A treadmill is heavy and will take up much of the room of your space. No matter what material of your flooring, hardwood, carpet, concrete, or tile, you should protect them away from scratch or collapse.
Do treadmills need a mat? Yes, a mat is the safest way to minimize the noise generated by the equipment while using it. The faster and harder you exercise, the greater is the impact transferred from the body to the floor. This results in more and more noise and vibration created, all of which could be subtly averted using a mat.
If not, the vibrations could loosen important parts, nuts, and screws, which lead to dirt accumulation, reducing the longevity of the equipment.
Here go some of the points that affirm the claim.
- Treadmill mats protect your treadmill from dust and dirt.
- These mats allow aeration under the treadmill.
- Treadmill mats dampen the vibration and noise.
- Treadmill mats preserve your floor from damages resulting from the placing of heavy equipment.
- They help in keeping your treadmill in place.
- These mats prevent floor damage due to the debris during workout sessions.
- They impart a long life to the treadmill parts like belts, motors, bearings, and rollers.
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What Is a Treadmill Mat, and How to Choose a Quality Treadmill Mat?
The requirement of a treadmill mat is often a point of discussion among buyers, whether it is required or simply an expensive add-on accessory offered by sellers amplifying its use while you are purchasing a treadmill.
A treadmill mat is a rubber mat made of high-density and can be placed under the treadmill. They are used to preserve possible damage to your treadmill and the floor by maintaining the desired position and minimizing the stress on the floor.
A good quality treadmill is laden with some important properties.
While choosing one, it is necessary to pay attention to these. Some of them are jotted down here for your reference. Have a look before you make a purchase!
- Treadmill mats must be a little large, both length and width-wise, compared to your equipment.
- This ensures that the treadmill lies completely on the mat at all times.
- They must be at least 4 mm thick, while the best ones would be those with a thickness of 8 mm.
- The thicker the mat, the greater will be the advantage.
- Good quality mats require to possess round corners.
- This prevents tripping along its edges when walking. It also elevates the aesthetic value of your place.
- They are required to be flat all along, including their borders.
- Any rollover will degrade the look and increase the possibility of injury.
What Issues Will Caused by Using a Treadmill Without a Treadmill Mat?
The use of a treadmill without a treadmill mat poses many issues concerning noise, vibration, stability, and damage to the floor. A brief explanation of each of these is as follows.
Stability
It is advisable to place the treadmills on the rubber-padded floors. This is required to ensure that the treadmill remains in its position, without moving, especially while you work at full fledge.
However, the home flooring will usually not be rubber-padded. Instead, it is smooth and slippery.
If you place the treadmill on this floor, it may start to creep along! This is dangerous and can lead to serious injuries.
One competent measure that can help overcome this hazard is placing the treadmill on the treadmill mat. This increases friction and prevents bouncy actions, rendering adequate stability to the equipment.
Stability is also one of the main advantages of using a mat as a protective layer between the treadmill and the flooring. You don’t want your equipment to keep moving around like it is on a dance floor, causing you to slip and fall!
Avoid unnecessary slippages, disco dances, noise, and vibration, which announces to the entire world that you are working out on a treadmill by using a good-quality treadmill mat that serves the purpose.
Vibration and Noise
Vibration and noise are inevitable parts of a treadmill workout. Never mind what model you buy; noise and vibration exist, although higher-end versions reduce it considerably instead of the cheaper ones.
Noise and vibration are directly proportional to the intensity of workouts. The faster you run, the greater the pressure transferred from your feet to the treadmill belt will be greater.
This will further get transmitted to the floor, increasing the noise. When placed under the equipment, Treadmill mats reduce the pressure transferred to the floor.
They will act as dampers for the noise and shock absorbers for the vibration. Thereby, they reduce noise and vibration and increase the level of comfort.
Impairment
Treadmills are heavy, attributed to their robust construction and high standard moving parts. Besides, while exercising, the net weight transferred to the floor results from the treadmill and the runner.
