Looking for a high-end folding treadmill with great features, above-average cushioning to protect your joints and powerful functionality? The Life Fitness F3 Folding Treadmill could be the machine for you. In this article, we go in-depth on the F3 to allow you to get the hype-free facts.
About Life Fitness
Life Fitness is a major player in the fitness industry. The Life Fitness brand has been featured in gyms all over the world for decades. In the past decade, Life Fitness has also gained a foothold in the high-end home fitness market. With more than 45 years of fitness manufacturer experience, Life Fitness is able to provide the quality, reliability and after-sales service to allow you to buy with confidence.
Life Fitness F3
Key Specs:
Console Choice
The Life Fitness F3 is the first home-use treadmill we have come across that provides purchasers with the option to customize their console. You get to choose between the GO Console, which combines ease of use with a variety of engaging and motivating workout programs, and the Track Connect Console, with its ability to create a profile and then track progress and workouts. Both consoles are Bluetooth enabled and feature an entertainment zone which includes a compression track to securely hold your smartphone and tablet.
Powerful Motor
The Life Fitness F3 comes with a powerful 3.0 HP motor. It allows for a max speed of 10 mph, which is decent but not outstanding. We would have liked to have seen that max speed at 12 mph, as you get with some competing models in this price range. The motor is fitted with the MagnaDrive system, which ensures that you get a whisper-quiet operation. This technology will also detect the weight of the treadmill user and adjust the motor output accordingly.
Wireless Heart Rate Monitoring
The Life Fitness F3 provides you with both contact and wireless heart rate monitoring. Most treadmills provide you with hand pulsar contact pulse sensors but these are quite inaccurate. Wireless pulse technology is far more accurate, allowing you to reliably train within your ideal heart rate.
Energy Smart
The Life Fitness F3 makes use of Energy Smart technology to automatically reduce the power draw when the machine is plugged in but not being used. The motor can also adjust to your user weight to further reduce your power bill.
Solid Frame
A price that people often have to pay for foldability functionality on a home use treadmill is stability. That is definitely NOT the case here. The frame on the F3 is impressively robust, as evidenced by its lifetime frame warranty.
FlexDeck Cushioning
The Life Fitness F3 provides you with joint protecting advanced deck cushioning. FlexDeck cushioning has been shown to reduce the impact on your ankles and knees by 30 percent.
Auto Incline
The F3 offers auto incline up to 0.5 percent. This provides you with a smooth, easy way to ramp up the intensity mid-workout.
Weight Limit
The Life Fitness F3 provides you with a maximum weight limit of 350 pounds. This is an impressive level of weight tolerance, speaking to the solid frame design.
Warranty
Your purchase of the Life Fitness F3 is protected with a lifetime frame warranty, with five years on electrical and mechanical parts along with 12 months on parts. This warranty applies to United States customers only. Other countries may have slightly different warranty conditions.
Foldability
The Life Fitness F3 treadmill can be folded for ease of storage. Folding takes place by way of an easy push-button system.
Quick Start
The F3 allows you to use the QuickStart function to go straight to the workout that you want. You are able to remember your preferred walk, run and jog speeds as well as up to three different incline angles.
What’s Not so Good
- Limited Running Deck
The Life Fitness F3 running deck comes in at 55 x 20 inches. That is quite limiting in terms of its overall length. People who are six feet tall or over will struggle to get a full, natural stride when you are running. We would have liked to have seen the belt extended out by another two or three inches.
- No Fan
A fan is a pretty standard feature on most treadmills, especially high-end ones. That makes its absence on the Life Fitness F3 quite noticeable.
- Large Footprint
The Life Fitness F3 has dimensions of 78.5 x 34.5 inches. That gives you a pretty big footprint when the machine is in use. Even though it folds up to a much more compact storage footprint, some people will struggle to find room for it in their apartment.
What Other are Saying
There are a large number of online reviews for the Life Fitness F3 treadmill. People talk very positively about the ease of foldability, quiet operation that allows them to exercise in the same room as people who are watching TV and the very good after-sales service offered by Life Fitness. People are also impressed with the lifetime frame warranty that you get on this machine.
Negatives mentioned by a few customers were the challenges of putting the treadmill together, the lack of a fan and the limited running length of the running belt on the Life Fitness F3.
Final Thoughts
The Life Fitness F3 is a high-end treadmill that provides you with some quality features to delivers a challenging workout that is joint-friendly, quiet and powerful. It’s not ideal for runners over 6 feet tall who will want to search for a treadmill with a 60-inch running belt. Shorter users with limited storage space will find what they’re after with the F3.