inclines go up to at least 10 mph. That’s the equivalent of a six-minute mile; unless you’re a seasoned athlete, it’s a pace you’d have trouble sustaining for more than a minute or two. All of the treadmills we most recently tested go up to 12 mph (a five-minute mile), which may be necessary for doing some serious track and interval-based workouts.

We wanted our treadmill pick to come with interval programs that vary speed and incline and keep exercise interesting. Luckily, just about all of them do.

Most treadmill motors are measured in continuous horsepower, which is the power a motor can sustain over time. The more horsepower a motor has, the faster it is at switching speeds and inclines, at least in theory. (Motor horsepower doesn’t always correlate with a smoother run.) Adding a few extra seconds to a mile time doesn’t matter much for most people, though you shouldn’t have to wait forever for your machine to go from 0 to 6 mph. For the average jogger, Pino recommends a motor of 3 horsepower or more, which is somewhat in the middle of what’s available. The motors of the treadmills we most recently tested ranged from 3.25 continuous horsepower to 4 continuous horsepower.

The decks of treadmills vary in springiness. If the description includes language like “flexdeck” or “cushioning” (as the descriptions do for virtually all the treadmills we considered), the treadmill is on the bouncier side. “Not all treadmills are equal, but most will have a sweet spot: generally the center of the treadmill is where the most give or bounce is,” said Mandje. It’s commonly thought that a softer running or walking surface helps prevent injuries. But there’s no research showing that’s the case. Hardcore runners tend to prefer a firmer running surface, said Pino, because it’s closer to the surface that they run on outside.

Ideally, we wanted a treadmill that had large water-bottle holders and a media shelf. The advantage of running in place versus outdoors is that you get to have water, a tablet, a book, a magazine, or your phone on display (or within reach).

We didn’t set out to find a treadmill that could fold and flip up vertically when not in use. Even a folded treadmill still commands enough real estate and attention that you’ll have to dedicate a significant chunk of a room to the machine. But folding treadmills are common: The decks of all but one model we considered allow you to stow them.

The stated weight capacity for residential treadmills (and inexpensive commercial models) is typically 300 to 325 pounds; all the treadmills we tested accommodate at least this much weight. Treadmills with higher weight capacities tend to be more expensive and have much shorter belts, as they are designed more for walking. Treadmills that accommodate weights over 400 pounds are rare.

We also considered connectivity—the ability to export workout data, sync to wireless headphones, or stream content. During our testing, we found tracking treadmill workouts with a wearable fitness tracker generally preferable to exporting workout data to a companion app from the equipment itself. Among treadmills that offered connectivity, we looked for those that communicated with popular health and fitness tracking apps (such as Apple Health, Fitbit, and MyFitnessPal).

Connectivity is a growing trend, but it isn’t everything when it comes to a quality treadmill. “On one hand, there’s a growing subset of at-home fitness enthusiasts that are more and more obsessed by technology the same way we see in many other categories,” said Justin Mastine-Frost, contributor to TreadmillReviews.net and editor-in-chief of FitRated. (FitRated may earn an affiliate commission on purchases made through its site.) “On the other hand, there’s still a healthy market segment that ascribe to the less-is-more mentality with fitness equipment. Because these shoppers view their treadmill as a long-term investment, they’re opting for simpler units with stronger motors, more sturdy frames, and more low-tech consoles. The belief [is] that the treadmill will easily outlast its warranty, and less tech means less risk of failure and associated repair costs.”

How we tested

We had a team of professionals assemble the majority of our treadmills on-site to ensure that they would be properly put together. The others either arrived fully assembled or were put together by a member of Wirecutter’s operations team.

We had five testers compare nine treadmills for the first iteration of this guide in 2017, and in late 2019 we tested another seven treadmills with seven new testers, including novice runners and members of The New York Times Run Club. (The New York Times is Wirecutter’s parent company.) Each tester spent time with the treadmills running and walking. Ingrid Skjong, the author of the second version of this guide, ran at least a mile on all seven treadmills, after which we focused our subsequent mileage on those that stood out in both features and feel. The testers and Ingrid logged some miles at a 5K-race pace, some at a leisurely walking pace while chatting or listening to episodes of Fresh Air, and many at intervals in between. Ingrid also tried several streamed workouts on the treadmills that featured onboard content.

