You may already consider the treadmill a torture device as you walk or run on the spinning band beneath your feet getting nowhere fast. You’d be right. The original treadmill was designed as a form of torture. Called a treadmill, it looked more like a Stairmaster.
By the mid 1800’s nearly half of all prisons in England had treadmills. They didn’t look like today’s treadmills. Instead of a spinning band, small steps rotated as prisoners stood side-by-side, separated by a partition to create a sense of solitude, and rotated the wheel of steps. Sometimes these machines ground corn, other times the prisoners just cycled through the air. Often they spent 7-10 hours a day on the treadmill.
British author, Oscar Wilde (author of the Importance of Being Earnest) was imprisoned for two years after being convicted of sodomy and was forced to walk the treadmill for up to 6 hours a day. He died a few years after his release, but not after petitioning to reduce cruelty in prisons.
United States prisons also used treadmills with a New York penitentiary liking the treadmill so much they bought more so as not to be limited to 16 prisoners at a time. Prisoners would climb approximately 2500 feet per hour. That’s roughly climbing half of Mt. Washington every hour with no end or summit in sight.
So if you aren’t the biggest fan of the treadmill, it was not created for pleasure or enjoyment. It was designed with the concept that hard labor could reform an individual. Likewise, if you don’t love squatting or back bending, these two moves have been used by Israelis to torture prisoners (often for information).
It pains me a little to think of any type of movement being used against people as a form of torture. I want people to love moving. Squats and backbends can be great when you do them at your own pace and of your own free will. I’m torn on the treadmill. It’s better than nothing, and I would use one myself, but it’s not an ideal way to get your run it. And it is the piece of exercise equipment that sends the most people to the ER each year. Over 500 people wind up in the ER each year do to a treadmill incident, although in fairness to the torturous treadmill, this includes back injuries from moving a treadmill.
I’m an advocate for doing movement you love. If you’d describe exercise as torture, you probably haven’t found the right moves yet. If you love the treadmill, squats, and back bends continue doing them. Ultimately, we just want to KEEP MOVING because we choose to, not because we are forced.
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