SB Fitness CT550 Self Generated Curved Treadmill

We're happy with our choice to get the CT550. The packaging and delivery were good, everything there, and assembly was pretty easy. It is useful to refer to the YouTube videos for cable connecting during assembly. It takes some getting used to after years of a having a great motorized treadmill, and it kicks your butt at first (our use is fast-paced walking). Once you are used to it though, it works great and a better workout than typical treadmills. The only minor weakness is the user manual - it needs improvement.

Background: I'm 67 and have been road running for 7 years, after about a forty-year layoff. I did walk almost ever day during that period and did a lot of anaerobic exercising, so I was still in pretty good shape when I started to run again. Now I try to run 3 to 5 miles every other day and do anaerobic exercises on my off days. I can still run a mile in under 9 minutes and a 5k in under 30 minutes.
Treadmills: This winter I used a professional motorized treadmill for the first time, every other day for about 3 weeks. It was ok, with only a short learning curve. One thing I noticed was that once I tried to run on the road again, my gait and foot strikes felt strange for the first 100 feet until I got things sorted out; I wasn't too happy with that. So I researched the pros an cons of manual curved treadmills and decided to buy the SB Fitness CT550 due to its price, weight and 20" wide running belt. The learning curve for the CT550 was longer than that of the motorized unit; it really does take a while to get the feel for it, so be patient. After 6 running sessions over the past two weeks I'm finally getting comfortable on it. One thing that helped was using a metronome to keep my foot strike rate consistent during the learning curve. On the road, I can easily run a mile in 10 minutes at about 160 foot strikes per minute. At this point on the CT550, I'll vary my foot strikes anywhere from 140 to 165 per minute depending on the pace and distance that I'm running.
Today, the weather was pretty nice so I went for my first road run in 12 days since getting the CT550. The first part of my warm-up 1/2-mile felt similar to running on the CT550, definitely better than coming off of the motorized treadmill.
Conclusion: I think the CT550 will work out well for me for warm-ups, and longer runs on days the weather is bad. Although, I will continue to do most of my running outside when I can because lets face it, running on any treadmill can get boring quite quickly and there's nothing like running outdoors on a nice day.
PS: Like many people have noticed, running any pace on a curved treadmill seems more strenuous than running the same pace outdoors, so you may have to cut your curved treadmill distances down at first to compensate for that.

I work from home and have had difficulty get to a gym. So I've had my eye out for a manual/curved treadmill for sometime.

For me I wanted an efficient workout that offered more options than a traditional treadmill. Therefore I was suprised that SB Fitness was offering a decent sale of their CX550 which was too good to pass up. A couple of clicks later plus a few days; and FedEx Freight quickly delivered a very large box to my house.

At this point figuring out to get into the house was a head scratch. Note my home is odd that you have to go up a few steps to get the main floor; and then there was getting into our basement. So with that in mind; we started off taking the box of the pallet and then thinking it would be easier to lighten the weight by removing some of the parts/frame. We did that, only to have the box fall apart.

Plan B. resulted in dragging the base using its wheels. However it was light enough that a friend and I easily picked it up and got it into the house.

Getting into the basement was tricky as we could not figure out a way to get down the stairs without damaging it. Plan C. Hunks to Hire and 2 burly guys literally picked it out and got down the stairs in less than 2 minutes.

After that, the setup of the handle bars was a snap and boom. We were using it right away. I've started to get back into running doing a Couch to 5K and am thrilled. The console is on the cheap side, but it's not a big deal. I use an iWatch and have Garmin/ANT devices for which I've found an after market garage at $99 to track speed and cadence if I really want to go Type A. So for about $2300 with a protection plan?

Honestly you can't go wrong for a home gym setup.

Up front, the treadmill is no where near as smooth or firm as something like the Assault Runner Pro. That said, it is still very capable and doesn't have any noticable problems, certainly not a cheap feeling piece. Considering the massive price difference when looking at comparable models, it's hard to choose anything else.

Worth noting, the console does NOT have Bluetooth or ANT+ compatibility for HR monitors. Apparently it is only Gymlink (5.3khz) compatible which isn't as common anymore. Garmin HR monitors specifically are not compatible.

Last thing to note, SB Fitness has incredible customer service. They provided me extensive information before I ordered, they tried to help me with questions about the console, and when they realized the console wasn't compatible with my HR monitor, they gave me a partial refund totally unprompted. I'm very impressed and will be doing more business with them in the future!

Do enjoy the tread .. my wife and I run once or twice a week each for 30-40 mins.. the installation was relatively easy but took my about 60mins with some assistance on and off. The less weight does result in a bit of wobble but thats expected.. my comparison point is technogym skillmill which is $13-15K list price. I believe the assault runner pro also wobbles. Do like the resistance that gives me a little bit more control over my running vs assault pro. The level of resistance is not high for sledge push but Brant had made me aware of that difference upfront so no issues there. Overall am happy with the Tread and will recommend it to others.