Weight loss, fitness and nutrition tips

Archive for the ‘Equipment’ Category

Are Shoes Important In Everyday Running?

December 13th, 2009

Michal

My shoe after just one training session :)

In other article I suggested to try running to help losing some weight, as it is one of the cheapest, but also one of the most effective exercises you could ever do. Unfortunately this exercise is not so completely healthy for your joints- ankles and knees. There are two ways to minimise the threat of injury.

First of them is choosing proper ground. You should rather avoid concrete pavements or asphalt roads, because of their stiffness. There’s no amortisation from them and your muscles are not able to suppress the shock all the time. If you run just one time it is not a problem, but consider doing it few times a week or every day. And most of us live in concrete jungles, or at least forests , and it might be really hard to find a ground (e.g. lawn) long enough so that you could run comfortably. Through my window, I can see plenty of people running on side walks and I’m quite happy, that so many people run so often. But I’m not sure is they are aware of what I’ve just written.

If you have a place where you can run safely that’s great. But if you don’t, consider buying proper running shoes. I know that it will make running not so attractive, because of increasing the total cost. But if you consider the ‘cost’ of damaged knees or ankles, the cost of ‘repairing’ them and the moral cost of pain and discomfort. I think I might be convincing you. And if you are about to spend more money it would be better to choose something completely suitable.

Like always you can go to the specialist. But it would make it even more expensive. If you are lucky, you can find shops with specialistic equipment, which can help defining the type of your feet. If you’re unlucky, I have some tips for you, how to determine the type and pick shoes suitable for them. Here we go:

The wet test:

It’s the most popular and, at the same time, an easy test to do. Step on a sheets of paper with your wet feet. It would be even better to paint the sole with a watercolour. The shape will be more permanent and the soles easy to clean.

When shape is completely flat (red colour) your feet are most likely pronating, if it is hollow (yellow) it is likely to supinating.

Posted in Equipment

Tags: running, running shoe, shoe, trainers

1 Comment »

6 Things to Consider Before You Build Your Home Gym

November 19th, 2009

Tomasz

Home Gym

As I wrote in one of the previous posts there is a moment in your fitness life when you should consider building your own, home based, gym. It is not easy to decide what equipment you ought to buy. There is a number of things you should think about, before you go for home-gym option. This article is a list of tips rather than a complete guide on how to build your own gym. It highlights few aspects of planning process which can save you some money in result. I wrote planning not building because I believe planning (although boring) is the only way to make your home-gym serving all your needs.

Choose the place you will set up your mini-gym in. If it is possible go for a place with windows. It would be great to exercise while having them open, especially in summer. During winter you will still use it to refresh your room before or after training session. Go for a big space if possible, perfectly empty. If you want to organise home-gym inside the room which is being used for a day life, choose the one with lesser furniture or the one that is least used.
Space - check how big the room you will use to store your weights and other equipment is. This is the start of your planning. You must remember to leave a reasonable space between weights stations or machines, so you can properly warm up and exercise safely. Consider also the fact that, there might be another person performing exercises at your gym (e.g. your friend). In that case you need to allocate more space to make the place comfortable for both of you.
Think twice about the equipment you need. Remember: some of the exercises can be replaced by other, so maybe you can limit the number of things you will have to buy for your gym? It will save you money and more importantly, it will save the space.
Remember to buy the equipment which you can adjust to your needs. E.g. dumbbells. Do not buy ones which you can not add any weights to. Not only you will have to spend money on buying new ones every time you make progress, but also your training space will be taken by dumbbells from 5 to 30 kilos range.
Create a budget and adjust your spending to it. It will help you avoid the situation when you spend majority of your funds on one nice machine and money that are left will be enough only for poor quality equipment.
Do some proper research. Sign up for fitness and gym forums, visit websites (HeadbuttTheFat.com is a good place to stick to), ask your more experienced friends for help. Compare the prices of equipment. Buy from cheaper but trusted places.

Hopefully those tips will help you a lot. They come from my experience and I must to admit - my first home-gym was a total failure. I know you can avoid it and I think that considering those few things is worth a while.

Posted in Equipment

Tags: building home gym, gym, home gym, home gym equipment

8 Comments »

Are Electric Machines Any Good?

November 5th, 2009

Michal

This is a question many of us keep asking nearly every day. Is it worth money it costs? Does it really work? If it is so magnificent why professionals do not use them? Like always there’s no single and easy answer. It always depends…

Almost every one of us is impressed with this kind of devices. You see plenty of ads with perfectly built people and you think you could be just like them. You do not have to take any effort, apart from a financial one, and your muscles can exercise while you’re resting. Doesn’t it sound nice? Or it sound too good to be true.

Normally I would tell you not to waste your money but it occurred I needed one. The problem was (and kind of still is) with my back. Every time I trained my abs my lower back hurt me the next day. Actually no matter how hard I trained. At the same time wherever I looked for help, everyone mentioned about making abs stronger to help supporting spine. Nice try, but what was I suppose to do? I wanted to make my stomach stronger, but I couldn’t. I even asked my gym-psycho friend for help. He advised the least stressful exercises he knew. And guess what? It did not work. He strongly disadvised me buying an abgymnic-like machine. I was really fed up. And then I watched film about Bruce Lee. It was shown that when he didn’t have time to exercise, he used an electric machine to train his muscles. That film convinced me to give it a try.

First of all I will not write how to use it because there are manuals. Second of all I used it only for my abs. Day after day and week after week I kept using it. First 2-3 minutes sessions with the lowest settings turned into 10 minutes exercises with maximum tension. Even very first trainings ended with sore abs. But there was no pain in my spine. At least that, I thought. But after couple of weeks I could feel a 6 pack under my belly fatty tissue. And I lost about half inch in my waist! Good job! I was sceptic and didn’t count on that. But the most important was that eventually I could do normal abs routine and my back did not hurt any more. Obviously muscles had strengthened and all the weight could be held by abs and did not stress spine.

I can easily say that electric machines might be useful for people who have medical problems. Unfortunately you should not use them just because you are lazy. As soon as I was able to do normal exercises I resigned from using machines. I think that for the very beginning, when you are not in shape and your abs are weak, start using machine. It’s better to do it this way than injure yourself. If you are chubby it is even more important to keep abs strong, so that they can support your, already stressed, back.

Posted in Equipment

Tags: exercising machines, gym machines, machnes

3 Comments »