How Tight Should a Treadmill Belt Be and How to Adjust it?

How tight should a treadmill belt be if you are a runner or someone who enjoys running on the treadmill? If it’s too loose, then the treadmill walking belt will slip. On the other hand, being too tight is also not good because that can cause injury.

The treadmill belt tension is what keeps the treadmill moving. The tightness of the tread belt determines how fast and how far you can go on a treadmill. If your treadmill belt is too loose, you will slip and fall off the sides of it when walking or running. On the other hand, if your belt is too tight, it could cause injury to your joints because there won’t be enough give in the material.

Let us dive into knowing how tight your walking belt should be and how you can adjust it.

The Risk with A Loose Treadmill Belt

A loose treadmill walking belt can be dangerous. It is more likely to slip and get caught under your feet while running or walking on it.

Slipping When Running or Walking of a crooked walking belt

If it is a loose belt, you could easily fall off the treadmill belt slipping while running or walking on it. This could potentially cause injury to yourself, such as chipped bones in your feet or ankles due to how hard they hit the ground from a slipping treadmill belt that suddenly comes to an abrupt stop because of how much speed was lost when sliding across its surface.

Sluggish Performance on the Drive Belt

If the walking belt is excessively loose or bent, the treadmill’s performance may be impacted. For example, a loose belt might require the motor of the treadmill to work harder to spin the front roller and rear roller properly. In addition, treadmills built to stagger the rear roller and front roller (like most high-quality treadmills do) can be affected by how far off-center or how bent these rollers are.

The Risk with A Tight Treadmill Belt

A tight treadmill belt is also not good because it could cause injury due to the little give in the material due to too much friction. It might make your joints hurt after running on a treadmill for some time if it’s too tight because of how much pressure they’re under from how hard you’re working out. There won’t be enough room for them to move around within the belt fabric itself without causing pain or injury later on down the line during long cardio sessions performed on this equipment.

Runner’s Knee

One of the most common injuries from walking belt tension is with a runner’s knee. This injury usually occurs in runners with weaker or inflexible quad muscles and overpronate while running on flat surfaces such as roads and tracks. When this happens, it puts an immense amount of strain on your knees, which causes them to ache after long periods spent outside jogging or doing track workouts at school or elsewhere.

Read More: Recommended Treadmills if you have a Bad Knee

Some people believe that curling the toes under while standing on a treadmill will help tighten up how loose the belt feels when walking or running on it further down towards these rollers themselves (roller). However, it would be best not to curl your toes while standing on a treadmill because that could cause injury to how your foot arches are formed over time.

Tightness of a Treadmill Belt – How Tight?

If you are going running, then set the speed somewhere between six to ten miles per hour. For walking, set it at three or four miles per hour.

If you are on the treadmill for an extended period and if you’re jogging, then your treadmill belt should be tight enough that it does not slip but also loose enough so that there’s room for movement in case of running strides.

You should be able to feel the treadmill belt touching your shoe. The amount of giving in how tight you can set it depends on how strong your muscles are, how flexible they are and how much pressure is applied when running or walking. You may need someone else to help adjust the treadmill belt tension for you if you cannot do it yourself.

Another thing determining how tight should a treadmill belt be for a person is their bodyweight because heavier people put more pressure on their joints than lighter people with less muscle mass.

People who run or jog at three mph won’t have as big of strides as those doing six miles per hour, so there would be less room for treadmill belt adjustment if they make more significant movements while jogging.

Treadmill Walking Belt Adjustment

Tightening or loosening how tight your belt should be is easy. If you are on a treadmill with moving arms, levers will be located on either side of the handlebars to make adjustments. Just push down and slide them toward yourself if you want tighter belts or away from yourself for loose ones.

For other treadmills that involve pushing buttons, adjusting how tight should a treadmill belt be, all you have to do is press one button at a time until you get how tightly/loosely you want it set up. You can also use more than just one button to increase how loose or tight it gets by pressing more than two buttons in sequence- this way gives different degrees of tightening.

If you don’t have a handgrip on your treadmill, then there will be knobs at the side of it to make adjustments. Turn them until how tight or how loose you want it to be achieved and how long treadmills take.

How to Tighten Your Treadmill Belt

But how to tighten a treadmill belt to avoid potential injuries?

Most of the treadmills come with a pair of tension bolts at the rear and front of the deck. On the sides of the roller, look for the bolts. Allen wrench quarter turn is also included with some treadmills.

The Allen wrench quarter turn should adjust the bolts until how tight or how loose how you want it. For example, tension bolts are how to tighten a loose treadmill belt. It might be time for new belts or bearings if this doesn’t work because they don’t hold tension anymore.

Anyone can do it, and the process is not difficult to understand. For example, if you want how tight or loosen your treadmill belt is, there are quick and easy ways to do that.

Tips and Warnings

Keep in mind that if how tightly you set your treadmill belt is too high, then there could be damage to any parts of the machine and potential injury for users falling off the slipping belt.

Additionally, excessively tightened belts can cause slipping, making exercising difficult and potentially dangerous because a treadmill with its belt at an improper tension level can slip and lead to falls off of it.

An improperly-tightened treadmill belt may become stuck underfoot while walking/running, causing pain in ankles and feet from where they are caught between moving arms and fast belts. We suggest you take a test walk every time you adjust the belt.

If you have any questions or the treadmill’s setup is substantially different, we recommend contacting the manufacturer. Also, make sure to read the instructional handbook carefully. This will provide detailed guidance on how to set up your treadmill for optimum performance properly.