The History of the Treadmill

1. When Was the Treadmill Invented? The Short Answer

The treadmill has no single invention date. Human- and animal-powered treadwheels were used to lift loads and drive machinery in the ancient world, including by the Romans. The English engineer William Cubitt introduced the penal treadmill to British prisons in 1818. Claude Lauraine Hagen received a US patent for a treadmill-style training machine in 1913. The motorised medical treadmill was developed in the 1950s and 1960s by cardiologist Robert Bruce and engineer Wayne Quinton at the University of Washington. And the first home exercise treadmill is generally credited to engineer William Staub, who built the PaceMaster in the late 1960s after reading Kenneth Cooper's book Aerobics.

So the honest answer to "who invented the treadmill" depends on which treadmill you mean. If you mean the device you walk on to power something, it is ancient and anonymous. If you mean the prison machine the word was coined for, it is Cubitt. If you mean the motorised belt machine in your spare room, the lineage runs through Bruce and Quinton to Staub.

The rest of this page takes those chapters in order, because the strange thing about the treadmill is how completely its meaning flipped — from a machine designed to be exhausting and pointless as a punishment, to one people pay a few thousand dollars to own for precisely the same reason.

2. Ancient Treadwheels: Walking as Power

Before engines, muscle was the main source of mechanical power, and a person or animal walking inside or on a wheel turns out to be an efficient way to deliver it. The basic idea — continuous walking converted into rotation — is far older than any exercise machine.

The Romans used large treadwheel cranes, in which workers walked inside a wheel to wind rope around an axle and lift heavy stone. The mechanical advantage was considerable, which is part of how large building projects were possible without engines. The same principle reappeared in medieval Europe, where treadwheel cranes were used in building cathedrals and in ports, and a handful of historic examples still survive.

Animal-powered versions did the same work at smaller scale. Horses, oxen and even dogs walked on inclined belts or inside wheels to grind grain, pump water, churn butter or drive farm machinery, and such devices were still being sold to farmers into the nineteenth century. The inclined animal treadmill — a sloping moving floor that the animal walks up while staying in place — is mechanically very close to the modern machine.

None of this was exercise. The walker was the motor, and the point was the work done at the other end of the axle. That changed in 1818.

3. 1818: William Cubitt and the Prison Treadmill

The word "treadmill" in its familiar sense comes from the British prison system. In 1818 the engineer William Cubitt designed a treadwheel for prisons — reportedly prompted by the sight of idle prisoners — as a way of putting them to work. The design was a long horizontal cylinder with steps around it, and prisoners stood side by side and kept stepping as it turned, like a very long, unforgiving stair climber.

Some of these machines did useful work, grinding grain or pumping water, which is where the "mill" comes from. Many did nothing at all except turn against a brake, an activity described at the time as "grinding the wind". The labour was the point: the treadwheel was intended to be hard, monotonous and a deterrent. Shifts could run for hours, with short breaks, and the regime was widely regarded as brutal.

The treadwheel spread quickly through British prisons in the 1820s and was adopted in some American prisons too. It remained a fixture of "hard labour" sentences for much of the nineteenth century, though criticism grew steadily, both of its cruelty and its pointlessness.

Its decline came late in the century. The Prison Act 1898 is generally credited with ending the treadwheel as a standard punishment in Britain, though some machines remained in use for a few years afterwards before being removed. That is why the word still carries its old figurative meaning — a "treadmill" job is one where you work hard and get nowhere.

4. 1913: The First Patent for an Exercise Treadmill

The first clear sign of the treadmill as a fitness device is a US patent granted in 1913 to Claude Lauraine Hagen for a "training machine". Hagen's design was a belt-type machine intended to let a person run or walk in place, which is recognisably the ancestor of what sits in gyms today.

There is little evidence that it became a commercial success, and the early twentieth century did not produce a home-treadmill industry. Exercise culture as we know it was decades away; running for fitness was still unusual, and a large machine dedicated to it would have struck most people as eccentric.

The patent matters mainly because it is a documented, dateable moment when someone designed a treadmill for the person on it rather than for the work it could drive. If you want one answer to "when was the exercise treadmill invented", 1913 is the best supported, with the caveat that the idea was still waiting for a reason to exist.

5. 1950s–60s: Robert Bruce, Wayne Quinton and the Medical Treadmill

The reason arrived through medicine. Doctors had long understood that heart problems often show up only under exertion, and earlier exercise tests used simple step routines. What was missing was a way to increase workload smoothly, precisely and repeatably while the patient stayed in one place, connected to monitoring equipment.

At the University of Washington in Seattle, cardiologist Dr Robert Bruce worked with engineer Wayne Quinton through the 1950s and into the 1960s on exactly that problem. Quinton built motorised treadmills whose speed and incline could be controlled reliably, and Bruce developed the exercise protocol that ran on them. The Bruce protocol, published in 1963, uses three-minute stages in which both speed and grade rise, and it became the standard way to conduct a treadmill exercise test — it is still widely used today, as ourtreadmill stress test explainerdescribes.

Quinton went on to found a company making medical treadmills and related equipment. In hindsight this period did more for the modern treadmill than any earlier patent: it produced a motorised, belt-driven, incline-capable machine with a control system, and it gave the treadmill scientific legitimacy as a way of measuring and improving cardiovascular fitness.

