Horizon Fitness Tech Support offers some helpful hints for maintaining your indoor fitness equipment.
The weather has cooled off, and the blustery winter season is almost here. If you’re anything like me, the smallest sign of inclement weather indicates staying indoors for your workout. There is nothing wrong with that. It just means that it is time to haul out your indoor cardio equipment.
Whether you own a treadmill, elliptical, or bike, it may sit in a dark corner of the basement or in an unvisited bedroom during the warm spring and summer months. It’s easy to drag the equipment out, dust it off and use it again like the last six months never happened. But if you want your machine to perform optimally, that’s not the best way to do it. Over the next couple of weeks, we will provide some important maintenance suggestions for your Horizon Fitness machine.
Treadmills
Treadmills are relatively simple pieces of equipment, but they do require maintenance. Likewise, Horizon Fitness treadmills have fairly specific power recommendations. Your treadmill should be in a climate-controlled area, plugged directly into a 20-amp dedicated circuit without the use of extension cords or surge protectors. At the very least, make sure there are no other large electronics or appliances on the circuit like a computer or a freezer.
Starving your machine for power is the equivalent to dehydrating an athlete and then making them compete. Like the athlete, your treadmill will run temporarily. But in the long-run, you’re going to end up with a lot more problems than you started with. The power suggestions can be located in your owner’s manual.
In tech support, we also like to compare your treadmill to a car. You wouldn’t just pull your vehicle out of the garage after six months and start driving it again. Your car needs an oil change and a tune-up first. The same applies to your treadmill. Before using the machine again, Horizon recommends lubricating under the running belt. The lubrication should be completed every 150 miles or every 6 months- even if the treadmill is seldom used. Refer to this diagram for assistance. 
Otherwise, the instructions for the lubrication procedure will be in your owner’s manual.
You should have received a small bottle of silicon oil with the machine. Each bottle is good for 1-2 applications, averaging about 30-50mL per application. If you used or misplaced the bottle of silicon oil, you may purchase it on the Horizon e-store.
After lubricating, it may be necessary to align or tension your running belt as it can stretch and shift with time. These instructions are also in your owner’s manual.
Next, if your machine has air shocks that assist you with raising and lowering the running deck, you may want to spray them with a Teflon-based spray. This can oftentimes be found at a bike store or online, and it can help prevent squeaking. If you notice any other noises, you may want to refer to your owner’s manual and tighten any assembly hardware that may have come loose while you have used your machine.
Next week: Bike and elliptical maintenance.