If you’re thinking of buying a treadmill, where do you begin to know what to look for in quality of the machine versus the price? What are the basic essentials to differentiate a durable machine from a second rate treadmill that won’t stand the test of time?

There are four basic components to look at while shopping for a quality treadmill. First, you want to look at the quality of the motor. For the power, you want at least 2.0 HP motor or greater. The greater the horsepower, the less the motor has to work and the longer it will last without burning out.
Second, look at the shock absorbing or cushioning quality of the deck on a treadmill. One of my favorites for shock absorption is the Horizon treadmill – check out our Horizon treadmill review. This can minimize potential damage to joints and ligaments and prevent discomfort, pain and possible injury from your workout.

You’ll want a good solid warranty on your treadmill before purchasing it. Find out details. A good measure of a warranty is the frame should be covered for 30 yrs., the motor for 5 yrs. and parts and labor for 1 yr.

Make sure your treadmill in question is of a good reputable brand name. Read reviews and ratings on treadmills. Best buys can be further subdivided as best for price range, features, durability of construction, expert ratings and stability. In the best budget buy from About.com, the Smooth 5.25 came in highly recommended for good value for the money. It’s foldable, stable at 195 lbs. and features a 2.5 HP motor and it sells for about $999.00.

As price range moves up, there’s an increase on the HP of the motor and increased shock absorbing ability. Think of your budget and which features are most important to you before purchasing your treadmill. There’s a multitude of informative reviews in Consumers Reports, Prevention Magazine and Treadmill Reviews online, such as the few we’ve provided so far on this blog, but of course we’re still pretty new, so there are many more reviews to be added as we go along, since treadmills are one of the most consistently popular modes of home exercise today, for good reason.

A newer concept that was actually pioneered at NASA as a way for their astronauts to stay in better physical condition while up in space, and to prevent the muscle atrophy that often goes along with being in zero gravity for prolonged periods of time is causing quite a stir in the fitness and exercise world, along with a hefty dose of criticism and doubt, as any new exercise fad does.

The “Power Plate” is a vibrating machine, and is one of the higher end options in the vibrating exercise fad, that one stands on when working out. The vibrations supposedly can decrease the amount of time your work out by up to two thirds, without dminishing results, and arguably even speeding your results up in less time. Ideal for the wroking parent of professionals who have a lot of time, right?

Well, some are claiming that one should use caution, since the technology is a fairly new one still, and long term side effects of using vibrations to tone muscle can possibly have a negative effect on the back muscles, causing cartilage damage, and also may have negative effects on the brain, as yet undiscovered of course, but hypothetically possible, nevertheless.

People who use it are fans though. They love the fact that they can still get a good, muscle sculpting, fat shaving workout in their day in only two thirds of the time, and they’re also grateful for the fast results, and some say better results that working out with vibration technology can bring.

Celebs are of course in on the trend too, because it is causing quite the stir in Hollywood. I’d say try it if you’re curious, but the thing that does bother me about this is that it uses shaking, and shaking is bad for the brain. Think of a boxer. A boxer’s head takes many traumas.

Granted, this is a swift blow to the head several times in contrast to gentler vibrations, but nonetheless, almost a similar concept, and boxers notoriously suffer from neurological disorders because of the multitude of times their brain has been “shaken”. Like I said, it’s a far fetched analogy, but it really makes you wonder if long term this might cause some sort of brain issues.

Treadmills are probably one of the most popular pieces of workout equipment that people purchase and use in their homes as part of a personal fitness program. What is the reason for their popularity?

One of the reasons that the treadmill is the equipment of choice for their workout is that they don’t have to worry about inclement weather as they are working out indoors. There’s no worry about unwelcome situations of feeling unsafe as might occur if you were jogging outdoors particularly in the evening hours.

There’s no guess work about rough terrain or concern about a sudden dip or hole in the pavement. A treadmill can be used any time, night or day, which makes it convenient and easier to fit a workout into a very busy schedule. To vary your workout, there’s adjustments on treadmills to either speed up or slow down the track.

Most treadmills such as the ever-popular Horizon treadmill, feature an adjustment to simulate varying degrees of uphill slant or a more level plane depending on how easy or difficult you want your workout to be. For added convenience, some treadmills are even foldable for easier storage.

To combat boredom while you workout, many people opt to listen to music or a book on C.D. A lot of people workout on a treadmill while watching their favorite T.V. show. This way, they’ve addressed their fitness needs and entertainment needs all at the same time.

Health conscious Americans love to know exactly how their workout is benefitting them. Many treadmills come equipped with a readout of our heart rate, speed, incline, distance travelled and calories burned during the workout.

