  We investigate the self-locomotion of an elongated microswimmer by virtue of
the unidirectional tangential surface treadmilling. We show that the propulsion
could be almost frictionless, as the microswimmer is propelled forward with the
speed of the backward surface motion, i.e. it moves throughout an almost
quiescent fluid. We investigate this swimming technique using the special
spheroidal coordinates and also find an explicit closed-form optimal solution
for a two-dimensional treadmiler via complex-variable techniques.
