Hey all you Fitness Buffs, I just wanted to take some time out to say Happy New Year! Be safe, have fun, and take some time to reflect that things you are lucky and thankful for in 2009, and what your goals are for 2010. Yep, I mean your fitness goals folks! I know one of mine is to make sure I shake it up more and don’t get stuck in fitness ruts as much as I feel like I did in 2009.

HAPPY NEW YEAR EVERYONE!

Before you know it, it’ll be out with the indulgences and in with the strict discipline when it comes to two things :Food and Working Out. Both of these tend to get a little out of control around the holidays for those of us that celebrate the whole full 25 days of Christmas with reckless abandon. For us Americans, I think that we look at the holiday season as a free for all, a cart blanche to do whatever we want in regards to food and exercise, whenever we want. I think that it’s honestly a big reason why we love the holiday so much. We can, relatively without guilt, feel like we can do this once a year and not get hassled about it by our inner conscience of friends or family.

Shoot, I’ve admitted numerous times that my workouts wane and my appetite for fatty, greasy and sugary foods increases triple fold around this tricky time of year, and I consider myself to be a fairly nutritionally and health aware person who tries to do the right thing most of the time.

In January, companies are already gearing up for the inevitable rush on fitness equipment, DVD’s, workout accessories, and anything that is related to losing weight, toning up, and getting back into shape after so many of us have thrown caution to the wind long enough to do some damage to our slim physiques. You can also count me in that boat.

I plan on definitely getting my mojo back when it comes to my shape, my fitness level, and my muscular definition, which has suffered due to not enough working out and too much indulgence in things like sugar cookies, candies and cakes, and not to mention things like mashed potatoes and fattening soups, and fried foods.

One of the fitness items that has been on my list for a while to buy is a good, gym quality punching bag. I would love to have a heavy bag to hang from the rafters in our basement, as I think it would be great to tone up a place on my body which I’ve always felt was a bit thick looking, my arms. I would also like to get a medicine ball, I’m just waiting on these types of items to go on sale.

Although, I don’t expect to find any incredible clearance deals, word on the street is that most retailers have not overstocked this year, and there will not be as many good clearance deals. Hopefully next year will be a little better.

I just wanted to wish every one of my readers a very Merry Christmas. No matter what you celebrate this time of year, it’s definitely a special time, and there is a feeling of generosity and oneness in the air that is not there most of the time. It’s almost tangible. Some people of course don’t act any better, as can be seen on the roads during rush hours to malls to get the latest popular gifts for loved ones when people are honking and being rude, but the majority of the time, an increased sense of togetherness and humanity is definitely in the air.

Let’s make it last this year and take advantage of this economic downturn, and really enjoy the things in life that really matter. Let’s forget about materialism and what we “want” in our lives, but let’s focus on what we already have, for I can assure you, you have a lot more than someone else who may have lost a job or had some other sort of hardship. And last of all, let’s not forget about charity. Charity is the cornerstone of humanity’s inherent goodness, and we mustn’t forget about those that are less fortunate.

God bless everyone, and let’s make next year a great year for fitness, health and prosperity. Merry Christmas everyone !

So, I haven’t actually tried the Biggest Loser DVD “Power Sculpt” yet, but I bought it for a friend for Christmas and thought I’d share with you what the description of this DVD is and how it looks to me, gathering that information just from the packaging. By the way, I can personally attest that the Biggest Loser DVD’s, at least all the ones I’ve tried thus far, pretty much will kick your butt, even if they’re not all that long. Mostly this is because they concentrate on whipping your body into shape through short bursts of what seems like incredibly hard cardio and muscle workouts.

You literally do feel like you’re going to die, as hostess Jillian Michaels says on my favorite one, 30 Day Shred in the second, and I think the hardest, circuit. But let me tell you, for those short bursts, you will see your body shape up quickly and very effectively. They really do work. And the Weightloss Yoga one with Bob the trainer is phenomenal as well, allowing you to choose difficulty levels and how many mini workouts you want to do in one sitting, er, or shall I say standing?

Anyways, Power Sculpt is advertised as a 6 week program for maximum weight loss. I have no doubt that it really does what it says, especially if you are eating the way you are supposed to be in conjunction with working out with these plans.

This one includes levels 1,2 and 3, which of course is awesome because you can customize it according to your fitness level, and gradually work your way up into becoming a badass like some of the muscled men and women you see in these types of DVD’s.

According to the program, you are supposed to start with level one, and then as you progress add on level 2 and 3. That probably means the level one alone is pretty hard, based on my experiences with the other Biggest Loser DVD’s. There is a 5 minute warmup, then Sculpt level 1 is twenty minutes long, sculpt level 2 is ten minutes long, and sculpt level 3 is ten minutes long.

Once you get used to these three, you should be able to do them all together, in other words, or mix and match as you have time to do them, which is what I love about the way these DVD’s are set up. They’re very realistic for those of us who don’t have an hour to kill every time we work out, and yet we want that great, kick butt workout for results every time. I am going to try this and report the results back to you once I have. Until then, hope you’re having a wonderful holiday season!