We took notes on how the treadmills felt underfoot. Some were bouncier than others. Some had belts that felt more slippery or footrests on the sides of the belt with no tread. One quickly eliminated machine jerked back and forth as it moved.

We also conducted speed tests after testers pointed out that some treadmills felt like they took forever to rev up to even a modest jogging pace. We started the treadmills and timed how long they took to get to 6 mph and then to 10 mph. This wasn’t a very accurate test; most treadmills show the speed you’ve just asked them to go, not the speed they’re actually going, so it was hard for us to tell precisely when a treadmill had reached 6 mph. (We went by ear for most, listening for when it sounded as though the treadmill had reached the target speed.) Combined with our own observations, this test still provided a useful metric. The treadmills that lagged behind in the speed tests weren’t necessarily models with weaker motors or lower prices.

We measured the belt width, belt length, and arm length of the treadmills. We found (unsurprisingly) that the advertised measurements didn’t always match up exactly with the actual measurements, and that even a difference of an inch in the width of the treadmill could make a machine feel more cramped.

We folded the tread of each machine up and down several times. Almost all the pricier ones were easy to lift, thanks to hydraulic assistance. They also clicked securely in an upright position without much trouble. The least expensive of the bunch required bearing the whole weight of the deck and pulling a pin into place to keep it secure. If you would have trouble lifting a heavy box of books onto a shelf by yourself, you may have trouble folding and unfolding a less-expensive treadmill, too.

As a treadmill owner, you may have to adjust the belt from time to time so that it stays in the center. You’ll find a pair of screws at the end of the machine, close to the floor, that control the position of the belt; turning them with a hex wrench (often included with the machine) shifts the belt left or right. On some treadmills, these bolts are easy to see and access, whereas on others we had to poke the key through a small hole and jab it around for several minutes until it finally found the bolt.

We paid attention to the noise of the treadmills. Though all of them were loud—you couldn’t keep a baby’s bassinet next to any of them, for example, and expect things to go well—some were whinier or produced louder footfall noises than others. Some made annoyingly shrill or loud sounds, which we could often turn down or off, when they were turning on or gearing up.

When a treadmill had a fan, we turned it on at full blast for some of our runs. Most treadmill fans are small and poorly positioned. If a fan with real cooling capabilities is important to you, consider a portable option such as the Vornado 630, a nice pick for a home gym because of its small size; it blows at over 17 mph.

Our pick: ProForm 505 CST

The ProForm 505 CST has all the features you need in a treadmill and costs about half as much as many other treadmills we considered. The interface is easy and pleasant to use, whether you’re a walker or a runner, and the belt is relatively quiet. The machine inclines to 10 percent, goes as fast as 10 mph (the equivalent of a six-minute mile, about twice as fast as a leisurely jogging pace), and offers 18 interval programs. That’s enough for a difficult workout for most runners. This treadmill doesn’t offer a decline mode, a touchscreen, or connectivity features such as the ability to sync wireless earphones or upload workouts to a third-party app. It does support an optional iFit subscription.

The ProForm 505 CST goes from 0 to 6 mph in under 15 seconds and shifts from 6 mph to 10 mph in about 10 seconds even though it has a 2.5-horsepower motor, which is less powerful than what you’ll find in some of the competition.

The console features two large water-bottle holders, an integrated tablet holder, and two media shelves, one beneath the display and one above it. The lower one is well placed to support a magazine or a device; the upper shelf can also support a device and is a good place to stow a phone, headphones, or a small snack.

The 5-inch backlit display is simple, showing you distance, speed (in miles per hour), calories, and time. It is not a touchscreen. One tester noted that although the ProForm 505 CST is not as fancy as some of the competition, it is more approachable.

The buttons are laid out logically. Preset buttons for incline and speed are in increments of 1, up to 10, unlike on some treadmills we considered, which skip numbers or don’t offer presets that reach the machine’s maximum incline or speed. Arrow buttons at the bottom of the console allow you to adjust the incline and speed further (say, to an incline of 2.7 percent or to 6.2 mph).