6. Late 1960s: William Staub and the First Home Treadmill

The jump from clinic to home is usually credited to William Staub, a mechanical engineer in New Jersey. The story most often told is that Staub read Kenneth Cooper's 1968 bookAerobics — which argued for regular cardiovascular exercise and helped popularise the very word — and decided to build an affordable treadmill so people could follow that advice at home.

The result was the PaceMaster, introduced in the late 1960s, generally described as the first treadmill designed and sold for home use. Accounts differ on the exact model names and years, so treat precise dates with caution, but the outline is consistent across sources. Staub is also reported to have kept using his own treadmills well into old age, which is a better advertisement than most.

Cooper's influence is hard to overstate. Aerobics arrived just before the running boom of the 1970s, when jogging went from oddity to mainstream pastime in the United States. A machine that let you run regardless of weather or darkness suddenly had a market.

7. The Treadmill Timeline at a Glance

• Ancient world: treadwheel cranes and animal-powered treadmills convert walking into lifting and milling power. The Romans used treadwheel cranes in construction.
• Medieval to 19th century: treadwheel cranes in building and ports; animal treadmills on farms.
• 1818: William Cubitt introduces the penal treadmill to British prisons.
• 1820s: the prison treadwheel spreads across Britain and to some US prisons.
• 1898: the Prison Act is generally credited with ending its use as a standard British punishment.
• 1913: Claude Lauraine Hagen is granted a US patent for a treadmill-style training machine.
• 1950s–60s: Robert Bruce and Wayne Quinton develop the motorised medical treadmill; the Bruce protocol is published in 1963.
• 1968: Kenneth Cooper's Aerobics is published.
• Late 1960s: William Staub's PaceMaster, generally regarded as the first home treadmill.
• 1970s–80s: the running boom; treadmills spread into health clubs.
• 1990s–2000s: folding frames, programmed workouts and heart-rate features bring treadmills into ordinary homes in large numbers.
• 2010s–2020s: touchscreens, streamed classes and subscriptions; a pandemic-era surge in home demand; walking pads and under-desk machines.

8. 1970s–2000s: From Health Club to Spare Room

Through the 1970s and 1980s treadmills became standard equipment in health clubs, and commercial machines got sturdier, quieter and better at holding speed under a running user. Home machines existed, but they were expensive and large, and the cheaper ones were often unpleasant to use.

The 1990s and 2000s are when the treadmill became an ordinary household purchase. Several changes arrived together: more efficient motors, electronic consoles with programmed workouts, pulse grips and chest-strap heart-rate support, and — crucially for homes — folding frames with lift assistance. Prices fell into a range many households could justify, and for years the treadmill has been widely reported as the most popular piece of home cardio equipment.

Most of the specifications buyers compare today date from this era: continuous-duty horsepower, deck size, cushioning, incline range and user weight limit. If you are weighing those up, ourtreadmill buying guideexplains which ones matter, and themanual vs motorized comparisoncovers the non-motorised machines that never quite went away.

9. The Connected and Subscription Era

The most recent chapter is about screens and software. From the 2010s, premium treadmills gained large touchscreens, internet connections, streamed instructor-led classes and programmes that adjust speed and incline automatically. Many of those features sit behind a monthly subscription, which changed the economics of owning a treadmill: the purchase price became the start of the cost rather than all of it.

Demand for home equipment surged in 2020, when gyms closed and many treadmills were hard to find for months. The same period accelerated two other trends: compact walking pads designed for under-desk use, and curved, self-powered commercial treadmills popular with sprint and athletic training. Attention to safety grew as well, including after a high-profile 2021 recall of a connected treadmill, with features such as rear guards and lockouts that stop the belt being started by children getting more scrutiny.

Not everyone wants the subscription model, and plenty of good machines work perfectly well without one — see our guide totreadmills without subscriptions. For the compact end of the market, thewalking pad vs treadmillcomparison explains what you give up.

10. Treadmill History Myths Worth Correcting

"The treadmill was invented as a torture device." Half true. The prison treadwheel was a punishment, and a harsh one, but walking-powered machines had been doing useful work for many centuries before Cubitt, and the exercise treadmill descends more directly from the medical machine than from the prison one.

"One person invented the treadmill." No single inventor exists. Cubitt, Hagen, Bruce, Quinton and Staub each have a legitimate claim to a different machine.

"Treadmills were invented for runners." Running was almost an afterthought. The modern machine was shaped first by cardiology and only later by the jogging boom, which is why incline has always been a core feature rather than an add-on — the Bruce protocol relies on it, and the12-3-30 workoutis a modern rediscovery of the same idea.

Precise dates for early home machines. Be wary of very specific claims about model names and years for late-1960s home treadmills. The broad story is solid; the fine detail varies from source to source.

11. What the History Means for Buyers Today

Two things from this history are practically useful. First, the motorised treadmill was built as a precise instrument, and the qualities that mattered in the clinic — holding a set speed under load, a stable deck and a reliable incline — are still what separate a good machine from a poor one. A large screen is not a substitute for any of them.

Second, the treadmill's oldest job, steady walking, remains its most valuable one for most people. The heart researchers who put patients on treadmills were measuring something ordinary walking builds, which is why a well-builtwalking treadmillis a perfectly sensible purchase for anyone who never intends to run.

The machine has gone from penance to medical instrument to consumer product, and the joke writes itself: we now pay to do voluntarily what prisoners were once sentenced to. The difference, of course, is the off switch.

12. Frequently Asked Questions