ABOUT CLUB TREAD
A New Wave of Wellness
At Club Tread, our mission is simple: to spread the joy of treading. What began as a fun and effective way to connect with friends and exercise has turned into a global movement. We believe in the power of treading to boost physical health, foster meaningful connections, and create a sense of community.
A Serendipitous Start
While home from college for summer break in the early 2000s, Betsy and her Kiwi friend, Claire, traveled to Georgia to spend some time at her aunt’s lake house on Lake Lanier. Claire, being from New Zealand, had never encountered a body of water so warm and inviting. After “laying out”, Betsy and Claire jumped off the dock and began chatting while treading water.
They decided to have a big, structured catch-up in the form of updating each other on 6 categories of life (now lovingly dubbed “the six”, and still very much a thing). While they caught up on (1) Friends, (2) Family, (3) Finance, (4) Love, (5) School/Work and (6) Health, more than an hour passed. They climbed back onto the dock, buzzing from a great full body workout, and hungry.
“Let’s do that again tomorrow. We can make personal goals for each of the six categories.”
And so began a new, lasting, and much loved hobby: treading water to exercise and socialize.
Pandemic Revival
Fast forward to the fall of 2020, when the world was in lockdown. Betsy, now living in Boulder, CO, was feeling isolated and stir crazy, like much of the world. When the local rec center announced it would be opening pool lanes by reservation, she suggested to her good friend Kate that they reserve side-by-side lanes and meet for a big catch-up while treading water.
Initially, Kate had reservations about an hour of treading water but she showed up, and by the end of the hour, the ladies agreed they would reserve lanes to tread together once a week to exercise and chat.
As the pandemic restrictions eased up, the treading group grew. Soon they were a committed group of six ladies treading, chatting, laughing and staying connected.
The Evolution of Treading:
Enter the Weights
During a Christmas trip to Wisconsin a couple years later, Betsy recruited her husband and brother-in-law for a treading session at the local YMCA. She noticed a 10lb black diving brick beside the pool and picked it up. Holding it above water for just a few seconds ramped up the intensity of the tread workout substantially. The three treaders took turns holding the brick out of water for up to 60 seconds at a time, and integrated the brick into all future treads at that YMCA over winter break.
Back in Boulder a few weeks later, while wandering a Target, Betsy spied a U-shaped 5-pound weight intended for plank-style push ups and purchased it with the idea of holding it out of the water for intervals while treading. She and Kate began to take turns holding the weight out of the water for a minute every 10 minutes, until one day they discovered they could simply wear the weight around the back of their necks. Lightbulb moment! Many of the ladies in the treading group purchased the weights to up-level their workout and the group began to garner a lot of attention and interest from swimmers and passers by. “What are you ladies doing?” “What are you wearing around your neck?” and eventually “Where can I get one?”
Kate and Betsy decided they could improve upon the comfort of the rigid “neck weight” and quickly got to work designing the club tread vest.
Discovering this form of exercise has been such a life boost! We want to share the joy, and start a movement of people coming together to get whole body exercise and stay connected with one another in a meaningful way.
Spread the Tread
WHAT THE TREADHEADS ARE SAYING
"I love to tread because of how easy it is to get a full body workout with little impact.
I’m rarely sore after tread, but I’m always hungry, so I can tell it burns a lot of calories. I recently had a baby and it was vital for regaining strength in a gradual and gentile way, during a time I certainly couldn’t lift weights. We have a back yard pool that’s deep enough to tread water. I simply pop in over a lunch break. It’s a great way to catch up with friends around the neighborhood too. Before we know it, we’ve chatted away an hour of exercising! It’s also a great thing to fit into family time at the pool— tread while playing Marco Polo, or while waiting for a kid to jump in. I tread whenever, for however long, with any or no weight. Highly recommend!"
- Kathleen A., Longmont, CO
