7 Worst Advices We’ve Heard For Do I Need A Treadmill Mat?
Do I Need a Treadmill Mat?In some cases, you may absolutely need a treadmill mat to lessen the noise and protect your flooring. However, at other times, you may not need one at all. It depends on your flooring and your specific situation.
Below, we’ll take a look at the situations you’ll definitely need a treadmill mat, as well as a couple of situations where you don’t need them at all.
When You DO Need a Treadmill Mat
There are several situations when you absolutely need a treadmill mat. Keep reading below to find out if you absolutely do need a treadmill mat.
Hard Floors
If you have harder floors, then you’ll need a treadmill mat. There are a few different reasons for this. Firstly, you’ll need a mat to protect your floors. The treadmill will scratch and harm your floors over time. Therefore, you’ll need a mat to act as a barrier between your floor and the treadmill.
Secondly, the treadmill will be extremely noisy on hard floors. There is nothing to cushion the noise on these harder floors, so the sound will be quite loud.
If you live by yourself, this may not be a huge issue. However, if you use treadmill in an apartment building or live with others, then you may need a mat to prevent the treadmill from being too noisy. You don’t want to wake anyone up or disturb your neighbors.
Larger Treadmills
Some treadmills are so large and heavy that it is impossible for them to settle on a carpeted floor. You may need extra padding in these cases, even with softer flooring. If you have harder flooring, a mat will absolutely be necessary.
If you select a larger treadmill, you’ll need to consider purchasing a very high-quality mat. Otherwise, it may not be thick enough or cushioning enough to deal with the heavier treadmill.
Apartment Buildings
If you live in an apartment building, then you need to consider purchasing a mat, even if your floors are carpeted. You want as much soundproofing as you can. Therefore, you may want to consider a mat or even multiple mats.
Again, you’ll need a higher-quality mat for this situation. You want to be as quiet as possible, so you do not disturb your neighbors.
When You Don’t Need a Treadmill Mat
In many cases, you won’t need a treadmill mat.
Carpeted Floors
If you have carpeted floors, you don’t absolutely need a mat. The carpet may be able to cushion the treadmill enough, and your treadmill shouldn’t harm the carpet.
However, it is difficult to keep the carpet clean with a treadmill on top of it. Carpet fibers can also shed and become trapped into your treadmill’s motor. Therefore, your motor can become hard to keep clean as well.
Therefore, you may still want to get a mat in this case as well. It will keep your carpet clean and prevent quite as many fibers from becoming stuck in the engine. While this usually isn’t a huge deal, it can keep your treadmill in better health over time.
Live By Yourself
If you live by yourself, you may find that your treadmill doesn’t need a mat. In many situations, your treadmill making noise won’t matter if you live by yourself and aren’t in an apartment.
However, you will still need to keep your flooring in mind. If you have hardwood floors, you’ll still probably want to protect them with a mat of some sort.
FAQs Of Do I Need a Treadmill Mat?
Will a Treadmill Ruin My Floor?
Treadmills can cause damage to some types of flooring. Hard floors are the most prone to damage. While hardwood floors are typically the most common type of hard floors, you also have to consider floorings like concrete and tile.
When you use a treadmill, it will slowly move across the floor and scratch it up. Of course, this takes a little while to develop, so you may be able to get away without a mat for a little while. However, you will need one eventually if you want to save your floors.
On the other hand, treadmills are usually fine on soft floors like carpet. They may depress these floorings somewhat, but they will not harm them long term.
However, while they will not ruin the carpet, the carpet will be hard to clean with the treadmill on it. The carpet may also get dirtier than normal, considering that you’ll be lubricating the treadmill and regularly sweating in that location. Therefore, the need to keep it all clean will be a bit more urgent that it would be without the treadmill.
Do You Need a Mat Under Exercise Equipment?
Most exercise equipment will benefit from placing a mat underneath. In this article, we discussed weather a treadmill specifically requires a mat. However, there are other sorts of exercise equipment that also need a mat underneath them.
Ellipticals are one example of these, as are stair-steppers and basically any other sort of heavy machinery. These will potentially scratch the floor, so they can damage it. Anything heavy shouldn’t be placed on harder floors, since they can scratch the floor as you use them.
With that said, even free weights shouldn’t be used over a hardwood floor. Dropping them can dent the floor or scratch it. Even if you plan on always setting them down gently, you never know when you’re going to have an accident.
Of course, you shouldn’t necessarily need a mat if you have carpet or some other sort of soft flooring. Carpet isn’t going to get scratched by a heavy piece of workout equipment – it’s carpet, after all.
However, carpet can still get pulled and worn overtime by constant pressure and movement. This is less of a problem with treadmills and more of a problem with machines that have moving parts that might hit the floor – like elipticals. You can war bald spots into your carpet with these machines.
Can You Put a Treadmill on Tile Floor?
There are many different types of tile out there. Some are more fragile than others. However, generally, you will want to place a mat down on tile floors underneath the treadmill.
Tile floors pose an extra problem when it comes to using treadmills. Just like any other hard surface, treadmills can scratch tile. However, if the tile is particularly fragile, these scratches may easily turn into cracks. Furthermore, the vibrations from the treadmill may make the pieces of tile move apart, depending on what they are and the sealant between them.
With that said, soem pieces of tile are simply too sensitive to put a treadmill on at all – even if you utilize a mat underneath them.
Conclusion
Treadmills are a quintessential piece of workout equipment. However, in most cases, you will need to put a mat under them.
On hard floors, this is particularly important. Treadmills are mroe than heavy enough to scratch hard floors. Plus, with your running motion, you may scoot the treadmill across the floor – eventually resulting in scratches.
Carpet and other soft floorings may be able to withstand the treadmill without problem. However, there are still some circumstances where a mat ma be useful. For instance, if you live in an apartment, the noise-reducing features of a mat are more than worth it. This fact is also true for those that live in a home with others.
Plus, carpets can shed fibers into the treadmill, which can make the motor clog up sooner than it might otherwise. Similarly, you also need to consider how dirty the carpet will get as well, especially since you’ll be sweating all over it.
Simply put, there are soem situations where you don’t absolutely need a treadmill. If you’re working out on a carpeted floor on the ground level, then a mat isn’t absolutely necessary. However, mats can always provide extra protection and there is little reason not to get one.
When in doubt, get a mat.