The condition is further aggravated by the vibration set in by the machine’s moving parts. All these factors can potentially damage your floor, even the solid one, by resulting in dents and scratches.
Good quality treadmill mats are thick and serve effectively to reduce the damage to the floor by isolating the treadmill from it. This helps in maintaining the flooring intact while performing body toning exercises!
Can You Put Your Treadmill on the Carpet?
Yes, you can put your treadmill on the carpet. The damage caused is minimal and identical to that which results from the placement of heavy furniture. However, it is recommended to place a treadmill mat between the machine and the carpet.
Carpets inhibit the motion of treadmills across the floor. This adds to the level of security, especially while the machine operates at its full capacity.
In addition, carpet, mostly due to its thickness, reduces noise and vibration. These factors make treadmill installation on carpets preferable on almost all kinds of floors.
The importance associated is further elevated if you plan for using a treadmill in an apartment or multi-storied building.
However, when use plan to use your treadmill on the carpet, the use of a treadmill mat can never be neglected. The reasons are:
- The carpets contain tiny fibers and dust particles. These are set into motion due to the vibration of the treadmill, float in the air, and can get into the moving parts of the machine, causing potential damage.
- Thick carpets can cause overheating of the equipment affecting its performance and longevity. Treadmill mats push the deep pile carpet down, facilitating free and adequate airflow underneath the machine.
Can You Put Your Treadmill on the Cement?
Yes, treadmills can undoubtedly be placed on cement floors. Such an act would not damage your hard floor as cement has immense strength. Nevertheless, treadmill mats are recommended as it helps to minimize the noise while maintaining the equipment in place.
The cement floor is a common part of most basement gyms and is extremely strong and durable.
In such cases, the treadmills can be used directly on them without fearing much damage, neither to the floor nor the equipment. However, cement floors can never be free from dust particles.
These can further get agitated due to the motion set in by the equipment. Thereby they can come in touch with the movable parts of the treadmill, potentially affecting their functionality.
Further, cement floors tend to reflect noise to a greater extent. This makes watching TV or listening to music almost impossible while exercising.
One competent solution to these issues is to place a treadmill mat underneath the machine when placing it on the cement floor.
This absorbs the annoying noise, prevents damage due to dust particles, avoids wearing out of the cement floor due to consistent use, and thwarts the movement of the machine as a whole.
The result would be increased comfort well within the scope available.
Can You Put Your Treadmill on a Hardwood Floor?
It is not preferable to place your treadmill on the hardwood floor, even when they are claimed to be durable or laminated.
Providing your floor with extra protection, such as treadmill mats, never hurts if you have hardwood flooring or any other flooring. This way, you save your valuable flooring and prevent any movement of the equipment if the floor is quite slippery.
In this case, the treadmill mats become a mandatory requirement rather than a matter of comfort or sophistication.
The repetitive vibrations of the treadmills can cause damage to the wooden flooring even when they are claimed to be durable and laminated.
The flooring will suffer from abrasion and get scratched as time passes away. Hardwood floors are annoying when it comes to noise.
They reflect the noise produced from the equipment to make it worse. It is even possible that your room might turn out to be an echo chamber, affecting the peace of both you and your neighbors!
Treadmills tend to slide along the hardwood floors easily. From a stability point of view, this is unacceptable. Moreover, it massively damages the good-looking floor by creating long scratches trials.
All these problems have one potential solution: a treadmill mat.
A treadmill mat makes your treadmill immobile, prevents your floor from scuffs and scratches, and helps in reducing noise and vibration.
Read Also:
- Best Treadmill for Second-Floor Apartment
- Will a Treadmill Damage the Laminate Flooring? What About Carpet?
- How to Maintain Your New/Used Treadmill at Home?
- Why Treadmill Stops Suddenly? (Reasons & Solutions)
- Run Easier but Slower on a Treadmill? Reasons & Solutions
