The Fitness Equipment Guide

Fitness Equipment Guide

2009-06-07T05:19:00.000-07:00

Building up your own home gym can be a bit difficult. You always need to make sure that you have the correct exercise machines there and since the space is usually very limited you need not to get anything that you won't be using. Besides just the space issue there is also a financial issue involved and you don't want to spend too much money on the fitness equipment you have decided to buy.

First and foremost you need to make sure what kind of tools you need in your own gym and what are the qualitites you need to have in these machines.

Rowing Machines

These are the machines that are very popular for a good workout on the muscles in the back side of your body. The whole movement is based on rowing a boat and it will efficiently train all the muscles in your back and your glutes and hamstrings. Doing a good high intensity workout on a rowing machine will sure get your heart racing

Elliptical Trainers

Eliptical trainers are the newest of all these three machines that I am representing. You have pedals and two handles that all move in sync. They are said to deliver a complete full body workout to build muscle, burn fat and work on your endurance as well all at the same time. Who believes that I don't know but that is what most of the advertisers are saying. Overall it can be a good machine to get and I sincerely recommend it.

Treadmills

This is the first of all the tree that ever got popular. It was invented in a prison somewher to keep the prisoners running with proper guards around them all the time. It can be a bit hars for the joints sometimes but if you get a good quality treadmill that has a cushioned running surface you should have no problems. The belt should never have any cushionin since it can lead to injuries such as twisted ankles.

Rowing Machine Guide

2009-06-07T05:03:00.000-07:00

Getting your own rowin machine is always a big decision to make and like in any other fitness equipment you need to be making good decisions instead of bad ones. I have had a lot of frieds telling me that they bought something that they had to return to the seller the first week. Some of the models that I have heard of are usually braking up just after the warranty is void. You really need to learn how to avoid these makes and models and I will be telling you how to do this.

The first thing that comes in to my mind when I think of a rowing machine is actually a row boat. If I go past that there is the sliding bench on the machine that you sit on while doing the exercise. You need to be making sure that it is not made out of plastic. And I am not talking about the body of the seat but the whole seat. No plastic parts are allowed here. Why is that? This is the part of your rower that has the most weight on - you sitting on it - and moves the most. Plastic parts have a tendency of breaking under pressure. They don't show it out at first but over time they will bend slightly, turn white and break off. By the time it is broken your warranty is already void. I am not saying that all the plastics are like this but most of the cheap plastic seats on rowing machines tend to brake like this. Look for a metallic seat body covered with leather. Leather will never break, but it will stretch and lose its form. This is easily replaced and you should be back to rowing in no time.

The next thing is the chain that holds your "paddles" to the rowing machine. It takes all the stress that comes from the rowing motion and transfers it to the part of the machine that is making the resistance. During some fast sprints on a rowing machine it can be under a lot of duty so you should make sure that it is atleast double locked and made out of steel instead of any other material. Some of the good and more expensive models have the chains made out of really hard metals that are guaranteed for life. Opting for something like this is a good choice.

You can be doing all the same types of workouts on a rowing machine that you would be doing on a treadmill so it is not a bad choice either for your own basic home gym machine. Many of the fitness equipment out there are very versatile so you can basically choose what you like the most but keep in mind that doing different exercises from time to time provide better results than sticking with the same rowing machine all over again.

Electric Treadmill Guide

2009-06-07T04:49:00.000-07:00

When it comes to getting your own tools for your own home gym you need to make a few decisions of what to buy. Getting your own electric treadmill might be a good idea since it is the most popular machine used for warming up. It can be also used for a variety of exerciss since you can perform such workouts as HIIT (high intensity interval training) and also low intensity aerobics.

The differece between these types of workouts is that in HIIT you use high intensity sprints on a treadmill to keep your hear rate as high as possible. But since it is imppossible to maintain this type of speed for a long time you just walk or even jog for the times between the sprints. This can be hard on a treadmill but it can be done. Since you can also adjust the incline of the good treadmills you could even try running uphill for the sprints. Your heart rate will be high for the whole workout which will take about twenty minutes and the effect of it will be like you had been running at full speed for the whole time. That is why it is the most used method for fat loss workouts. It can be demanding but it also provides great results.

The other type of workouts that you can be doing on a electric treadmill is the low intensity cardio workout. That means you have to have a model that has a built in heart rate monitor or just a separate heart rate monitor to be aware of th e pulse you are having. You keep the intensity pretty low and try to keep a teady pace while moving. This is believed to burn fat since for high intensity workouts you usually use glucose for fuel. As it has trned out the assumpion could not be any more wrong. Low intensity workouts have ttheir place since they are very good to be used for such things as:

-Warmups: you need to have something to do work at a low lever before your muscles are ready to perform. This is intended only to slighlty increase the bloodflow and activate your central nervous system. Doing this on a treadmill is very easy.

-Recovery: Doing active recovery is not a new thing to most of the athletes but for someone who is just exercising for fun this might be new and weird. By moving at a low pace you can actually increase the recovery speed and be able to do the most intense workouts more often and have better results overall. Everyone should be doing this, not just the athletes.

Finding out what you need from a threadmill is very important as not all the makes and models have all the qualities. A good idea is to ask the seller what he thinks and then make assumptions wheter he is just trying to get you to buy something or if he is trying to actually help you.