LifeSpan Fitness TR4000i Folding Treadmill Review

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While the LifeSpan Fitness TR4000i includes a number of different features designed to improve the quality of your workouts, it’s the variety of preset training programs that really sets it apart from its competitors.

This product article takes a detailed look at everything from the design features to the heart rate control workout programs, to help you decide if this is the best addition to your own home gym.

Design features

Whether you are thinking about buying your first treadmill or upgrading an existing machine, the LifeSpan Fitness TR4000i includes a range of design features that make this one of the highest rated treadmills available, based on customer reviews.

The extra large running deck is possibly the largest of any non-commercial treadmill, measuring 20″ (W) by 60″ (L). Having such a large running area is important for making sure you have enough room to workout with your natural running stride, making it well suited to shorter and taller users alike (6ft+).

As well as the running deck being 4 inches longer than on the TR3000i, another feature that’s been improved is the power of the motor. The TR4000I is powered by a 3.25 HP motor, compared to the 2.75 HP of the TR3000I.

To reduce the need to run up to the display console to make simple changes to the speed or incline, there are also a couple of useful features that have been built into the hand rails.

These are the heart rate hand sensors and quick change buttons, which are ideal for making quick adjustments to the incline and speed settings mid workout.

Display console design

While one of the most important design features of any treadmill is the size of the running deck, equally important to an enjoyable and effective workout can be the design of the display console.

The LifeSpan Fitness TR4000i features a much simpler display console than many treadmills, with a smaller overall size and lack of features such as cooling fans.

Despite this, you actually still access have many of the same button functions as higher priced machines, with quick select buttons for the speed and incline, an MP3 connection and headphone socket to listen to music, and a series of buttons for accessing the different workout programs.

Although the size of the LCD screen is smaller than some designs, this still manages to clearly display all the most important workout information. This includes your speed and incline settings, time, heart rate, and even the number of steps taken thanks to the ‘Intelli-Step’ feature.

Intelli-Step and Intelli-Guard

With so much importance being placed on how many steps we walk each day (studies recommend 10,000 steps to be the minimum to be classed as ‘active’), having a build-in pedometer in the form of ‘Intelli-Step’ is an excellent way to keep track of how many steps you take each workout.

This feature senses the resistance on the running belt each time you put your foot down, making it an excellent feature for users interested in a step count walking or running program.

Another of the innovative features that comes with the LifeSpan Fitness TR4000I is called ‘Intelli-Guard’.

Rather than helping to track or improve your fitness, this acts as a safety feature to help prevent injury, automatically stopping the running belt if you stop walking.

Ease of assembly

Although assembling a new treadmill may be something you only do once, poor assembly instructions or a complicated design are two of the most common reasons for lower rated customer reviews.

Fortunately LifeSpan Fitness are one of the best companies for providing step by step instructions for setting up their fitness machines, with the TR4000i being no exception.

Although the box is relatively heavy due to the weight of the running deck, once you have this out of the box there’s really very little left to put together.

The running deck arrives pre-assembled with a clear list of parts and tools provided in the user manual to make sure you have everything before you start.

Each step provides an exploded drawing of how the parts fit together, which includes parts numbers and letters which correspond to the textual explanation next to the diagram.

With the clear instructions and relatively few parts to put together, you can be enjoying your first workout less than 30 minutes from unpacking the box.

Workout programs

If you are having difficulty choosing between the LifeSpan Fitness TR4000i and the similarly priced Sole Fitness F85, the range of workout programs may be what makes the difference.

Although the F85 still provides you with 10 workout programs, the TR4000i includes 20 programs designed to help you achieve specific fitness goals.

To make these goals clear, the programs have been split into the following 5 categories: sports training, healthy living, weight management, heart rate control, and user defined.

Sports Training – If you are just starting your first fitness program, the Sports Training workouts will be ideal.

Generally shorter and lower intensity than the Healthy Living programs, there is still a range of options to improve your cardiovascular endurance, speed, and even overall brain fitness.

Healthy Living – A collection of higher intensity workouts, designed for people with a higher level of fitness.

From uphill climbs to interval training, this category even includes a ‘ladder’ style workout option.

Using a series of progressively harder exercise intensities, this will help improve both your aerobic and anaerobic fitness (heart health).

Weight Management – While interval and hill climb workouts are excellent for increasing overall fitness and lower body strength, Weight Management workouts are designed specifically to maximize fat loss.

Heart Rate Control – The LifeSpan Fitness TR4000i also comes with 2 types of heart rate programs.

‘Constant Heart Rate Control’ adjusts the speed and incline to keep your heart rate within a specific range.

This is important for if you are working towards specific goals, as studies have shown specific heart rate ranges to be more effective for each fitness goal.

‘Interval Heart Rate Control’ will also assist in weight loss, but is more focussed towards increasing your aerobic endurance and improving your heart rate recovery.

When using any of the workouts in the categories above, after selecting the program you will be asked to choose between incline and speed.

This will be what follows the profile of that specific program, meaning that it’s either the incline that changes throughout the program, or the belt speed.

User Defined – While the preset workout programs should be effective enough to achieve your goals, sometimes it’s nice to be able to completely change your training plan.

This is what the user defined programs are for. They allow you to manually set the incline and speed for each stage of your workout, helping to keep your workouts feeling fresh and enjoyable.

There is also the standard ‘manual’ option, which is perfect for if you simply want to step on the treadmill and start your workout.

Customer reviews

Even with all the information provided in this product article, it can still be useful to get the opinions of other people who have purchased and used the machine.

This is where customer reviews can be so important, with Amazon remaining one of the most trusted sources, both for the reviews and answering questions posted by people who are interested in buying this treadmill.

The following is a list of the most common positives and negatives gathered from the reviews for the LifeSpan Fitness TR4000I.

Pros:

Cons: