15 Minutes To Fitness

Archive for the ‘Fitness Equipments’ Category

Copyright (c) 2010 Caroline Radway

The Kettlebell is my favourite piece of home workout equipement for many reasons. I have use the kettlebell to get into the best shape of my life, despite years of gym membership dues and hours and hours on spin bikes, rowing machines, cross trainers and weight machines. In fact, I have managed to ditch my gym membership which means I save money, as well as time (and fuel) by working out at home, thanks to this incredible bit of kit.

Here are 7 reasons you should get a kettlebell:

1. Kettlebells are the ultimate ‘do anything’ fitness tool – they are so versatile you can get a cardio, strength, endurance, flexibility and core stability workout with one piece of equipment, and even in the same workout.

2. Kettlebells are the ultimate home gym – as you can get all these benefits with one piece of equipment, and you only need a small amount of space to work out.

3. Kettlebells take up hardly any space in your home and you can easily store them out of the way – no more need to see your gym equipment staring at you as you are having dinner or tripping over it in your bedroom. You can store them in a cupboard and get them out when you need to use them – and you can use them inside or outside, making the most of good weather but staying sheltered when it’s bad.

4. Kettlebells are used for both traditional strength training exercises, as well as classic kettlebell ballistic or dynamic exercises, such as the swing and snatch. Both forms of training are proven to be the best for burning body fat and boosting metabolism in minimum time.

5. Kettlebell workouts can be short and sweet so you can fit them into the busiest of schedules. If you really can only manage 10 minutes a day then you can still get a great, full body conditioning and fat burning workout, knowing you have hit every muscle in the body and boosted your metabolism for the rest of the day.

6. The ballistic kettlebell exercises, such as the swing and snatch, rely on explosive power through the hips. This strengthens the hips and lower back, not only giving you a backside that looks great, but also making sure you are strong and injury-free in this commonly overlooked area.

7. The kettlebell has been shaping the most incredible physiques in history for hundreds of years – and is still doing so today. The kettlebell has truly stood the test of time, and despite Hollywood’s best efforts to keep this secret to themselves, the kettlebell is finally accessible to all.

So what are you waiting for?! Visit my blog to find out where best to get hold of one (or two!) and how to get started.

What is Crossfit?

And why is it turning the fitness world on its ear?

If you’ve paid any attention at all to the recent trends in the fitness world, you’ve probably caught wind of the emphasis on the importance of constantly varying your workout routine.  You may even have noticed a lot of coaches and trainers focusing more on shorter duration, high intensity programs over the more traditional long, drawn-out sessions on weight machines, followed by 30 minutes or more on a stair climber or similar piece of “cardio” equipment.  If you’ve really been paying attention, you may have even heard of this thing called “Crossfit,” and are wondering what all the fuss is about.

Put in its most concise terms, Crossfit is a series of constantly varied, highly functional exercises, covering a full range of motion, done at moderate-to high intensity (depending on your current fitness level) over a relatively short duration, in a highly coached group environment.   A typical Crossfit workout will contain a strength-building component (e.g something with a barbell or dumbells), something aerobic (jumping onto a box or over an object, rowing, work with a medicine ball, running, etc), and maybe something gymnastics-oriented, like push-ups, pull-ups, or dips.  There’s typically no rest between exercises, and everything is measured – either the total workout time, or the number of repetitions, so you can monitor your progress.  The typical workout time is fifteen to twenty minutes, which doesn’t sound like much, but believe me, the first time you try it, you’ll be amazed how complete a workout you can squeeze into this amount of time.

If this sounds intimidating, there’s another key element of Crossfit that alleviates this fear – its remarkable scalability.  All of Crossfit’s workouts are designed for everyone to use exactly the same basic technique, but, by adjusting the weight, or by incorporating specific assistance strategies, the most seasoned couch potato can perform the exact workout, in term of form and technique, as the most elite Crossfit-trained athlete.  In fact, our central mission at CrossFit Southwest Austin is to make the CrossFit approach to fitness accessible to everyone, regardless of their current fitness level.

So how does a Crossfit facility compare to a standard big box gym?  In most ways, it really doesn’t.  The question that pops to mind when walking into a Crossfit gym for the first time is probably “Where are all the machines?”  A Crossfit gym is surprisingly sparse, underscoring its emphasis on getting the most efficient workout possible using a minimal amount of equipment.  It’s not empty by any means (it’s not a “boot camp” in other words), but there are no rows of single-function machines.  Actually, Crossfit more closely resembles personal training, but, in many ways, it’s a better workout than any personal training session, because the small-group environment fosters just enough of a competitive spirit to provide that bit of extra motivation.  And the coach is always there to make sure everybody is using the correct technique, and to provide the appropriate encouragement.  Yes, Crossfit costs more than a traditional big box gym (the coaches have to be paid, after all), but it’s far less expensive than personal training.

So what does this all produce in terms of fitness, as compared to a traditional gym?  Remember how I mentioned how highly functional the exercises are?  How many times have you had the experience of, after months of feeling pretty good about sticking to a fitness routine, finding yourself facing a household chore like an hour or two of raking the leaves, or maybe teaching one of the kids to ride a bike?   And how depressing it was to discover how incredibly sore you were the next day?  It’s not supposed to work like that, right?  “I’ve worked too hard to get myself in too good of shape to be this wiped out after just stacking some firewood…”  But with Crossfit, the exercises mimic the natural body movements associated with picking objects off the ground, standing up from a squatting position, lifting objects overhead, pulling yourself up onto things, jumping, running, etc.  You not only feel and look great, but you achieve a level of usable, functional strength and endurance simply not possible with the standard big box gym approach, no matter how many isolation curls you do, or hours on the stair climber you log.

Want to learn more about this incredible workout, or better yet, experience it first hand?  Just do a search for the nearest CrossFit affiliate in your town.  And if you just happen to live in or near Austin, Texas, and are looking for an Austin CrossFit, check out CrossFit Southwest Austin for a workout experience that’s head and shoulders above anything you’ve ever had.

Andrew Nagy is an engineer at a major semiconductor manufacturing company, who has been an avid CrossFitter for the past year-and-a-half, and has seen the dramatic benefits this program has had on his fitness level (how many fifty-year-olds can do twenty pull-ups?).  In fact, he and his wife Linda are so enthusiastic about CrossFit that they have opened their own CrossFit affiliate in southwest Austin, Texas.
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A lot of people are not really so particular about staying healthy and fit all the time. For many people, going to the gym is simply too much to handle. Unfortunately, skipping the gym for too long can have some disastrous effects not only on our physical appearance but also to our overall health.

If you are one of those people who are too lazy to go to the gym and workout, consider setting up your own home fitness gym so that you can exercise wherever you want to. Having a home gym of your own is very convenient especially if you are one of those very busy people who do not have time to spare to go to the gym.

Getting Started

Setting up your own home fitness gym is not really as expensive as you think. There are plenty of affordable home fitness equipment sold both only and offline. To save money on your home fitness equipment, you need to take into consideration the kind of fitness program you want to get into before you start building your own home fitness gym.

Knowing what kind of exercises you will need to do is very important in order for you to choose the right kinds of home fitness equipment. It is also important to know how much space you have at home for your home fitness machine. Note that different types of home fitness equipments come in different shapes and sizes so you need to know how much space you have to make sure that your equipment will fit right into your home.

Once you have found the right home fitness program and you already have clear idea as to how much space you have for your home fitness gear, you may now start hunting for your fitness equipments. Online stores are the best places to start hunting for home fitness equipments. Shopping online is very convenient and you can easily compare the prices of equipments without physically moving from one store to another. This means that you get to save a lot of gas and energy when you go shopping online.

However, the catch here is that you get to pay for the shipment of your online purchases. In the event where you want to have the equipment that you bought online changed to suit you better, most online merchants lets you pay for the freight so make sure that you do not make a lot of mistakes when you buy things online if you don’t want to end up paying for extra charges on freight.

If you love this article, you will also love another article written by this article’s author on cheap exercise equipment and stamina exercise equipment.

Article Source:http://www.articlesbase.com/fitness-articles/how-to-build-your-own-home-fitness-gym-at-home-1679896.html