Fitness Equipment and Home Gyms

If you want the best price on exercise machines or home gym machines, shop online. Home fitness equipment has become a hot-selling item in the fitness industry. The convenience of working out on a home gym machine can make all the difference between the dream of getting fit and buff, and actually making it happen. Home gyms keep getting better and better as more manufacturers enter the fitness marketplace and compete with each other to build the best exercise machines. Today’s home fitness machines work better, take up less space, have more features, and are more fun to use than ever before.

Some of the features available on today’s fitness machines include electronic tracking of workout statistics. These include your speed, how long you worked out, the distance you traveled, and the number of calories you burned. Fitness machines calculate calories burned by prompting you to enter your body weight and doing a mathematical calculation of how many calories it takes to move that weight at the speed you move it. Heart rate sensors are available on more and more home gym machines. They’re usually placed on each handlebar and can sense your pulse through the palms of your hands. These work well on commercial gym equipment but even the top quality home fitness machines don’t always return accurate readings. If you like to check your heart rate for aerobic exercise, get a home exercise machine that’s compatible with your personal heart rate monitor, such as Polar brand.

A quality home exercise machine will offer you a selection of programs to vary your workout. You can select interval training, a steady pace, a gradually accelerating pace, and several others. The more you pay, the better your selection of programs. Other standard features include slots for a water bottle, magazine, or personal music player.

Quality exercise equipment isn’t cheap, so before you spend any money, do some research. A hard workout puts incredible stress on home gym machines. If you weigh over 150 pounds, or if you’re pretty strong already, you’ll need to be especially careful when you do your shopping. Normal wear and tear on home gym fitness equipment includes repeated pounding, friction, static electricity, moisture, and salt from sweat. Spend the extra money on top of the line equipment so you won’t have to replace it in two or three years the way you would the cheap stuff. Some of the top brands in the home fitness equipment industry are Nordictrack, Weider, Powertec, Marcy, Proform, Cybex, Nautilus, Life Fitness, Quinton, Clubtrac, Horizon, Bodycraft, and Golds Gym.

The best way to make sure you’re buying a quality exercise machine is to buy from a dealer that specializes in gym equipment, either online or in your community. It’s riskier to go to a big-box store that sells everything than it is to buy from a specialty store, where the staff is knowledgeable and you can choose from the best brands in the industry. Even in specialty
fitness equipment stores, not all of the machines will feel like the best fit for your unique needs If you want to find that one piece of equipment that feels like part of your body when you use it, you’ll want to try them all. It’s much easier to do that in a specialty shop, where customers are encouraged to test the equipment.

Is it possible to find discounts on name brand home fitness equipment? Of course it is. Although they volunteer the information, most specialty stores will match online prices or at least throw in free delivery and assembly if you find a lower price than theirs. The absolute best time to shop for home gym fitness equipment is at year end, when the current year models become closeouts and need to get taken off the floor to make room for next year’s models. Discounts of 20 percent and higher are the norm after the holiday shopping season is over and dealers are hungry to move inventory. Go shopping with the attitude that everything is negotiable and you’ll probably get your price.

Treadmills
The treadmill seems to be the most common home fitness machine. It consists of a long, flat bed with a continuous treadmill mat stretched around a set of bearings, and an upright handlebar stand with a control console. You simply walk or run in once place while the belt moves under your feet. You can adjust the speed, and you can set the incline by activating a set of hydraulic lifts that raise the front of the treadmill so you have to walk or run uphill.

People like treadmills because they work for anyone who can walk. An exercise treadmill can accommodate both walkers and runners, and the variable speed gives you great control over your workout. Even the elite marathon runner or sprinter can stay in shape with a treadmill workout by turning up the speed and incline, while someone with a disability or in physical therapy can simply slow the treadmill belt to a snail’s pace.

The key to getting a good home treadmill is making sure it’s big enough so you can walk or run naturally. Cheap treadmills have a smaller belt and footbed than the best treadmills. If budget isn’t a concern but space is, choose a folding treadmill so you can put it away in a corner when you’re not using it.

Elliptical Machines
The elliptical trainer has been gaining on the treadmill as the exercise machine of choice for walkers and runners. Ellipticals combine the best features of the treadmills and stairsteppers. You place each foot in a separate footbed and stride forward. The footbeds slide on inclined tracks that move in an oval, so your body glides laterally in an uphill motion. Most ellipticals have moving handlebars that move in coordination with your legs and give your upper body a workout along with your lower. A console lets you control the elliptical machine’s resistance to increase or decrease the workout’s intensity.

