Category: Home Fitness

Interbike/Health + Fitness Expo 2011: Power Press

Maximum Fitness Gear Inc. has debuted a new low-tech fitness system at the H+FB 2011 show that claims to maximize and strengthen the upper body and increase endurance. The Power Press is an innovative push up board that will help develop your chest, shoulders, triceps, biceps and back muscles by performing a variety of pushups.

The Power Press is approximately the size of a yoga mat with a series of color-coded holes that push up bars lock into when the user wants to work on a particular muscle group. A “Tone and Burn” workout program is included that combines Power Press push ups with calorie-burning cardio, plyometri and abs/core exercises.

If you already incorporate pushups into your workout or want to get started, the Power Press is a very straight forward system to help you maximize your efforts.

Maximum Fitness Gear Official Website

Interbike/Health + Fitness Expo 2011: Virtual Travel in HD

Travel is not fun, and as we make our way to the Interbike and Health + Fitness Expo we can you that getting there isn’t half the fun. But there is a great big world to see, and unfortunately most of us will never be able to visit all of it. But the Passport media player is the next best thing to working out in a distant land – and without the crowded seats or security lines along the way.

Available only to Johnson Health Tech Passport, featuring Virtual Active technology, offers the a rich high-definition experience with real destination footage and matching ambient sounds. This exclusive technology, which to date has only been available at gyms around the world on Matrix line of equipment, is now being brought to the consumer market on the AFG 7.1 AT treadmill.

Since its founding in 2005, the 10-person, San Francisco-based company has been busy sending camera crews around the world to capture the most realistic, breathtaking footage available on an exercise machine.Users can connect to their own home entertainment system and get taken away during their workout. Sure beats watching the news during a workout – with all that’s going on that might not be good for your heart!

Virtual Active Official Website

Made in America: TriActive America E-Line

Chin up bars, parallel bars and sit -up platforms are all items that you might have seen on your local walking or running path. These stations of yesteryear are typically constructed of steel pipe and wooden posts which work perfectly fine and shouldn‘t be replaced unless they are worn out. At some point, these fitness stations will deteriorate and once your community or company is looking to replace tired equipment or install a new fitness path with stations, there is an alternative to the steel pipes and wood. TriActive America offers a line of heavy duty, outdoor stations that are designed to keep people fit and stand the test of time all while offering many more choices of fitness activities.

TriActive America designs and manufactures this unique line of outdoor fitness equipment for use exclusively outdoors. TriActive America offers a few different product lines: the original TriActive Fitness products, premium E-Line equipment, Wheelchair Accessible equipment, and the E-Shade Line. All products are designed in the U.S.A. with components that are made of powder-coated steel for high durability against damage and the environment. TriActive America is so confident in their equipment that they stand behind every piece with a 10 year warranty. Not all lines are manufactured in the U.S., but the E-Line is all 100-percent American made. Continue reading Made in America: TriActive America E-Line

Sproing Into a Lower Impact Workout

If you love running on the beach, but don’t have a beach right out of the door you don’t have to settle for running on a regular treadmill to get that same style of soft on the feet running. Occupying just a little more space than a commercial grade treadmill, Sproing is a new soft platform training machine that promises a lower impact ‘run’ while burning more calories and providing a more intense workout. It is thus ideal for anyone who suffers from consent knee pain that might otherwise also keep you from running.

Though the Sproing appears to be a treadmill at first glance, this new machine has no moving parts. Instead, Sproing has a soft pad ‘running’ surface and uses bungee resistance instead of a moving platform to hold the user in place. The resistance of running against the bungee forces you to run on the balls of your feet instead of landing on your heels; and with no moving platform, the risk of falling off of the platform is virtually eliminated.

(Video after the jump) Continue reading Sproing Into a Lower Impact Workout

Made in America: Vectra Fitness

Trying to get into shape or maintaining your fitness level is no easy task. For most people, it takes a few hours each week working out just to stay at a certain level. Going to the gym can add time to a workout that some people just do not have in their busy day. If you have the discipline to use one, a home gym can allow you to squeeze in a workout whenever you have the time.

