Bad Treadmill Habits
Why Holding onto the Treadmill Can Hurt You
Holding on sabotages your efforts.
Holding onto the treadmill is always wrong, regardless of your size, age, experience, weight or goals (save for momentary heart-rate check or brief turn to look behind yourself or to the side). This isn’t to say that a blind person shouldn’t hold on. I have received criticism from a few people telling me, “What about people who are visually impaired or suffered a stroke?”
Obviously, my admonitions about holding onto the machine do not – I repeat -- do not apply to people with visual impairment, or who have mobility problems that require the use of a cane or walker. By all means, if you used a cane or walker to enter the gym and make your way to the treadmill, you do need to hold onto the rails or front bar.
This information is strictly for those people who do NOT use canes or walkers, and who can see without difficulty.
Man with mental and physical handicap sets the standard.
I keep thinking of a young man named Dean whom I briefly knew in Illinois some years ago. He was 21 years old and had mild mental retardation. He also had a seizure disorder. But his biggest setback was cerebral palsy.
Dean had a very noticeable limp; with each step on his weaker side, he’d lean over on that side and partially forward. The right side of his body just didn’t cooperate the way he wanted it to. Yet get this: Dean was able to jog an eight and a half minute mile around a track (four laps), without using any assistance. How do I know this? I jogged with him and timed it! He didn’t stop once; went straight through.
So when someone tells me he or she needs to hold onto the treadmill, or when I see people all the time doing this, I think, “If Dean could JOG a mile under nine minutes without assistance, what in God’s name is these people’s excuse for clinging to the treadmill?
I was once walking behind a man up a long moderately steep trail outdoors. His left lower leg looked as though a shark had taken a good chomp out of it. It had obviously been mangled in the past; muscle was missing, and scars ran up its length. Yet this man walked, with no assistance, and at a good pace, up the entire trail! I think of him, too, when people act as though they need to hold fast to the treadmill.
I have seen (though rarely) obese people JOGGING on the treadmill without holding on. I have seen a senior-aged man walking the incline while holding 5-pound dumbbells. I have seen senior men jogging without holding on. So why does a younger, slimmer person hold on? Why does ANYONE (short of those who are blind or who use a cane or walker) hold on? He or she does not know better, and/or lacks self-confidence.
This is clearly evident when a person is hanging onto the machine, then removes his hands to adjust something with the iPOD or DVD player, and doesn’t so much as teeter a millimeter. I once observed a woman, who’d been holding steadfastly on, take her hands off to put a ponytail in her hair, all the while walking without a problem. Then she put her hands back on. Folks, balance issues aren’t what’s at play here.
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