Runners like elliptical trainers because they’re low impact compared to treadmills. Your feet never leave the footbeds, so there’s less pounding on your knees. Since you’re more stationary than on a treadmill, it’s possible to read a magazine even while you’re working out at maximum speed. Ellipticals aren’t as heavy as treadmills and don’t have a belt that will wear out and need to be replaced.

The one disadvantage of elliptical machines is that they’re not very well suited for people with certain disabilities who have trouble walking. The footbeds are situated up high, and the stride takes some coordination, especially at high speeds or if you use the moving handlebars.

Exercise Bikes
The exercise bike is an old standby dating back to the 1950s, but with lots of added features. It’s simply a stationary bike that you sit on and pedal in one place while you watch TV or read a magazine. A console lets you control the resistance to simulate pedaling uphill and records your workout.

Today’s fitness bikes have two configurations. Upright exercise bikes are similar to a normal bicycle, with the pedals directly below your legs. The recumbent exercise bike has the pedals out in front of you and gives you a backrest. Many cyclists report that recumbent exercise bikes gives them less back pain then the upright models, and also a better workout. Upright exercise bikes take up less room than recumbent exercise bikes.

Although an elite athletic cyclist can get a great aerobic workout on an a stationary bicycle, most of us are going to find that cycling only takes us into the low range of our aerobic capacity. Nonetheless, an exercycle is great for cross training and takes the stress off the knees on days when you don’t want to run.

Stairsteppers and Stair Climbers

The stairstepper and stair climber are machines that simulate climbing an endless flight of stairs. Stairsteppers have twin footbeds that you place your feet on and stride up and down in a vertical motion, while stairclimbers are actually a set of stairs, like a four-step escalator that cycles endlessly as you climb it.

Stairsteppers and stairclimbers give an intense aerobic workout. They’re much more vertically oriented than treadmills and exercise bikes. Only the elliptical trainer comes close to the workout intensity of climbing stairs. Stairsteppers take up the least space of all of the fitness machines on the market, so they’re a great choice for small apartments. Stairclimbers are heavy, expensive, and take up a lot of room. Although they’re very effective, you seldom see them in home gyms. Stair climbers are much more common in commercial gyms.

The biggest drawback of stair stepping and stair climbing is that most people will “cheat” by using the handrails to support part of their body weight with their arms. This lessens the amount of weight you have to move with each stride and decreases the intensity of your workout.

Rowing Machines

The rowing machine is a less popular but very effective aerobic workout for the upper and lower body. The rower sits in a low seat with legs stretched out in front and braces on a footbed. You row by pulling backward with both your arms and legs, then returning to the starting position. The machine supplies resistance through a fan, hydraulic piston, or magnetic flywheels. The air rower is the most common type of indoor rowing machine and uses a fan mechanism to provide resistance by making the rower move air with the fan.

It’s surprising that the row machine isn’t more popular, considering that it’s low impact and works both the upper and lower body at the same time. It’s possible that the posture required for rowing is uncomfortable for some people, but the more likely explanation is that a rowing machine provides a very intense workout. The air rowing machine is completely human powered, so it’s inexpensive compared with motorized fitness machines. Rowing is a nice addition to your fitness routine for cross training purposes.

Weight Lifting

Once the exclusive province of bodybuilders, weightlifting is the fastest growing segment of the home gym machine industry. Fitness experts and personal trainers are discovering that it delivers fast results and is highly effective for getting overweight people on the right track to better health and fitness when aerobic exercise is too intense for them in the beginning.

Weight training can be done with free weights or on fixed weight machines. Free weights are inexpensive but take more skill and instruction so you’ll use the right form for the exercises and avoid injury. Fixed weight machines guide your muscles through a controlled range of motion so you’re less likely to hurt yourself with poor form. As you gain strength, you simply increase the amount of weight you lift so your resistance training remains consistent.

Commercial gyms have anywhere from a dozen to three dozen specialized weight machines, one for each muscle group. Home gym machine manufacturers face the challenge of designing a multigym that works all muscle groups from one set of weights to accommodate the home workout enthusiast’s need for space. The effectiveness of a home gym depends largely on price. The best home weight machines have two or more workout stations pulling from one central weight stack via the handles found on home gyms. This way you get variety in your positions and can practice good form with each exercise.

Whether you’re into aerobic exercise or weight training, home fitness machines can do the job for you, and do it conveniently, economically, and without taking up a lot of space in your home. Fitness equipment and home gyms are a great way to take care of your health and gain fitness and peace of mind.