For almost 25 years, Vectra Fitness has been manufacturing high-end compact multi-station weight gyms for home and institutional use. Founded in 1987 and based in Kent, Washington, three of the four original founders are still owners today and actively involved in the business. Doug MacLean, Bob Rasmussen and Buell Ish have combined their engineering principles with unprecedented and creative designs resulting in approximately 30 patents being issued to Vectra innovations over the years. Most of these innovations are not obvious to the user, but one that will please most people is the fingertip release lever. Available on most Vectra models, the feature allows easy adjustment of exercise handles with the flip of a lever – no more struggling with pins to adjust the arms of the machine. Continue reading Made in America: Vectra Fitness

IDEA: NewYu Helps Users Get Fit to a New You

This week at the IDEA Show in Los Angeles attendees were given a chance to see a product that could help make a “new you.” The NewYu Connected Fitness Monitor and Services is a comprehensive system for monitoring and managing wellness goals all day long. It tracks exercise and everyday activities, providing wearer’s with information on how many calories were burned.

It utilizes motion detection and advanced pattern recognition technology that detects and identifies specific body movements, the small and lightweight NewYu easily clips anywhere on the torso or to the pocket. It can monitor basic activities including walking and running, but also more complex fitness workouts with bikes, elliptical and step machines, and even keep track of activities like cleaning, cooking and shopping. The result is a complete picture of calories burned throughout the day – not just while working out. Continue reading IDEA: NewYu Helps Users Get Fit to a New You

Skateboarding is in the House

There was that old Brady Bunch episode where Bobby kept uttering the immortal line, “Mom said not to play ball in the house,” and some silly scenario ensued. Well Carol Brady probably wouldn’t have approved of the PAS House, a full-scale, 753.5-square foot prototype house being designed in Malibu,CA by Francois Perrin of LA-based Air Architecture.

Come to think of it Mike Brady was an architect, but yet he never came up with something as revolutionary as this design for former pro skateboarder and Etnies footwear founder Pierre-André Senizergues. The house, which will feature a sofa, bed and furniture from the Skate Study House collection is actually designed to be skateboard friendly. The concept was part of a the recent Public Domaine/Skateboard Culture at the new La Gaite Lyrique museum in Paris, but the completed residence will measure 2,200 square-feet and will be designed to overlook the Pacific in Malibu. Continue reading Skateboarding is in the House

Elliptical Office Chair

We’ve heard of the office treadmill before, and actually liked the idea. After all, if you spend as much time in front of the computer as we do you probably feel a longing to get out and do something. There are only so many hours in the day, and then there are those rainy days and winter evenings when you try to be more productive. But work shouldn’t stop you from working out.

So enter the Elliptical Machine Office Desk, which is suitable for users ranging in height from 5’2” to 6’9” and weighting up to 300 pounds. It allows users to sit and spin, and therefore is probably better than the office treadmill, which seems like something users might give up quickly.

The machine features a padded swivel chair with adjustable backrest, while resistance to the pedals is electronically controlled. It even comes with an external monitor that can display distance, watts, RPM and calories burned. So if you can sit and read at the gym you should have no probably sitting and spinning and doing some work. Of course at $8000 you might have to put in a lot of overtime to pay for it!

The Elliptical Machine Office Desk at Hammacher Schlemmer
[Via BornRich: The Elliptical Machine Office Desk: for the fitness freak rich executives]

New Study: Wii Could Motivate Inactive and Overweight People

The jury has been out for a while now on the exact “benefits” of video games as fitness. We agree that video games alone can’t really replace actual trips to the gym or other physical workouts, but a new study has found that the Nintendo Wii could play an important role in getting “inactive and overweight people into exercise regimes.”

This is among the findings from a new study from Queensland University of Technology (QUT), conducted by Creative Industries Research Associate Dr. Harvey May, a former personal trainer. He worked with a small group made up mostly of women, and found that they felt more motivated to exercise after a two-week fitness regime using the video game system.

In the study the participants showed significant reduction in body mass and fat deposition around the abdominal area and improved strength, balance and walking fitness. The study, which was conducted with QUT alumnus Dr. Kagawa from Kagawa Nutrition University in Japan, included one-hour sessions with the Wii that included yoga, strength exercise, aerobic activities and balance games.

