Best Fitness Equipment Reviewed

Looking for home fitness or home gym equipment? Confused by the endless reviews for Bowflex, Nautilus, Nortic Track, Golds Gym, Weider, Schwin [and about 100 other] types exercise equipment?

Well, it’s your lucky day. After thousands of hours spent reading exercise equipment reviews, opinions, and ratings, I can tell you with 100% certainty what the best home or gym exercise equipment is:

It’s the equipment you’ll really use.

It really doesn't matter what brand you buy. Just shop around and don't buy off brand junk. Fitness equipment is like a car. You can spend a little, or you can spend a lot. Regardless of the price, a cheap car will get you where you want to go just like an expensive car. Likewise, fitness equipment will exercise your body whether it costs $50 or $5000.

A majority of fitness equipment comes from China. For example, Icon Health and Fitness makes all these brands: Nordictrack, HealthRider, Proform, Reebok, Weslo, Image, Weider, and JumpKing. Since one company makes them all, do you think the difference is all that great?

So when people ask me to offer a impartial rating of exercise equipment, my answer is the same: What do you want to use it for? Meaning, the type of equipment you need is more important than the brand. So decide what your objective is first, then get online and browse some honest consumer reviews of exercise equipment.

For example, I don’t like running. So the worlds most expensive treadmill wouldn’t do me much good. However, I don’t mind the low impact cardio you get with a stair stepper or elliptical machine. In all reality, I could put some rocks in a backpack and go up and down some stairs for about twenty minutes- and get just of good of a workout- or even a better one- than I would get from even the best exercise equipment.

That being said, I highly recommend whatever exercise equipment you’re reviewing- you try it before you buy it. When I went to buy a new elliptical, I tried about 10 different ones. The one I bought didn’t come after reading a bunch of consumer reviews of exercise equipment, it came from deciding which one felt the most comfortable. A few machines had awkward feeling motions, a few others, the stride was too long. So the best fitness equipment for me wasn’t a matter of name brand or price, it was which machine did I think I would actually use.

So sure, look up exercise equipment reviews on line [just be careful the review is written by someone that’s not selling the machine]. Just like most everything, you get what you pay for. The most critical part is this: Don’t count on any machine to change your habits for you. That’s why the classifieds are so full of hardly used home fitness equipment. If you want to save A LOT of money, change your exercise habits first. That takes about 3 or 4 for most people.

If you can’t exercise consistently everyday for a month by just going for a walk or any other activity that gets you moving, the best exercise or fitness equipment in the world isn’t going to change that for you.

As much as hate to always bring this up, you need to remember the reality of the situation: Nearly 2 out 3 Americans are overweight or obese, while spending over forty billion dollars annually on diet, weight loss, gym memberships, and fitness equipment.

If you can change your habits on your own, great. If you can’t, I highly recommend you read New Body New Life first. It will help you see your unhealthy habits, but most important, it will show you how to change them over to healthy ones. At $39.95, it’s just the fraction of the cost of most of the fitness equipment you can buy. Check it out, you have 60 days to look it over. It could save you ten times that much.

Some Treadmill Facts.

A treadmill is a piece of exercise apparatus that is typically used inside. The equipment lets the user walk or run while being in the same place. The word treadmill traditionally refers to a type of mill which was operated by a person or animal treading steps of a wheel to grind grain.

The machines belt moves from the front of the system to the back at varying speeds for a person to walk or run against. The exercise speed (running or walking) is easily set (the speed at which the belt rotates is the speed at which the individual moves).The delux, heavy duty models are motor driven, unfortunatly they are a good bit more expensive. For a less expensive treadmill that is simple and light, go with a passive version. This design is not motor powered, it is powered by the individual running and just offers resistance to motion.

Treadmills History:      

Treadmills were invented in 1875. The first machine was a "lever power" treadmill and was used for agriculture. To accommodate various sized animals they were manufactured in various sizes. The little treadmills were operated by dogs and sheep to deliver power to the fanny mills or butter churns they were connected to. The larger ones were driven by horses to run threshing machines.

