Tony Little makes a new little stepper that is supposed to help sculpt the problem areas on women – their butts and thighs (aka saddle bags) away with using the piece of equipment regularly. Of course, anything that is reasonably priced that claims to help sculpt and tone these huge problem areas for me, I’m a sucker for, so I got online and purchased one, except I found that the reviews on that particular product were mixed, so I ended up going with something called a Body Slender machine that was very similar but looked more sturdily constructed and costs about $60 used.

I purchased mine off Amazon (go figure, I’m addicted to their great buys), and it happened that the person who was selling it lived right down the road from me practically, so she dropped it off in like two days, so on top of getting a good deal, I also didn’t have to pay for shipping which made me really happy!

It’s a very cool little contraption, and it’s small so you can grab it and pull it out if you’re feeling guilty about vegging in front of the tv all day and want to get a little physical activity in as well. It’s easy to do right in front of the tv actually. When you first step on the machine, it feels a bit awkward, and you do have to balance from side to side in order to get a good rhythm going. This is part of the exercise though, since forcing your body to balance requires specific muscle groups to do work, and this helps them to contract and sculpt themselves.

At first I thought it was fairly easy, but I was out of breath after about five minutes of doing it straight through. Now, I know I’ll build a better tolerance after doing it a few times, but I think it targeted different muscles than I’m used to and that contributed to my early fatigue. One note is that is it tough on carpet, so you definitely do want to get a workout mat to place it on.

Unlike other models of this machine, this one does not slip like many other people complained about with other stepper machines, it pretty much stayed put the whole time I was using it instead of scooching all the way across the mat the whole time. A good mat of course helped as well since it helped grip the metal bottoms in place. All in all, I like the machine, as far as results, I think I will definitely see results after I start using it consistently, judging from how it worked my butt and thighs those first few times.

I got my thigh rocker machine in the mail today. It’s basically the same thing as Tony Little’s Rock n Roll Stepper, but it’s supposed to be a little better quality and didn’t get as bad of reviews for rocking around on the floor too much and bunching up the mat below it. I bought it off Amazon (imagine that), and ended up getting free shipping because the seller happened to live only ten or so minutes away from me! I was pretty delighted with that as well.

Well, other than telling you I ordere it, there’s not much else to say about this machine, other than the fact that it is an easy machine that is supposed to target the butt and the thighs, which are two of my biggest genetic weaknesses and something that I’ve always struggled with whittling down throughout the years.

I’m hoping this rocker will be a simple yet effective machine to add to my workout regimen, which seems to be a getting a big stale at the moment. I will have a full review of this thigh rocker for you hopefully in just about a week. I want to make sure I have time to really try it out and figure out all the pros and cons of this little machine before I review it.

Since gyms today face competition from other public and pay gyms, and also from the ever increasing range of home fitness equipment like elliptical machines, treadmills and recumbent bikes as well as more sophisticated equipment, like pilates machines and weight machines that look like they belong in a professional gym, they are trying to offer more incentives to get your business. And who can blame them? T

hey’re a business too, and they also need to get people coming through the door, but why is it that some still only offer complementary fitness assessments and also tailoring a fitness routine for their clients – at no charge. What I mean is, get you a tailored fitness routine that fits your goals and lifestyle and weight loss and maintenance goals, without draining your wallet because you have to have a “personal trainer” do it for you.

I do know a lot of people who are huge fans of personal trainers because they say that a trainer not only motivates them to get off their butt and move (of course you have to get to the gym first to take advantage of this feature), but also because trainers show them different exercises all the time that get them out of the rutt they’ve inevitably trapped themselves in as well as to create that muscle confusion that is so important to getting and maintaining a sculpted set of muscles and keeping it.

If gyms would just give you a free consultation and show you what you can do though, and then maybe once a month or every two weeks, depensing on how often you happen to work out, maybe show you a set of different exercises to do to kick it up a notch and also to keep your muscles working up to the next level, that would be ideal and also a good money saver for those of us who don’t care to pay hundreds of dollars to get those personal training sessions a couple times a week.

I had to laugh when my sister asked me what was up with the crappy push up bars in our basement, and I told her that I thought they helped align you better to do a better pushup by elevating your body a little more off the ground and helping you to figure out which angle you wanted to do, whether you wanted to target your triceps or biceps, and how intense you wanted to make it.

Pushup bars are really the simplest looking devices. They are just a u-shaped bar, usually made of some sort of metal alloy that can support a couple hundred pounds since people are going to be putting the majority of their weight on them when using them for pushups, and ours has rubber on the top for easier gripping and increased comfort. I think ours is made by Gold’s gym or something like that, it’s some sort of gym I do know that!