There are treadmills like another popular brand, the ProForm treadmill – see review, that feature shock absorbing decks to lessen the wear and impact on your feet and knees. So, for a variety of reasons, the treadmill has been and remains one of the mainstays in fitness equipment both in the gym and in the home for personal use.

Well, we all know that strength training is a necessary part of a well-rounded workout, but did you think that it actually could help prevent and reverse muscle aging? Muscle aging means that we lose muscle tone, and often times this can lead to more problems, such as the heart weakening, which is a major muscle and of course major organ. Here’s where it gets really interesting.

Muscle/strength training, as we all know, is an excellent way to condition the muscles and increase endurance, but now new research is suggesting that muscle sculptin not only conditions older muscle, but it also essentially turns the genetic age clock back on the muscles and makes them as efficient as they were in younger years.

And…here’s where it gets really interesting. This turning back of the clock on muscle aging was found because when the muscle tissue was biopsied on these people who started to increase their muscle workouts, something called their “gene expression profile” which is typically much different in younger muscle tissue versus older muscle tissue, was found to actually reverse itself after older subjects started strength training regularly.

My gosh, you know, with all the mounting and continuing evidence that exercise and strength training, as well as cardiovascular training, helps us out in so many ways, how can anyone in their right mind rationalize being a couch potato!?

Well, although there has been, if you ask me, conflicting evidence on this one, and there almost always is for every new health, diet or fitness theory that pops up sad to say, new research is suggesting that exercise may not offer as much benefit to those that are overweight, as it does to those that are on the thinner side.

But why would that be? And why would exercise even still be recommended for people who are overweight or just wishing to lose weight or get fit by instituting an exercise regimen in their life?

The new findings don’t suggest at all that overweight people may not even want to bother with the treadmills, ellipticals and weight machines, it is just suggesting that overweight people may need to kick it up a notch higher than if they were thinner to get equivalent results in weight and cardio training.

The differences in muscle mass and BMI measured on test subjects were several percentage points lower in the groups that was obese or overweight after a series of workouts designed to measure improvements such as these over a period of several weeks. The thinner people had several points higher in these categories. Scientists are chalking that up to genetics mostly though.

Also, there may be some physiological reason that the heavier people did not get the same results, as some hypotheses may suggest that their bodies were just not as efficient at burning calories because of the excess fat and weight, and also not as efficient at gaining muscle mass, but may have been just as efficient had they been a few pounds lighter and done the same exercise regimens they did in the experiments.

I was in Target the other day, and bought a new set of dumb bells – eight pounders, because I really needed to juice up my weight collection, since I currently only have a 3 lb. and 5 lb. weight set currently, and feel like these don’t offer enough weight for my arms any more, especially if I’ve been focusing on my arms for a week or more, my muscles demand more and more weight so that they are actually working and not becoming used to the old weights.

If you don’t constantly up the ante in your workout, you’re not really pushing your body enough to the point where you are building more muscle mass or burning any more calories. An example of this is if you have a physical job where you work a certain way every day, this job no longer constitutes a physical workout when your body becomes used the moves, the pace and the frequency at which you perform it.

This means you don’t continue to build muscle and burn calories at the same rate, because your body is too used to it and doesn’t burn any faster. This is exactly the reason why I bought a fitness jump rope at Target the other day.

I figured jumping rope is a motion and intensity that my body is not used to at all, and this could not only spice up my work out, but it could also add the new moves, new muscle groups, and new cardio intensity that I need to keep my body moving, burning calories in a different way, and targeting different muscle groups. Oh, and not getting bored is important too!

It’s a very simple jump rope. It is a plastic weighted rope with neoprene handles for easy gripping, and it jumps really well, although I bought it at a cheap price and wasn’t even expecting to have a good performance out of it as I did. This may become a small part of my workout, because honestly jumping rope is kind of hard to do for a long time, and I think that about five to ten minutes is plenty. It also can be high impact, so you want to watch it if you have sensitive joints or any back issues.

Hmm… good question, especially since when I work out at home, I always have the TV on, and I actually feel that it makes my workout go by much faster, and makes it more so that I actually want to work out because I’m not bored out of my mind when I’m down in the basement, where there would really be nothing else to do besides watch tv since it is really just a storage space for tons of junk, and is not a finished basement.

So basically i’d be staring at concrete walls and junk, not too stimulating! I’d be done in fifteen minutes every time if it were not for the stimulation of the television.

I feel that it really depends on you personally whether watching tv while working out is detrimental to their workout. I do feel that most people would say it is not, but some people may prefer to listen to their music on their iPods and mp3 players instead of watching tv because they may feel the visualization is a distraction from their internal determination to work out as hard as they can.

