What do you call a treadmill which's to be run by your own legs' force instead of electric power?

I'd say that it is unintentional satire.

Yeah sure--the very first definition at Merriam-Webster-dot-com: 1 a : to step or walk on or over. You want to replace a perfect good (and understandable for native speakers--at least it should be) Old English word with a Latin root?

the concept of pedals on a treadmill has a certain hmmmmmm flavour ... who was that artist ... must mull

Escher...noo...ummm

Rube Goldberg?

Oh, all RIGHT! Call it a foot mill if you want to keep it basic. Why call it any kind of mill, though? Mills usually produce some useful product or result like lifting water, or maybe grinding grain. I'm trying to imagine a wind mill sitting around, powering some kind of machinery that does exactly nothing. Waste of energy.

Oh, that's brilliant. One person cranking the pedals so someone else can trot along with the net result that neither of them goes anywhere at all. It is surprising this didn't find its way into The Theory of the Leisure Class.

probably Goldberg - certainly his line of business




there was an artist that did colour paintings/prints of Victorian families at dinner with Rube Goldberg contraptions all around the dining room

Treadmills were introduced before the development of powered machines, to harness the power of animals or humans to do work, often a type of mill that was operated by a person or animal treading steps of a treadwheel to grind grain. In later times treadmills were used as punishment devices for people sentenced to hard labour in prisons. The terms treadmill and treadwheel were used interchangeably for the power and punishment mechanisms.

More recently treadmills are not used to harness power, but as exercise machines.

(WIKIPEDIA)

But if you just put your foot on it, nothing happens . . .

Then, we'll just have to use contrex's treadwheel, won't we.

To what end to you intend to use a treadwheel?

Treadmills produce good health, as well as entertain cats.

You wanted the pedal/s

<shrug>

heres a treadle powered lathe that goes way back to the Middle Ages



Tread MILL or Tread WHEEL lathes were powered by these huge cages (like an exercise wheel used for hamsters), in which an apprentice or two would run and keep the wheel turning They used to have one set up at the Hancock Shaker Village although not much of the early Shaker furniture was ever Turned work. Then they converted to an overshot stream powered lathe when Windsor and ladderback chairs were made by them and they became a mass production item served up from Shaker Catalogs

After that excitement, I better go have a lie down.