The way I do it is align them up by my head, so that they are perpendicular, and then I go ahead and do my various pushups, including the target area for me, which is my triceps, where I tend to retain a lot of surface fat, which is common in women. Women need to be careful when targeting various parts of the arms though if they don’t want to end up looking bulky, so it’s important that they do make sure they are usually targeting the triceps specifically some of the time so that they aren’t always working the biceps, and making for an uneven look that isn’t really all that feminine.

In order to make sure you lose upper arm fat, you can’t really just put all the responsibility in your workout regimen, because you actually need to also watch what you eat and especially limit your fat intake, which will help burn fat in that area since you’re not adding more fat to be burned by the body first, and also since this will help you be better able to get rid of the body fat that you do have. Upper arm fat is especially stubborn on women, as are the hips, but if you really are consistent with getting in those good tricep workouts, and possibly also use a pushup bar as well, you will see results.

Remember seeing those ridiculous vibration belt contraptions that was the dubious piece of “gym equipment” that may have been in a few seventies and eighties gyms across the nation? I rememember actually using one of these vibration belt machines and feeling absolutely ridiculous, and wondering how anyone could possibly think these things, which require no movement other than you just standing there, actually work to burn calories or trim the waistline.

The vibration belt machines became somewhat of a joke, being dubbed the lazy man’s workout, and there was a reason for that. They were never really proven to do anything other than maybe give you the sensation of movement, they were never proven to burn calories or condition your cardiovascular system, so they were pretty much dismised by the fitness and well being world. Until now, where they have found their niche in being able to provide the human body some sort of benefit beyond just standing there and “feeling” like you’re getting a workout.

This time though, the vibration doesn’t come in the form of a vibrating cloth or rubber belt, but rather it comes in the form of a vibrating platform, which has already gained a bit of a following in high tech and expensive gyms for it’s claims that it can intensify the workout and also dramatically improve balance and coordination (those claims I don’t doubt).

It is now thought that the vibrating platform may have some beneficial applications in the quest to help sedentary, older adults keep their muscles and bones in working order, probably because it provides some sort of stimulation and circulation, without the person actually doing strenuous physical movement, which is the point in the older, possibly infirmed or unlikely to work out population.

Pilates is a newer practice that women are falling in love with for it’s notoriety as a long, lean muscle builder. Women who want a “dancer’s body” are flocking to studios that teach pilates, and it’s become an overnight sensation, although admittedly years ago now, in Hollywood where the body is everything and people are obsessed with staying lean and mean.

So, what is this machine that can help you do pilates? I thought that you could do pilates on your own, on the floor, and the exercises were very simple and could be done anywhere, without any machinery or accessories? Well, that is true, but as with everything else, there was a machine made to help you through the exercises, the pilates machine. Let’s talk about what it is and what it does.

What does a pilates machine look like? Well, it looks like (to me), sort of a rowing machine. It is long and flat, and looks like it could be stowed away fairly easily, although not all of them, I’m sure, are foldable or stowable. It has bands coming off of it, almost like a bowflex machine (which, by the way, is noted for creating that same long and lean look in mean and women), which I assume are used as a form of light resistance, just as you would be doing if just doing pilates on the floor by yourself, accept this is a more guided and precise way to make sure your movements are correct.

A good pilates machine will be quiet and have smooth rolling tracks, for a smooth, friction free workout that results in smooth muscle tone and long and lean muscles. Some pilates machines come with rebounders, which is like a small trampoline for a nice light little cardio workout before you begin the muscle workout on the machine. It’s best to get a book or DVD on what exercises to perform and how specifically to perform them on the pilates machine, so you’re not doing them incorreclty, but these often will come with the better models of the machine.

The more I use the balance ball that I recently purchased, and the one at the gym I (thankfully) have access to at my job, it is really growing on me as a way to trim and slim many of my problem areas. Not only is it great for the abs, which is what I primarily use it for, but I find that many of the exercises I use the balance ball for that are geared for my abs are also working my inner and outer thighs at various times.

While I don’t really feel my tummy is a problem area for me personally, I do feel like it could be a bit more toned right now, so the balance ball really helps me to isolate those abdominal muscles without putting a lot of strain on my back and neck, which is a major concern when working the abs for most people, especially people like myself and my boyfriend who both have injuries from car accidents in our back and neck.

When you use the balance ball to do ab crunches with your calves on the balance ball, when you extend your legs out in front of you and roll the ball away from you, not only are you forcing your ab muscles to work and tone, but you are also toning the inner thighs. You’ll feel a little tension there on the inner thighs and know that they are indeed straining a bit to keep your abs in line so you don’t throw your balance out of whack, and voila, that’s how you get your bonus workout in on those troublesome thighs – and I know I speak, to most women on the thighs!