I would say unless you are doing yoga from a DVD or VCR tape, then if you are practicing yoga or some other type of relaxation/stretching exercise, then watching regular tv may not be such a hot idea, because it takes away from the deep breathing, introspective nature of that type of exercise. That is, unless you are actually watching a DVD for instruction on yoga of course.

You may not want to watch the type of tv that requires heavy concentration or emotions, since that type of tv can definitely take away from the workout experience. My personal favorites are noncomittal tv, like VH1′s specials on the “best of”, HGTV’s specials on home decorating, and things like that, that you can just turn off at any time and you haven’t really missed anything.

Avoid tuning into the favorite show of yours that you have to hear every word of, and know every plot line, because that defeats the purpose here. You’re going for mindless, noncomittal TV when watching tv and working out!

I just bought myself a new pair of neoprene dumb bells in a green color by Reebok at Target today. I like the neoprene dumb bells better than the more expensive chrome dumb bells actually, because the neoprene, which is kind of like a matte rubber, is much more easily gripped, and seems to never get too beat up.

I also like it better than the dumb bells they used to make with the high-shine rubber, which just seemed to be too hard to keep a grip on, especially when you were all sweaty, and they also seemed to get tears in them pretty easily, and show the metal through with not much use.

Target only really had the Reebok brand to choose from, but I was fine with that since my Reebok dumb bells came at a cost of only about seven bucks each for eight pound weights. I also ended up buying a cheap jump rope as another way to mix up my workout a bit, for about three bucks (I know – cheap!). I was eyeing the yoga balls and a new yoga matt, but I know I don’t really need either of those, I just want them for some reason.

Ah, standing in the fitness aisle of any department store really gives you the urge to go home and sweat! It’s like workout therapy for me. Am I the only who who feels this way? PROBABLY!

Today was a beautiful day here in Ohio, and they are few and far between during the winter months, so to say that everyone has spring and summer fevere here in the midwest is an understatement. Let’s just put it this way, everyone around my parts is wearing shorts at the first sign of the sun, that’s how desperate we get to rush summer here sometimes!

Of course, I may be exaggerating a tad, but my point is, around here, it’s a tossup whether you should spend your time outside on a gorgeous day such as today, or stay indoors and work out in your home gym on some of your exercise equipment, closed away from the beautiful sunshine, or forego the workout to soak up some rays.

Well, who says you can’t do both? Aside from the most obvious form of outdoor exercise, walking and running, what other outdoor sports can we play that actually give us a real workout? Tennis is a really good one. Not only are you working your legs out like crazy, but you’re also working your abs and your arms, big time.

The abs because when you twist to hit the ball with the racket, little do you know, you are really using those abdominal muscles to twist and get power from your core to wham the ball with some force.

Another outdoor summer sport is basketball. We have a basket ball hoop out in our driveway, and sometimes if we feel like getting outside, and know we still have to get a cardio workout that day, we’ll go out and shoot hoops for a half hour or more, which is great for your legs and arms, and provides a workout because you’re dribbling the ball and moving your legs around the whole time.

There are plenty of summer sports that can substitute your regular workout, you just have to get creative, and do something that you genuinely enjoy, which is the key to a long lasting fitness regimen. Also, make sure you wear that sunscreen, you’d be shocked how much sun you get while playing sports without even thinking about it. And don’t forget to fit in those comprehensive home workouts in between either, they’re still important!

An interesting article recently came out about how people who appear thin on the outside according to most standards, may actually be “fat” on the inside of their body. What this means is that they appear skinny externally, body wise, but internally they store a lot of fat around their organs. Storing fat around your organs can actually be just as unhealthy and dangerous for you as if you had excess fat externally, visible to the naked eye and were considered “overweight”.

Experts say that people who tend to try to control and maintain their body weight through diet alone are more prone to this internal, organ-surrounding fat than people who exercise and diet as a means to control and maintain a healthy weight.

What are some of the risk factors of having a lot of fatty deposits inside, around your organs? Well, just about the same as excess weight on the outside of your body, which means increased risk of heart disease, diabetes, hyptertension, and some say increased risk of certain types of cancer as well (which I tend to agree with).

The interesting part about these anomalies is that these people usually tend to not eat too much, it’s just that the foods they eat are too high in sugar and fat, and the extra fat has to be stored somewhere, and just chooses to be stored internally, and for some reason, not around the belly area, which scientists say is the first natural area for fat to migrate to on the human body. Go figure! That’s why we’re all killing ourselves doing crunches every day!