Am I nuts or are some gym treadmills set to a positive incline by default?

It's possible. I have an old Sears treadmill that defaults to 1-1/2%

Floor not level? Poor construction of treadmill? Wore out treadmill? By design (unlikely)? Etc.

Like you said, take a level with you and find out for sure.

Both of these things can be true. You could be nuts and the TMs set to an incline.

Luv2Run wrote:

Both of these things can be true. You could be nuts and the TMs set to an incline.

?

+1

I don't know about the treadmills, but you are for sure nuts.

My treadmill defaults to 2% incline. However, it displays that it is at that incline.

Your typical treadmill in a gym won't be accurately calibrated to speed though. I would expect the incline to be better calibrated straight from the factory than speed. But you could be noticing both are off, to some extent.

There is no reason your typical gym would spend the time or money to calibrate either, since your typical gym user doesnt care if it is off by 5% of the actual value. To a "serious" runner, of course running 840m repeats when you think you are running 800m repeats is significant to how you interpret your time.

Most smart phones can be used as a level (you generally need to calibrate the app with a real level to ensure it is working) so do that instead of bringing in a device please.

Coach Freud wrote:

I don't know about the treadmills, but you are for sure nuts.

?

Sdfsdfsdfsdfsdfsdf wrote:

My treadmill defaults to 2% incline. However, it displays that it is at that incline.

Your typical treadmill in a gym won't be accurately calibrated to speed though. I would expect the incline to be better calibrated straight from the factory than speed. But you could be noticing both are off, to some extent.

There is no reason your typical gym would spend the time or money to calibrate either, since your typical gym user doesnt care if it is off by 5% of the actual value. To a "serious" runner, of course running 840m repeats when you think you are running 800m repeats is significant to how you interpret your time.

Yeah. I've been doing tempos on the treadmill for the past few months and really improved my fitness, but I've been sticking to a single machine in the gym. Half a percent of incline (you can set the incline to negative on some of these) felt like 15 secs/mile yesterday.

I travel a lot and often run on hotel treadmills -- and I can say that some brands just feel much harder to run on and some the other way around. I swore for years that the Sole treadmill in my basement was inclined by default -- I always felt like I was running 15s faster than it reported, even at 0%. Finally broke out the level a few months ago and was shocked to see that it's perfectly flat. So I think it's down to platform type and maybe the belt spinning at a different rate than is reported. Best bet, if you're up for it, is to run by feel and time and ignore what the screen says. Probably the best bet in most outside scenarios too.

Most smart phones have built in levels. It's generally easier to invest 2 seconds to check than getting snarky responses on Letsrun.

mill rnnr wrote:

I travel a lot and often run on hotel treadmills -- and I can say that some brands just feel much harder to run on and some the other way around. I swore for years that the Sole treadmill in my basement was inclined by default -- I always felt like I was running 15s faster than it reported, even at 0%. Finally broke out the level a few months ago and was shocked to see that it's perfectly flat. So I think it's down to platform type and maybe the belt spinning at a different rate than is reported. Best bet, if you're up for it, is to run by feel and time and ignore what the screen says. Probably the best bet in most outside scenarios too.

A Stryd footpod will tell you how fast you are running on a treadmill.

mrs obvious wrote:

Most smart phones have built in levels. It's generally easier to invest 2 seconds to check than getting snarky responses on Letsrun.

Yeah I'll try that out. Or maybe bring in an actual level...

Snarky responses can be fun though :)

So far I haven't seen anyone say for sure they've seen a treadmill with a positive incline that says 0%.