There was some negative findings as well, notably that the video games could result in repetitive stress and “poor direction for some activities.” Still, anything that helps motivate people to do more is good in our book.

[Via HealthCanal.com: Game consoles can help inactive adults get fit]

TV Show Inspires Game That Will be on TV Show

In a unique twist, THQ’s popular video game The Biggest Loser Ultimate Workout video game will be actually make it’s the show that inspired it. The game will be featured on tonight’s episode of the hit NBC series, with an all-new, downloadable endurance challenge. Following the episode, owners of the game will be able to download the “TV Show Challenge” content for free for the Microsoft Xbox 360 Kinect.

During the episode, five contestants will participate in four challenging rounds of exercise moves, lasting five minutes each, taken directly from the TV Show Challenge. Contestants’ scores will be based on how well they perform the exercises in the time allotted.

As an added bonus, for 24 hours following the May 10 episode, the “Pilates” pack will be available free (a $4.99 value) on Xbox LIVE Marketplace for The Biggest Loser Ultimate Workout.

The Biggest Loser Official Video Game Website
The Biggest Loser Official Website

Shake and Tone

Dumbbells are just not intelligent. You have to lift them, lower them, and know how to use them in order to get results. The Shake Weight is one part gimmick, one part intelligence for your workout. It’s shaped like your typical dumbbell, but has an accordion gasket on each of the weighted ends to give you Dynamic Inertia, which claims to increase muscle activity by as much as 300 percent compared to traditional weights. A Shake Weight workout is also completed in six minutes compared to half an hour of toning and sculpting.

Pick up the weight, give it a little jolt and hold it while you jiggle the Shake Weight in one of a number of positions. Hold the weight with both hands in front of you and tone your triceps, biceps, and chest. Weights come with a DVD that shows you several moves to tone your targeted areas such as your upper arms. Other workouts such as the firm — with controlled, slow movements, promised to do more for your fitness in the past. This one may also overpromise. But it’s a but welcome to see an update to the classic dumbbell.

Shake Weight

While Working, Let Your Legs do the Walking

Remember those 1970s commercials for the Yellow Pages that said, “let your fingers do the walking?” Well, not it is years later and American waistlines have increased while finger strength has likely increased not from walking in phone book, but from typing, dialing and texting. What if you could walk instead all day? There actually is a way to let your legs do the walking as well – with a treadmill desk! This concept, which actually isn’t new, is a desktop built around a treadmill. So instead of sitting at a desk all day, you can instead spend the day walking.

The pace needs to be lower, since you can’t actually run for hours – nor can you exactly run and type. But at a steady pace of a mile or two an hour, you can actually talk on the phone, do some typing and best of all still tone up and possibly lose some weight. Of course, you might lose weight as you’ll have to skip lunch for a month to pay for the desk. But there are some options to build you own desk. Just make sure that it is sized appropriately.

We think this is an interesting concept, although it could be difficult to convince some employers let you bring in a treadmill. And obviously this is something that is better suited for those with a house office rather than a cubicle dweller. And if you can’t get on the treadmill during the office hours, might we recommend going for a walk at lunch, or consider walking around the office if possible during a morning conference call?

Built and Design Your Own Treadmill Desk

British Boot Camp on Your iPhone

Workout in your own time and location with My Fitness Instructor.

It’s a proven fact that some things are better with a British accent. These include political speeches, the evening news, and of course romantic comedies. Soon to be added to that list: fitness instruction. British Military Fitness, a company founded by a retired British Major as an alternative to “the lycra clad, Swiss ball using, water fountain world of gyms,” is releasing a My Fitness Instructor app for the iPhone, iPad, iPod touch this week.

My Fitness Instructor delivers custom workouts to your iPhone so you can conduct your workout anytime and anywhere, fitting with the company’s belief that the world is your gym and your body is your running machine. Each workout will be different from the last. You can choose from a number of instructors and select your workout goals. Begin your workout. An audio clip will play where the instructor walks you through each of a number of exercises such as crunches, twistsets, leg lifts, and other moves. If you aren’t sure how to do the move, you can watch a video demonstration. My Fitness Instructor from British Military Fitness gives you a disciplined workout with the freedom of when you want it.

British Military Fitness

My Workout Instructor App