I was looking to get my boss a popular exercise DVD the other day at Target, and since they have all of their workout and fitness videos in the same section as their fitness equipment (it took me forever to figure this fact out after browsing in the DVD section forever), I got to see what all the latest, fun stuff was that you can buy to add to your fitness routines. While a lot of it is still your routine basics like weights, there were some newer items that I wasn’t aware existed. One was a sort of lumbar support for your back when doing floor or ab work of any kind.

I could see how this would come in handy, especially for people like me that have issues with their backs and need all the protection they can get when they’re working the abdominal area, which tends to often strain the neck and the back when it shouldn’t. A lumbar support’s purpose is to sort of force your back into the correct position so that you get the exact position at which you will both gain the most mucle workout and also save from straining those other delicate muscles that happen to try to work too when they shouldn’t.

While stuff like this may not be the most exciting thing to buy, it certainly can save you from a lifetime of hurt and frustration with your workouts.

Another thing I noticed was a newer type of medicine ball. This wasn’t quite the “water ball” I just talked about, but it was a hard medicine ball, with a softer, more squishy layer over it of shiny plastic, so that it was a bit easier on the hands, and perhaps easier to grip if you were using it, say, between your knees to get either a more targeted ab workout, or to help shape and sculpt your inner thighs for an extra burn.

They were a little bit on the high end, price wise, at least that was my opinion. I think it cost something like $45 for the largest one, which weighed in at about 9 lbs. But hey, we’re talking Target here, not Wal-Mart. Target may have better selection for things like this, but they sure don’t usually have the better prices. It’s all about the nuances and marketing for Target.

Pedometers seem to be very popular these days. They had pedometers (as my husband likes to call them – peedometers), ranging in technology and price allover the map. I didn’t even recognice some fo the functions that the higher priced ones offered, but then again, I have never used a pedometer myself. I wonder how much some of those functions would come in handy anyways.

Of course, yoga mats and other accessories were incredibly popular, since yoga is spreading in popularity and recognition.

It’s probably no surprise to you at all, since exercise equipment such as elliptical machines, treadmills and the like, are pretty high ticket items, with the economy the way it is now, that the amount of larger exercise equipment pieces that are being sold as gifts has been on the wane, not only last year, but so far this year too.

It used to be a much more popular gift, and even one of those gifts that you can give to your loved one that you live with, and you can enjoy the fruits of it as well! Ok, so maybe it’s a bit of a cheat to buy this sort of thing for your partner when you know you’re the one who really wanted it, but more and more couples these days are going in on one single gift to sort of “give to eachother” when it comes to bigger items.

I know several couples who do this type of thing. For example, if you’ve had your eye on some huge flat screen TV or maybe a nice new desktop computer, you can maybe make it a group gift to eachother instead of spending money on one another separately. It’s a great way to build a household of items that you really need and want, or both, without busting the bank in addition to buying gifts for the various holiday for eachother.

When you consider that large cardio exercise machines can range anywhere from $400 to over $1,000, it’s no wonder that these items have fallen slightly out of favor as gifts. It doesn’t mean that people don’t still want them, it just means that, as with a large amount of other consumer goods, we Americans have rearranged our priorities, and where once exercise machines may have been a priority, now more primitive things like food and shelter have become our focus since those things we have taken for granted are lost to so many now.

Also, one word on charity. It was awesome to see the place where I work come up with a goal-breaking number of coats in the Coats for Kids drive this year. I know that people aren’t making a lot of money this year, but for charities like that to still be raking in donations, I think, really speaks to the resilience and generous nature of Americans.

Well, if you just saw my most recent review on the Biggest Loser Weight Loss Yoga DVD, then you know why I’m asking this question, and answering it too! I had never seen one of these nifty little contraptions in use before for exercising. It’s a ball, the one I saw was a bit smaller than your typical medicine ball, that is squishy and filled with water. It’s very pliable, so you can do things like put it between your knees while your working your abs and really get that transverse ab muscle that is so hard target with this little sucker.

This is not to be confused with the novelty item that allows you to float, while inside it, on the water’s surface. Those are very cool though, I must say! This is a piece of exercise equipment, or better yet, an accessory, that you can use to help your resistance exercises feel a little more strenuous when you are doing the ones where you have a small space to fill such as between your knees in the situp position, so you can actually use the ball to exercise your resistance skills, instead of just body part on body part.

It’s a great idea since you really do feel it more when you increase the surface area you are resisting. I might look into getting one eventually, but for now I stick with my medicine ball for that exercise.

I’m a huge fan of the Jillian Michaels Biggest Loser workout DVD’s, so I figured that I might also like the Weight Loss yoga DVD that features her Biggest Loser counterpart trainer, Bob Harper, who on the show as I understand it, tends to be a little bit easier on his clients. I’ve only watched that show one time actually, so I couldn’t really tell what the personalities were, but I can tell you I enjoyed it, so I do understand why it’s such an immensely popular series.

