Hot answers tagged exercise-equipment
13
Vibrating belts are worthless. A crock. A sham. A hoax. A useless, insulting, silly doohickey that should be shunned by all right-thinking people.
It's proper use is to be smashed underfoot or with a sturdy implement such as an ax or crowbar. Destroy it.
Instead, look into proper diet (such as Primal or Paleo eating) and exercise (such as barbells, ...
10
Minimum height
You need to be able to hang from the bar and not touch the ground with your knees.
Maximum height
You need to be able to pull yourself all the way up, chest touching the bar, and still have at least an inch or two of space between your head and the ceiling or anything else.
Optimal height
It's great to be able to just barely reach the bar ...
8
It definitely depends on the construction of your house. Some home features require extra care, such as grand pianos and hot tubs. Essentially, anything that puts a large amount of weight in a relatively small area.
Covering the whole workout area with another layer of 5/8" plywood will help provide additional rigidity and disperse the weight better. ...
7
How much weight are you talking about? A good test is if you bounce on the floor do you go through it?
Seriously, I would recommend a plywood platform to keep your floor from getting messed up, make sure you put padding under it and that it's thick/strong enough for your weight plus the rack plus the max weight you plan on lifting. Make sure that any ...
6
Purely a 'by experience' answer here, having tried both:
Advantages of a thinner mat:
More sturdy foundation for balancing
Far less bulky when rolled up for transport/storage
Dries quicker from sweat/moisture (especially important in Bikram)
Advantages of a thicker mat:
Knee cushioning when kneeling
Tops of the feet cushioning when sitting on your ...
6
Is running outside an option? Probably not what you were thinking of, but it is cheaper.
If you want a machine, an elliptical might be an option. I would assume the disturbance they're concerned about would come from the footfalls from running on the treadmill, so it might be a more acceptable option to management.
Also, have you checked if the apartment ...
5
I've been climbing, training for climbing, and reading books on the subject for a long time. If you are new to climbing, you need as much volume at the easiest grades possible. This is the best way to condition all of your body, as well as improve your technique.
Go to the gym, do all of the easiest problems. Repeat them over and over. This will make ...
5
The ball bearings allow the weights to rotate without the bar in your hand needing to rotate. As you move a weight in most exercises, unless you have amazing form, some amount of rotational energy will be transfered to the weight. This is true in Olympic lifts even if you have perfect form.
If the weight was not allowed to move freely, you would need to ...
5
The biggest enemy is rust. Inspect the equipment for signs of rust, and either remove the rust or replace the pieces.
Plan on replacing the cables--after 10+ years in the elements, they are probably too weak to trust.
Inspect the rust damage on the structural pieces. If the rust damage is only on the surface, you can simply remove the rust with a ...
5
I'm thinking about buying a mat myself so I thought I'd share my research so far. As expected different the price is determined by material, thickness and size. Different mats are appropriate for different types of exercises.
If you want to do some general exercises like sit-ups a 'general' exercise mat will do. The thickness of these mats varies between 1 ...
5
I found the owners manual. Check out page 36:
The [below] chart shows the actual weight you are lifting when the ratios are applied. To find the actual weight you are lifting you would come down from the ratio being used and across from the number of the weight plate you have pinned.
The top plate weighs just under 41 pounds, and all the other plates ...
4
I'd recommend to buy the mat in a store so you can touch and feel a sample mat.
How will you have to carry it? The thinner the mat, the easier it'll fit in a single bag together with your other stuff.
Some considerations in case you sweat a lot:
For yoga/stretching/pilates/... you sometimes have to roll up the mat to a very specific height (less than ...
4
The thickness of your yoga mat has a lot to do with how comfortable it is — too thin, and your knee may get banged up during crescent lunge. The tradeoff is that thick yoga mats (some as thick as 1/4 inch) can make it harder for you to feel a strong connection to the floor, making you more wobbly. Otherwise, it really just depends on whether you want a bulky ...
3
Rope jumping is a great coordination and conditioning exercise. Here is my take at your parameters (based on countless hours of it..)
Material. As light and thin as possible, that is nylon or leather. Leather is nice but more expensive.
Length. there are a number of methods for finding the correct length. E.g. stand on the rope, pull the handles towards ...
3
This is a great question!
As far as muscle recruitment goes, the bent-over barbell rows do yield the most muscle activity for the lats (back) and the biceps during EMG (electromyographic studies); however, this is only when you comparing with other bent-over row exercises (dumbbell, cable, etc.).