The First Medical Machine:

The first medical machine was invented by UW cardiologist Robert Bruce in 1952 and he was called the father of exercise cardiology, along with UW staffer Wayne Quinton. To help diagnose lung and heart problems the Standard Stress Test was invented, this shows the severity of those diseases. Quinton later sold his interest to Stairmaster, who was subsequently bought by Nautilus.

Tunturi Treadmill:

Tunturi was founded in 1922, and started as a bicycle repair shop. The Tunturi company is is given the credit by many individuals as the first manufacturer of physical fitness equipment, because of their well known W1 exercise bike. The company is based in Finland, and today they have the enviable reputation as probably being the leading and best-known manufactures of high class fitness equipment, which includes exercise bikes, rowers, and steppers.

Aerobics, Incorporated:

In the late 1960's Bill Staub noticed that treadmills were very expensive and were used mainly as medical testing machines. An affordable home treadmill was built by Staub who was trained medical engineer. He sent Dr. Cooper a prototype, and he was so impressed, he sold the first few hundred to people that were his referrals. Fourty some years ago Dr. Cooper's business, Aerobics, Inc, started full scale manufacturing of PaceMaster treadmills. Since that time, they have evolved from manufacturing basic treadmills to manufacturing apparatus with computerized and automatic functions.

National Aeronautics and Space Administration:     

The U.S. space program used treadmills onboard Skylab to keep the astronauts in good shape, while they were in a gravity free environment. The first treadmill that was used in the space by the astronauts was just a Teflon coated plate that allowed the feet to slide while the astronaut ran in place with bungee cord tethers.

For more information about treadmills please go to our website for videos and reviews of the Tunturi treadmill exercise machine and more .

 

A Good Heart Rate Monitor Is Invaluable For Fitness

Not sure what heart rate monitors are or how to use them? Then there are these monitors which typically come with two unique parts. The first is a chest belt detects your heart rate and then transmits it to the second part, which is a receiver on your wrist. It is a very useful addition to the kit of any runner as it gives an accurate reflection of just how hard you are exercising. Our own guesses are generally very unreliable and mean that we often end up running faster or slower than is good for us. A Garmin Heart Rate Monitor is a very good choice.

Have you been considering a heart rate monitor only to come away confused with all the information and the many different types of monitors that are out there. Some are simple, easy to use and considered to be a discount heart rate monitor. Their displays are large and very easy to read. In many cases these heart rate monitors also include a stopwatch along with the time of day. If you want a basic starter monitor, these heart rate monitors will work for any activity such as swimming, walking, aerobics, or cycling.

The next thing to examine is whether it is a multi purpose heart rate monitor. These will generally have the standard features like Target Zone, Time, and Heart Rate. These monitors will often combine a sports wristwatch with a heart rate monitor. You can also pre install your exercise Target Zone, display the time of day and also use it as a stop watch. Many of these models will figure out exercise recovery time. You can wear these heart rate monitors as sports wrist watches when you aren't exercising. These monitors are very popular due to the features and functions.

The more advanced monitors will include features such as a great memory capability. These features may include to the ability to review workouts and calories burned. The calorie calculation is usually based on your body weight, gender and exercise heart rate. Many models will display the calories burned during an exercise session or total calories burned for the entire exercise session. All of these monitors have time of day and most include calendars. These monitors are ideal for someone on a weight loss work out program.

Then there are also those monitors which give advanced exercise feedback. This information is saved in the memory of the monitor and can be reviewed right after your work out. This type of monitor will give you lots of information about your workout that are stored in memory of the monitor. This may include data such as average heart rate lap times, the amount of time spent in or out of your target zone, along with calories burned. Most of these memory heart rate monitors also have interval timers so you can really fine tune your workouts. This type of heart rate monitor is excellent for looking back at your completed workouts and keeping track of your progress.