I’ve had the Weight Loss yoga DVD at my house for a few months now. Actually, I bought it almost when it first came out, so it’s been quite a while. I just haven’t gotten around to doing it yet. I tend to procrastinate trying new workouts sometimes, especially when I settle into a routine of doing all of my other ones all the time. Today though, I forced myself outside the proverbial box, and made myself try it out. I liked it. Let me tell you about some of the features of this DVD, and also tell you about the difficulty levels and how that is structured.

The host is Bob, from the Biggest Loser show. He has a very nice, encouraging tone and seems to be a really easygoing dude. I liked him, so it made the workout easier than when I get those ones where I can’t stand the instructor. It really does make a difference, at least for me.

A feature about this DVD that I love is that you can customize your workout. You can make it 55 minutes long and do the whole thing, or you can pick pieces/parts of the DVD and customize your own workout, depending on your fitness level and on the amount of time you happen to have to kill on your routine that particular day. This is great for those of us who may not have a lot of time in our day to work out, and it’s also excellent for those of us who have very little skills or experience when it comes to yoga.

Heck, it’s good for those of us who have a lot of experience in yoga too, since you can make it as hard as you want. I wasn’t a huge fan of the music they chose for this DVD, but I overlooked it because I felt like I was getting a genuine workout that was challenging. The moves, while they may look easy, were very challenging, and I found that I was shaking quite a bit, and I’m a person who is used to doing yoga, although I’ll admit lately I’ve been slacking off the practice.

Overall, I really enjoyed this workout. I combined four of the five workouts, and felt pretty wiped in the end between the first segment and the pilates/yoga abs portion, which worked the hell out of my abs. Felt great though. Just be careful to protect your back and neck as you will be contorting into quite a few precarious positions for these two sensitive parts of your body.

If you’ve been searching for some new gym quality fitness equipment, then right now is one of the best times of the year to start looking, especially online. There are some awesome deals on everything from weight sets and fitness accessories to recumbent exercise bikes and DVD’s of yoga workouts, cardio blasts, and plenty of other workout regimens.

You can even find some steals on elliptical machines, and you can get them shipped right to your house for free many times. I’ve found some great deals on some of my favorite machines around this time in years past, and I’m so glad that I really held out to shop during the Christmas season, because I ended up really making out.
You can get Shwinn recumbent bikes for as little as around $250, and they work really well, and you can get things like boxing gloves and upright boxing punch bags for something like 30 bucks.

That’s something I’ve still been eyeballing and just haven’t had the time or the funds to pursue yet with other priorities floating about that should come before that (like boring bills to pay, yada yada). Even at Best Buy, I saw some exercise DVD’s on sale, and also noticed that the new Jillian Michaels Wii fitness game was on sale.

I want to try that since we have the Wii gaming system, but I know thus far how we’ve been with the other fitness games we have, and we barely use it. I supposed I’m still just a straight DVD or home gym exerciser, and I’m not really used to these “new fangled” forms of exercise yet. Call me old fashioned (just don’t call me old). If you’re looking for yoga mats, or even pedometers, now’s the time to buy those too, or sometimes things like this go on sale at reduced prices after Christmas, since a lot of people get early starts on their inevitable New year’s resolutions to A.) lose weight and B.) get in shape.

Resistance bands, weights, and other accessories also go on sale at deeply reduced prices, so if you’ve been biding your time, waiting for the right opportunity to present itself to buy any of these normally fairly high ticket items, then now’s the time to get off the pot and buy!

Well, adults know that there are many benefits to taking up the practice of yoga for them. From relaxation to improved immunity, focus and concentration, the practice of yoga has been a boon for many adults, helping them to transform their lives into a more peaceful haven and simultaneously tone their bodies, making them more able to get around, have better posture, and be better able to perform physical duties.  I know the benefits of yoga myself, having done it several times over the past few years, but still not able to incorporate it into my weekly exercise regimen as much as I’d like to.

Now, yoga is showing that it can have great benefits for kids too.  Parents of children who have enrolled in special yoga classes with cute catch phrases and a different curriculum have marveled at how much calmer their children seem to be, and how much yoga has helped some hyperactive young children to really channel that energy into something positive, and allowed them to be calmer and more focused on their schoolwork and other things they need to be focusing on more in their youth.

Many children, some as young as three and five years old, can find it therapeutic to do the yoga poses for an hour or so, and although some of them may get a bit restless, it’s amazing that they can stay in some of the poses for as long as they can.  Yoga definitely helps to focus the mind and calm the inner chatter that goes along with both anxiety and hyper activity in children, so it’s no wonder that this has been found to be a successful therapy for young kids.

With the popularity increasing in larger cities, this may soon find it’s way into the real mainstream, with smaller towns perhaps picking it up and running with it, or even schools perhaps adding yoga to their curriculum in gym class so that kids can be constantly moving in their day during this important time, instead of learning some sport that won’t teach them anything or exercise their bodies.  It could really help kids get through their school day better if they did that.