Tread Squad Review: $ 5,000 Workout on $ 4,000 Treadmill

In the last 10 minutes of my first Tread Racing course, I wanted to quit – as I had always done in previous attempts to run outdoors or on simpler treadmills. But as I reached out to slow down the machine, Platoon Instructor Robin Arzon smiled at the camera. "You can do the same thing you did yesterday or move on," she told the audience, many of whom must feel like me. "The choice is up, I choose before."

It was exactly the kind of message I needed to hear to guide me during the last minutes of my run. For the first time in my life, a treadmill has managed to make me smile – not just because it's cluttered in my little apartment in New York, a comic scene in itself, but also because it I've given the motivation to do something. I did not do it before.

For the loyal fans of Peloton, it was his attraction. Rather than going to a gym, you can live a fitness studio experience in your home, choosing your time and place of work with your favorite instructors. Although the material is certainly nice, the real appeal of Peloton is the coaching you get in real time at the end of your workout, like a spin class in a studio. People have their own reasons for staying in shape. For my passage with the new Tread treadmill at $ 4,200 Peloton, I wanted to test his ability to help me enjoy the race and train for my first timed 5K race.

The Tread Peloton is the company's tracking device for its popular stationary bike. The basic concept is identical to that of his bike counterpart: for the price of the machine and a monthly subscription of $ 39, you can use it to broadcast live or on-demand courses where an instructor will guide you to adjust your machine as you progress. A training. For the tread, Peloton offers a variety of courses such as mountain training, endurance racing, easier walk-run combos and even full workouts such as yoga or arm exercises. and the legs. It also offers a specific 5K training program – exactly what I thought I would use Tread – which describes the classes to be followed every week before your race.

On the treadmill is a 32-inch iMac type touch screen with a sound bar at the bottom. (The screen runs under Android under the hood, but it is forbidden to launch only the custom Platoon app.There is no verification of Gmail and Instagram nor Netflix running.) Along the sides, buttons let you control speed and incline. You can press the middle button to go up or the red stop button to pause walking. The tread surface is a sturdy slatted belt designed for smoother landings. Again, as I am not a regular runner, I can not really compare it to other treadmills in its price range. But I will say that I did not feel any knee pain as I had after having attended other classes in traditional gymnasiums.

Overall, it's a nice machine – it strangely complements the molding of the crown in my room – and it's better to be $ 4,500 (including shipping and assembling white gloves at $ 300, with variable taxes according to the state). The other treadmills in this price range offer up to twice the power of the motor and can support more weight, but a solid machine for casual runners usually costs half the price.

Nevertheless, high-end finishes do not mean much without the heart of Peloton's attractiveness: its programming. Although the company is currently struggling with a legal battle with labels and publishers for its use of music, I think beginners will benefit the most, these are the instructions provided by the talent on the screen. Peloton currently employs 11 Tread Instructors. They each have their own style and personality so that you can choose the one with which you vibrate the most. The content library is also constantly growing as new courses are taught almost daily from the company's live studio in New York.

There is something to say about a treadmill that can melt into your small apartment without causing you too much trouble. During my two month stay with the tread, I was surprised by the little noise that the treadmill produced, apart from the sound emitted by the speakers. I was able to watch TV from the side without having to adjust the volume significantly to accommodate the treadmill while my partner was running on it, and the vibrations have not surprisingly been transferred to any of them. furniture next to which was the machine. (I'm living on the first floor, but my upstairs neighbor has never complained of an unusual noise.)

On the machine itself, I found the screen flickering a bit too much when you started. There were also some occasional software shifts where the speed did not match the number displayed on the screen, which appeared to be a potential danger. Unfortunately, the only way to know how fast you are is to watch the screen. While the treadmill works manually without the screen being turned on or connected to the Internet, without it, you will need to feel the speed and incline while adjusting the wheels to the sides.

