Precor Treadmill Review

I have been training on a Precor treadmill for the past three years at a gym I go to. I can’t say enough about the quality of these fine machines and the health benefits they offer. Previous to the Precor, we had a Sears treadmill at home. Although it was one of the best mills Sears sold at the time, there was no comparison in it and the Precor treadmill. One of the biggest differences between the Precor and other treadmills is the solid feel it has while running. When I run on lower quality treadmills, I always feel like I may just jiggle something lose on the machine at any given time. This is especially true when running at higher speeds. At a full run on low price mill things are really shaking! In fact, you just get the feeling that you might tear something up! Walking is great for health too, and these lower prices mills work very well for walkers.

But this “loose” feeling is not felt on the Precor treadmills! You can run flat out on them and feel just like you are running on a cushioned track! I am not kidding! These things are ROCK SOLID! Although the treadmill I use at the gym gets used A LOT, as far as I know it has never had breakdown or even a new belt.

Once of my favorite features of the Precor treadmill is how it interfaces directly with my Polar heart rate monitor! All I have to do is wear the chest band and the unit picks up and displays my heart rate on the readout! I don’t even have to do any configurations for the heart monitor; it just reads and displays it. Pretty Cool!

The readouts are very easy to see and custom configure. It comes with about 10 built-in workouts, but I prefer to make up my own. Oftentimes I will start at say “5”, and get warmed up for 3 or 4 minutes on the Precor treadmill. I will then ramp it up by .5 every minute until I am going hard at it at level 9 or 9.5. This is pretty fast on the Precor. And then I will slowly back it down and rest for a while at “6” and then start ramping it back up toward 9 again. I’ll repeat this several times and then slow down to 4 and cool down. Trust me! This is a WORKOUT!

Ok, now for what I don’t like about the Precor treadmill:

My treadmill has kicked off on me at level 9 several times. When this happens I have to go unplug the machine to completely reset it. Although it is annoying, I sort of take it as a compliment! I BEAT that Precor..or so I boast to myself! Another thing I don’t like with the Precor is how it will reset its time if I take too long of break. If I want to go get an extended drink or do some stretching in the middle of my run I can pause the Precor treadmill. But if I stay away too long, it will lose its pause and reset itself! I think it only takes about 5 minutes for it to do this. That is simply too short of period.

In summary, if you want a quality treadmill which you can use for MANY years in a home setting without any problems, the Precor treadmill is for you. Whether you are a “walker” or a professional runner who will spend much time at peak speed, the Precor will be your best fitness friend as a treadmill for many years!