So the original treadmills required the user to push them and they couldn’t leave? That does sound way worse.
Comment on So that's why they're hateful abominations
gravitas_deficiency@sh.itjust.works 10 months ago
When English civil Engineer Sir William Cubitt invented the “treadwheel,” he didn’t have fitness on his mind.
His device was used to reform convicts.
Prisoners were forced to climb the spokes of a large paddle wheel known as the “eternal staircase.” The resulting energy was used to pump water or crush grain (hence, the eventual transition from “treadwheel” to “treadmill”).
One prison guard claimed that it was the treadmill’s “monotonous steadiness, and not its severity, which constitutes its terror.”
The use of treadwheels was abolished in Britain by the Prisons Act of 1898. Years later, when aerobic exercise became popular in the 1960’s, the treadmill resurfaced.
Donkter@lemmy.world 10 months ago
NoneYa@lemm.ee 10 months ago
Was the law ever changed to allow for personal use of the treadmill? Or did this just extend to using it as a form of torture?
HikingVet@lemmy.ca 10 months ago
Probably just outlawed it as a form of punishment or torture.
Using a tread wheel in a mill, crane or for dewatering is ancient, think Ancient Greece. Up until the Industrial Revolution, it was a major source of power where you couldn’t get flowing water on a consistent basis. Use for fitness doesn’t constitute torture by the state.
CJOtheReal@ani.social 10 months ago
Tbh, that’s not a bad idea on a technical perspective.
paddirn@lemmy.world 10 months ago
And treadmills now probably consume way more power now than they could actually generate.
sploosh@lemmy.world 10 months ago
Most treadmills run on DC motors with magnets in them, so they could generate all the power you like if you pushed the treadmill and had the right controller.
qjkxbmwvz@lemmy.sdf.org 10 months ago
I’m annoyed that the nice bike trainers don’t generate power, or at least have the option to. My Wahoo shouldn’t be drawing power from the grid, it should be supplying it!
Mongostein@lemmy.ca 10 months ago
I used to have a cheap one with no motor at all. It was slightly inclined. You just pushed backwards to get it started and it used your own momentum/gravity to turn.