For my 5 km workout, I used the tread about three to four times a week for at least 30 minutes each time, including a 10 minute warm up walk. Since I was a beginner, most of the courses I followed tended to focus on form, which was helpful to keep in mind as I ran more often over time. It also included many walking breaks, similar to those of apps like 5K Couch, which help you develop your stamina every day of training.

Platoon differs in its current quality. entertaining watch the instructors run with you. Their monologues, sometimes tacky, help to save time between sprints. Instead of focusing on the clock, I listened to the instructors do a little talk, encourage a proper form or even sing in a low voice to the song played. It's like running outside with a friend, chatting on the way to pass the time, without the cold of February. But when the teachers expire deeply, you too. It is this human element that allows you to feel connected to the experience together.

Obviously, it will be different for everyone. Even if it's music, some Peloton users are crazy, while others are not bothered by the limited number of songs that users can save to play as they please. (You can only listen to music in progress that you are recording to your Apple Music or Spotify account from Peloton Tread, otherwise you will need to use your phone and headphones.)

Fitness is essentially mental and one of the things that helped me focus on my goals was tracking my training history and outputting my profile statistics. It was motivating to see my speed speeding up every time I ran, so impressive to keep running even when I felt lazy and wanted to jump for the week. During periods when I stayed too long without a race, I kept thinking about the first thing I heard in The Tread: Arzon reminding his students that chasing after ambitions is ultimately their choice.

It is this kind of thinking that seeks to achieve goals and extends to the rest of the Peloton's programming. Its application also features gamification badges, such as achievements and challenges, to keep you training. (I have generally struggled to meet the monthly running / running challenges that I've achieved for the months of February and March.) Some Peloton users also like to lobby for new personal records, that the machine displays in every course you take. You can also view the statistics of other users via ranking or search for username. But if you do not want to share this with others, you can disable the feature.

When I started in mid-February, my fastest race was 2.2 miles in 30 minutes. While the on-demand course catalog kept me occupied every other day, I found it quite difficult to offer live broadcasts because they were super early in the morning or held at times when I was not there. was not at home at work yet. The last evening classes tend to be devoted to strength training, which was not what I was looking for. Perhaps as more people buy the tread, the bids will go up, but I was disappointed in the review because the Peloton was at the center of his community and I would have liked to see the rankings change live.

Instead of live programming, I tried to use the five-week machine course, which lasted six weeks. However, I found myself abandoned after two weeks because I preferred to connect emotionally with other instructors rather than those described in this program. Over time, integrating the Platoon into my routine has become much less tedious. Waking up in the morning and seeing the giant treadmill next to my bed reminded me why I put myself in this ridiculous situation, and I did not want to ruin it by not advancing.

At each race, I felt faster and stronger, eventually leading to an 11-minute mile pace that allowed me to finish the 5K in just a few seconds in under 32 minutes. It was way beyond anything I thought I could do based on my medical history, and it was rewarding.

Nevertheless, the question is whether the Peloton tread was responsible for helping me achieve that goal. It's hard to say that a machine could help you do something without your own determination. While the tread provides an excellent indoor racing experience, it still looks like a gym membership: it will not remind you to train. You must force yourself to introduce yourself.

That said, the best part of Peloton are the courses, and I found this to be the most helpful aspect of encouraging yourself to train each week. You can access only courses via a digital subscription for $ 20 per month and stream them via an iOS or Android app or the Peloton website that you can stream on a connected TV. This seems much more profitable if you plan to run outside, if you already have a gym membership or your own treadmill, or if you simply can not justify spending more than four thousand dollars with equipment. For a cheaper subscription, you'll lose live output statistics and tracking rankings, but these cost savings could be even more reasonable for most people.

In the end, even though the Squad might not have come to love running, it has pushed me to do something that I never thought I could do. For that, I am grateful. And for what it's worth, I've already signed up for another 5K as my next personal challenge. Looking back, as strange as it was to live briefly with a treadmill, this experience gave me confidence, I did not know I owned. And strangely, I will miss the tread when it disappears.

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