Pressing the stop button once pauses the workout, a logical feature that not all treadmills have. This allows you to take a break to stretch, answer the phone, or check on a kid or pet without losing track of the overall distance you’ve covered and the time you’ve spent running.

The belt of this ProForm model folds up, saving you a small amount of space when you aren’t using it. As with all folding treadmills we tested, folding reduces the floor space by about 50 percent, but the machine is still an eyesore in a living room.

The treadmill has a weight capacity of 325 pounds, which is on the higher end of treadmills under $1,000. It measures 36½ inches wide by 73½ inches deep by 61 inches high. It comes with a 10-year frame warranty, a one-year parts warranty (motor included), and a one-year labor warranty.

You’ll find speakers on the ProForm 505 CST, as on many treadmills we tested. Even at top volume, built-in treadmill speakers don’t drown out the sound of your feet pounding on the deck, but they can be useful if you need to be aware of sounds in your house but still want to listen to music.

“I’m impressed by its quality...very secure, doesn’t seem to shake too much with impact,” notes one Amazon reviewer. “This treadmill is an excellent buy. We were hoping for a no-frills, solid value machine, and we got it,” writes another. TreadmillReviews.net agrees that the ProForm 505 CST is a bargain: “[T]hat’s a great price from a reputable brand.”

Upgrade pick: ProForm Smart Pro 2000

If you’d like a longer belt (60 inches compared with our pick’s 55), decline options, a color touchscreen, or integrated connectivity features, we recommend the ProForm Smart Pro 2000.

Our testers appreciated the simple console, which is similar in layout to that of our top pick, though the buttons on the Smart Pro 2000 are slightly larger. The intuitive placement of key elements also pleased our panel: Its two commodious water bottle holders are in just the right place, and the buttons that quickly control speed and incline are situated horizontally under the 7-inch color touchscreen. The crisp, clear display shows standard data such as incline, calories burned, time elapsed, and pace. It measures distance to hundredths of a mile (a detail several of our testers appreciated), not just to tenths of a mile as on most of the models we tested, including our top pick. It shows progress in the form of quarter-mile laps.

A foot-long panel above the Smart Pro 2000’s pair of two-speed fans can house a book, a magazine, or a tablet. The elevated tablet holder (which our top pick also has), located above the console, holds a device (7½ inches wide at maximum, essentially the width of an iPad) for watching Netflix, streaming YouTube, or listening to podcasts.

The longer, 60-inch belt offers taller runners a bit more room to stride; its 22-inch width (2 inches wider than the belts on several of the other treadmills we tested) opens things up nicely. In our tests, the deck felt smooth and responsive underfoot but not particularly springy. The Smart Pro 2000 hits a top speed of 12 miles per hour (the equivalent of a five-minute mile), which is handy for both very fast runners and those wanting to work quick-paced intervals into their training. (Our top pick tops out at 10 miles per hour.) To assess the muscle of the Smart Pro 2000’s 3.5-continuous-horsepower motor, we tested how long it took to go from 0 to 6 miles per hour and found that it outpaced its competitors by several seconds. (Granted, this test wasn’t scientific, but it did give us an idea of a machine’s pickup.)

In addition to offering a fairly standard maximum incline of 15 percent (as compared with the ProForm 505 CST’s 10 percent), the Smart Pro 2000 declines to -3 percent. A decline isn’t a necessity on a treadmill, but it does offer some diversity in grade.

The machine has 50 preset programs at the ready, focusing on incline, high-intensity intervals, and calorie burn. Only the LifeSpan Fitness TR4000i and the NordicTrack Commercial 1750—two notable competitors—had as many (if not a few more). Our top pick offers 18.

