York Active 120 Treadmill Review

The York Active 120 Treadmill has been designed with space saving efficiency in mind thanks to the folding design, as well as providing 12 workout programmes to help add variation to your training.

Design features

In terms of the overall design of the York Active 120, something you may immediately notice is the size of the running area.

While treadmills such as the Tunturi Pure Run 1.0 will have relatively large running areas of over 150cm in length, the Active 120 running deck is limited to 120cm.

This essentially means that if your natural running stride is approaching or over 120cm then you will probably want to look at a treadmill such as the JTX Sprint5 or JTX Sprint7, although these are usually around 50% more expensive.

It tends to be that the running area size for treadmills around the £400 mark is limited to a length of 120cm.

If the running area is well suited to your stride length and height then the Active 120 may still be well suited to your requirements thanks to the supportive hand rails and high quality build design.

The York Active 120 is also fitted with heart rate hand sensors, a feature that many fitness enthusiasts believe is now a must have feature on any home treadmill.

Your heart rate is often used as an indicator as to how fit you are when measuring how quickly it recovers after a workout.

With many training programmes now basing training intensity on your current heart rate as a percentage of your maximum heart rate, this is also useful to know during a workout.

Saving space and transport

Unless you are fortunate enough to have a room or large space at home dedicated to training, it’s likely that any fitness machine you buy will need to be as efficient as possible in terms of the space it takes up.

The design of the York Active 120 helps with this thanks to the running deck being foldable.

Although the running deck looks relatively large and heavy, it’s actually light enough to lift to an almost vertical position, at which point the deck should lock into position.

This folded state then makes it easier to transport the treadmill between rooms if needed. You can simply tip the machine onto the set of transportation wheels attached to the base frame and wheel it to wherever you need to.

Safety features

Although you will now find the safety key feature on many modern treadmills, it’s reassuring to know that this has been included on the York Active 120.

The safety key is essentially a thin length of cord with a clip at each end. While the safety key is attached to the treadmill console, the other end is attached to an item of your clothing.

This ensures that if you were to fall when training, the cord would detach and the treadmill would very quickly come to a complete stop, preventing any risk of injury.

York Active 120 Treadmill – Features Summary

1-16km/12% powered incline
120 x 41cm running area
13 workout programs
Hand pulse sensors
5″ display window with backlight
Speed and incline controls on handlebar
Instant speed and incline keys on console
Assisted fold up and down
110kg max user weight

Display console design

When it comes to choosing a new treadmill, the cushioning and size of the running deck may be the most important details to check at the top of your list.

But it’s also important to consider the design of the display console in terms of both the button layout and the way the workout information is displayed.

The display for the York Active 120 has been designed to be almost reflective, with the diagrams and button layout nearly identical on the left of the console and the right.

The clear and intuitively designed display console

This helps making decisions much quicker and more intuitive as you don’t have to spend time looking in lots of different places for the button and function you need.

This design idea is carried throughout the button functions as well, with the quick change buttons and manual adjustment buttons positioned on the same side for that purpose.

Essentially this means that all the incline adjustment buttons are kept on the left of the display, and all the speed buttons on the right. After a couple of workouts you probably won’t even need to read the labels anymore.

For easy identification of which program you are currently working out to, each of the preset programmes is displayed as a small summary graph icon located on either side of the screen.

The large 5″ backlit display window is used to clearly display all your important workout information, including the time, speed, incline, distance and calories burned.

Ease of assembly

While treadmills are often considered one of the most complex pieces of exercise equipment to assemble, the York Active 120 Treadmill bucks this trend thanks to its fold flat design inside the packaging.

There’s no need to build the vertical supports and connect wires through from the display unit, this is already done for you.

There are really only a handful of parts in addition to the main treadmill which include the bolts to lock the supports in place and the base frame covers.

Even though the assembly is relatively intuitive, York Fitness still supplies you with a detailed step-by-step guide for the finishing touches.

This guide provides you with a clear textual explanation as well as exploded drawings to show how every bolt and washer fits together, resulting in an assembly time of less than 10 minutes.

Workout programmes

As well as the more basic ‘manual’ training programme that lets you adjust the speed and incline to suit your preferred running style, the York Active 120 also includes a range of preset training profiles.

There are 12 to choose from, each broken up into 10 segments. These segments will be equal length according to how long you set your workout for, so a 30 minute workout would be 10 segments of 3 minutes each.

Although you can still manually change the incline and speed throughout your workout, the running deck will automatically adjust to meet the requirements of the currently selected training programme.

This means that as the height of the segments increases, so does the speed and / or the incline of the running deck. The reverse will happen when the height of the segments lowers and the intensity of your workout begins to drop.

York Active 120 Treadmill

The York Active 120 Treadmill is a high quality treadmill produced by one of the leading fitness product companies in the world.

The foldable design makes this ideal for anyone that wants to keep fit but doesn’t have the space to keep a treadmill setup when not in use, with transport wheels for easy storage.

In terms of the variation provided by the workout programmes this should be enough to keep your workouts effective and challenging until you need a treadmill with either a higher speed setting or greater range of incline levels, although these types of treadmills will usually be twice the price of the Active 120.