Woodway Curve Treadmill Review

Before you ask...Yes, yes it is.

So I was at Dixon the other night, minding my own business, hitting the treadmill hard since it was in the upper 20's outside, and I noticed something very strange sitting over against the windows. Very, very strange. Why, it was a new treadmill! Two of them in fact! And it's...well, it's...not flat.

This crazy treadmill is actually curved at both ends! Why? Hell if I know. I assume it has something to do with the fact that this treadmill has no motor. That's correct. This thing is a George Jetson-style, let Astro take off after the cat, pull you under, self-powered treadmill.

Obviously, I had to try it.

So I hopped on and gave it a whirl. Hmmmm...

A couple of observations:

-I don't know if you can grease the bearings on these babies, but it seemed hard, as in difficult, as in Wow, I'm having to sprint to keep this thing going. I mean, you could walk on it OK, but if you wanted to run, you actually had to run. No kidding around - you had to move your legs to make it feel halfway like normal running. Also...

-It doesn't seem to work well if you run in the center of the treads (the dip). To keep it moving at a constant rate, you have to consistently be running up at the very front. So you're always running up a hill! It was a very strange feeling.

-If you're just trying to burn calories, I could see it working. But if you're trying to actually get in a workout, especially one where you want to move your speed around a bit (which, frankly, is one of the best reasons to use a treadmill), this just doesn't seem to work very well.

-Go ahead and check out the attached videos and you'll see what I mean. None of the folks they have running on the Curve in the videos look like they're running smoothly. They all seem a bit out of sorts and struggling.

Overall, a very odd experience. I mean, I only spent 15 minutes on the thing, so I'm hardly an expert, but it seems like you'd really need to work at this treadmill to get used to it.

I think I'll stick to the tried and true.