This treadmill comes with a one-year subscription to iFit, the workout-streaming platform owned by Icon Health & Fitness, parent company of both ProForm and NordicTrack. (Our top pick is iFit ready, though a subscription is optional and does not come with the machine.) The subsequent subscription fee is $15 a month (a family subscription, which allows for up to five logins, is $40 a month). This feature is not for everyone. Connected fitness, however, continues to gain popularity, streaming trainer-led workouts into homes via high-tech fitness equipment. We think the iFit programming is worth a look if you’re after well-produced workout content to help you get through your treadmill time, to assist you in training for a 5K, or to motivate you to keep moving. 

iFit workouts are filmed in a studio or on location; we took advantage of the Smart Pro 2000’s color touchscreen and tried several, including a run through Almannagjá Gorge in Iceland and a hike in Lake Tahoe. (You can also create a customized route using Google Maps.) Speed and incline adjust automatically, which is freeing. The 7-inch touchscreen is on the small side for this type of screen-based fitness experience, but we found we were able to watch our workouts fine.

If you choose not to deploy iFit, the Smart Pro 2000 remains a highly capable treadmill without it. There is no option to connect wireless Bluetooth headphones to the treadmill so that you can listen to a workout through them. You can stream your own audio (via an auxiliary input port, not wireless Bluetooth) through the treadmill’s two 3-inch speakers.

The Smart Pro 2000 is on the larger side, measuring 39 inches wide by 79 inches deep by 71 inches tall. (That’s 2½ inches wider, 5½ inches deeper, and 10 inches higher than the ProForm 505 CST.) It folds up easily and is one of the lightest foldables we hefted thanks to hydraulic assists, which our top pick lacks. Sold under the same brand as our top pick, it has a similar warranty: 10-year frame, two-year parts including motor (one year longer than our top pick’s coverage), one-year labor.

Running on a treadmill versus running outdoors

If your goal is to prepare for a race, logging all of your miles on a treadmill isn’t ideal. Research shows that you expend less effort running on a treadmill than on a sidewalk or a trail. Plus, you probably won’t have the luxury of someone pacing you on race day. “I recommend a good deal of training take place outside,” said running coach Elizabeth Corkum.

At Mile High Run Club, coaches advise runners who are training indoors to set the pace for various parts of the workout based on their “perceived exertion,” or how hard they think they’re working. “If the runner is honest with themselves and their body, the effort should translate relatively well outside,” said Corkum. She also advises runners to set the incline to 1 percent.

That rule of thumb comes from a study published in 1996 suggesting that running on a treadmill at a seven-minute-mile pace and a 1 percent incline is equivalent to running outdoors at the same speed. Run at a slower speed, and the effort of running on a treadmill at either a 0 percent or 1 percent incline is comparable to running outdoors. The difference is due to air resistance, which you don’t have if you’re bobbing up and down in place.

At sprinting speeds, the discrepancy might be a little larger. Matteo Bonato, an exercise physiologist at the Istituto Ortopedico Galeazzi and a track coach, has his athletes do high-intensity interval training. He wanted to find out how that effort differed if they had to do a workout indoors (say, because of bad winter weather). He measured how much oxygen 15 runners needed (a measure of how hard they were working) during an interval workout on a treadmill at a 1 percent incline versus on a track, and found that the treadmill training was a little easier—attributable, he figures, to the springiness of the belt. He recommends increasing the speed of a treadmill 15 percent over your chosen interval speed to expend the same amount of effort during interval workouts.

Our quick poll of athletes during a track workout, however, confirmed that many people believe that, in spite of the research, treadmill training can feel harder than running outside. What gives? As Bonato explained to us, the way your foot falls on a treadmill is flatter, so your muscles have to work slightly differently and therefore feel more stressed if they’re not particularly used to working on a machine.

Whether treadmill running feels like a slog or a song to you, remember: You control the treadmill, it doesn’t control you. Running teacher Roberto Mandje, who recommends familiarizing yourself fully with the machine you’re on before you start your first run to ensure that you’re comfortable and oriented, pointed out that a treadmill keeps you in place by design, which can change how you run. “If you run too far forward, you risk hitting the display,” he said. “If you run too far back, you may fall off the treadmill completely. You also can’t veer too much to the left or right due to the handles.”

Overstriding—when your foot lands too far in front of your body—is a common treadmill misstep often caused by trying to keep up with a speed that is too fast. You have several ways to avoid overstriding, including staying within your pace parameters, improving hip-flexor flexibility, and increasing your cadence, which encourages your feet to land under your hips, where they belong.