Regarding the most effective lat and bicep exercises, ...
3
I didn't really feel that I get a training effect if I could only do one good form pull up in a row. So as my exercise was really lacking a pulling motion, I found Inverted Rows to be a great way to work up to pull ups or chin ups.
You can do inverted rows nearly everywhere, either over or underhand.
At the gym you could hang a barbell into a rack and get ...
3
I started skipping when I started CrossFit. If you are not good at skipping and are trying to get good enough for fitness, you should look for a rope that spins nicely, is moderately thick and isn't too heavy.
Spin: You want it to spin freely because it's much easier to maintain a rhythm. This is important when you are trying to get the intermediate ...
3
Lots of hardware out there, usually in watch format with wirelessly connected remote devices.
You get the main watch with time, alarms, stopwatch, often computer download modes.
Then the accessories. Heart Rate Monitors almost all use chest straps, (lick/wet the strap to get it to work at first, once you start sweating you will be fine, but when you first ...
3
Actually, there is something major missing from the replies you have been given, Fred, relating to how rowing machines (as opposed to rowing with oars) affect the abdominal muscles.
It is quite natural on a rowing machine to draw the pulley baton all the way into the stomach with some momentum at the finish of the stroke, with prior flexing of the abs in ...
2
I use Cardiotrainer more often since it doesn't have to wait till the GPS picks up before recording. It has a pedometer built in so it estimates the steps/distance etc from that and also allows for exercises such as Stair climbing (which I do in the office when it's rainy and I just want to do some exercise). The web interface on Runkeeper is a lot better ...
2
Chad gave a lot of good advice - the best way to build more climbing endurance is to climb more, even if you have to do laps on the easier routes.
But you might also want to suppliment your climbing with some basic training for pullups and your abs. Technique is necessary, but "correct technique" sometimes depends on a certain threshold level of ...
2
It's fine to lean over. Depending on other factors, you may lose a few watts of power if you are at an extreme lean, but since you aren't racing or anything like that, it's pretty much a non factor.
What is going to be important is your seat height, and to some extent the position of the knees over the pedals. When you have the pedal at the very bottom of ...
2
Specific to a Dumbbell front squat where your resting the end on top of your shoulder, a bigger diameter weight would be more comfortable. On the other hand, doing dumbbell deadlifts, having smaller diameter weights would force you to reach lower down, adding a new difficulty level to the exercise. Overall, you typically buy weights in increasing sizes - ...
2
I am sorry to see that you have to use that poor excuse of a machine, because no proper machine manufacturer labels their weights in this way.
-However, I have found on the page below that the whole stack on your machine is 455 pounds. Dividing this by 15 plates, you get about 30 pounds per plate.
-Usually the small weights you can add at the top are ...
1
I like weighted handles and I ALWAYS go for leather rope. I tried nylon rope but it lacked weight to provide for consistent swinging pace. I recently got a Weider Adjustable Weight Leather Jump Rope and am very pleased.
1
There's a couple things to consider: length of the grip, and the exercise being performed. The dumbbell handles I have don't have a lot of hand room. For me, using wider plates will change the way I perform the exercises.
As a point of reference, most gyms have fixed dumbbell heads. Those heads usually don't get any thicker than if you had nothing more ...
1
I'm assuming you're talking about Olympic bar types. The differences in weight 'seem' to be related to the width of the bar, the 33lb sometimes being called a woman's bar since it's diameter is smaller. The larger the diameter of the bar, the more it works the grip/forearm muscles and helps activate the CNS (central nervous system) in some cases (I'm not ...
1
Until my MOTOACTV I used a Garmin Forerunner 305; loved it, despite it being the size of my head.
I've been pretty happy with the MOTOACTV, plus it plays music. I just use my old Garmin chest monitor; I didn't buy anything new. It also connects via BT to my phone, which is convenient on occasion. And it can do BT audio. IMO their website is a little lacking ...
1
Some cardio-based (as opposed to strength-based) alternatives that you can do inside your apartment:
Jump rope
Elliptical machine
Running in place
Jumping jacks
Wii Fitness
Dance Dance Revolution
Just plain dancing
Shadow boxing
Move to an apartment on the ground level, and then get the treadmill
1
This can be caused by a few things. Treadmills normally have leveling screws near the back roller (think pads on the bottom of a chair that screw in and out to level the legs). If the left side has more tension, the belt will slip left as it is run, same with the right side. If it is moving back and forth freely, more than likely, both leveling ...
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