There are also some excellent ways to use the balance ball to do strictly exercises that target the legs and thighs, and that usually involves you in a standing position and using the balance ball up against your back, with it smooshed up against the wall behind your back, and you doing squats. This may not seem like anything special, but try a few of them and you’ll see they are much more challenging than regular old squats without the balance ball because you’re actually using something as a gauge to tell how you’re doing.

Well, it looks like Nintendo may have another spin off hit for their super hit gaming system, the Wii. When this gaming system first came out, people scoffed at the idea that game playing based around real time movement on the part of the participant would catch on. Boy were they wrong! The thing about the Wii system is that it’s fun for all ages. You don’t have to practically have a doctorate in gaming to play it and have fun, and yeah, actually do kind of good.

Plus, parents love that it gets their kids, and even them, off the couch and gets them up and moving since you have to be up and moving your limbs for most of the games. The proof of the system’s popularity shows in the fact that it sells out nearly as soon as the stores stock their shelves with the systems, and they even go for significantly more than their retail value on many online auciton sites, especially at the peak of their popularity, when people couldn’t buy enough of them for holiday presents.

It looks like the Wii system by Nintendo has come up with another add-on winner for their system in the Wii Fit. The Wii Fit system comes with a balane board, which is desigend to read everything from your weight and BMI, to measuring how you’re doing at balancing and coordinating certain moves, which is great for focusing on balance, and helps people young and old to focus on their balance, which helps posture.

We actually got one of the free DVD’s for the Wii Fit, just to check out what it can do and see if it was something we might be interested in purchasing, even though we have yet to even buy the Wii system to begin with at this point. It’s a very interesting and fun gaming system and it’s sure to be a sensation already, with stores already filling preorders for the product before it even hits shelves, selling out it’s first couple of shipments already!

The Wii Fit DVD showed how you can do a variety of exercises and fun games that include fitness and moving with it. It includes yoga, balance games, coordination games, boxing, running in a virtual park, aerobics including step aerobics where you use your fit pad to determine how you’re doing, and stabilization moves and muscle workouts with “personal trainers” of the virtual sort of course to help you determine whether you’re doing your moves right.

The yoga feature even tells you if you’re doing a yoga posture right or not, since you use your balance board and it can tell what you’re doing by reading how your body weight is balancing. All in all, the Wii Fit is sure to be a sensation, there’s no doubt in my mind. I have to admit after seeing the DVD, I really wanted one for myself!

We just purchased a far infrared sauna for several different reasons, and we’re already loving the relaxing and soothing effects this heating machine has on our muscles both after workouts and at night after a busy and stressful day at work when mucsle tension seems to take over at night. What makes an infrared sauna different from regular saunas though?

Well, a regular sauna, which was popularized by Sweden, whose population liked to take long hot baths in the moist heat, used regular saunas, which were simply wooden boxes that heated anywhere from 150 to over 200 degrees by heating the air around the body, and using a centrally located heater with rocks in it that water could be poured on to make it more of a hot steam bath. It was relaxing, but it was not easy to make it very long in the stifling high temperatures.

So, the infrared sauna was designed to use infrared heat, which emanates around and penetrates the tissue of the body, instead, heating the body itself directly, not just the air around it. The consequence is that you get a deeper tissue penetration of the therapeutic heat, and consequently you also get a relaxing experience and other therapeutic benefits such as skin clearing, muscle relaxation, and and excellent added benefit of increased circulation of blood. See reviews and ratings of far infrared saunas for more information on better brands to choose.

This increased circulation of blood is supposed to help burn calories, but there is a lot of debate out there as to whether an infrared sauna can help you lose weight by using it. Unfortunately, the water you sweat out does come right back on as soon as you drink more water, but proponents of the infrared sauna say that the calories you burn while your heart is pumping out more blood to keep the body cool is still a benefit because it cardiovascularly conditions the heart and causes a benefit to those losing weight because of the extra calorie burning ability.

Do you know how many times I’ve gotten home from work and just wanted to punch something? A wall, a bag, whatever I could get my hands on, except of course, for an innocent bystander! Well, with one of the best workouts you can get for your arms, you can take out all your frustration from work and “vent” on a punching bag by throwing some well placed swings that land square on an inanimate object who’s only purpose is to let you take out your hostility and pent up energy. Can you tell I know a little about all the above?

But seriously, using a punching bag with boxing gloves is one of the best arm workouts you’re gonna get today. Not only that, it will leave you sweating and out of breath, so it’s also a good cardio outlet. You just have to be careful to protect your back and keep your legs strong as you rotate your torso around to get in your upper cuts and roundhouse blows.

I’ve used punching bags before, but I don’t actually own one in my home gym yet. I do think it’s a piece of home exercise equipment to consider, especially if you have a home gym since it is a fairly sizeable piece of home exercise equipment. All in all, you’ll get some great cardio as well as great muscle toning and arm strengthening in, and hey, a little self defense too!