PEERtrainer Fitness

Good Alternatives To The Gym

There are some excellent ideas on this thread on what to keep in your home gym, as well as good ways to workout when you are not at the gym.

We also have created two reviews of products that we have tested and used for over 2 years.

The first is the Total Gym. We actually interviewed some of the people who run that company yesterday. We have had a Total Gym in our house, (in the garage) for close to two years. It fits well within our fat burning model of fitness and is gentle and easy to use.

For example, if you go for a bike ride, come back and park the bike in the garage, you can then hop on your Total Gym for a few minutes and do a quick set of incline shoulder presses to help balance the lower body workout you just did.

If you are just looking to lose weight, you can set the incline super low, and do some easy range of motion exercises which will help get your blood flowing, and into your muscles. Really easy stuff to do, and so so good for you.

This is a video review we did a few years back, and we stand by everything said in it.

http://blog.peertrainer.com/fitness/2009/02/total-gym-xls-review-top-of-the-line-product-great-for-pilates-and-chuck-norris.html

The other piece of equipment that you really MUST get if you are looking for gym alternatives or home gym equipment is a set of high quality resistance bands. Bodylastics makes the best set on the market. This is something that we have been testing and using for years now. A basic set costs $50 and it is unreal the kinds of workouts you'll get. If you buy a set, they also have a website where you can do workouts for free.

Here is the video review we created:

http://blog.peertrainer.com/fitness/2009/03/bodylastics-review-best-resistance-band-system.html  

-PEERtrainer

PS: If you are looking good way to get more foods that will give you the energy you need to workout, check out our new PEERtrainer Cheat System. We are getting very good feedback from many marathoners and other super active people who are using elements of this (free) system in their training.

Related:

How To Get The Motivation To Exercise

 

 

Where Can I Buy A Resistance Band To Work The Lower Body?

If you want to use resistance bands to work the lower body you need to realize that your thighs are the biggest muscles in your body. You want to make sure that any resistance bands you buy are strong enough so that they don't break during exercise.

Most resistance bands you see in gyms are very low quality and are not strong enough to withstand repeated stress. Bodylastics is the clear leader in this market, and sells a very durable and versatile resistance bands set.

They sell a couple different versions at different price points. Their website has several videos that show the system in action. Visit the Bodylastics website to learn more.

Total Gym Risk Free Trial Offer, Other Payment Options

I saw on TV recently that Total Gym offers their risk free trial for $49. That is if you call their phone operator. If you buy online you can get the Total Gym for $1 for the first month and usually with free shipping. So the total month one cost is actually $1. On top of that the company usually offers some sort of discount on top of this. Retail price of the Total Gym XLS (which is the one you want and the one we have) is $1948.05. Sometimes they have sales as deep as 45%. For example today (February 23rd, 2010) you can buy a Total Gym for $1071.43. They also offer a monthly payment system which comes out to $107 a month for ten months.

Another option you have is if you can pay in full you can get a free upgrade:

Pay in Full at Total Gym® and receive a Free Upgrade, which includes an extended warranty, priority processing and more!

We have had our Total Gym for a year now, and it is used daily. A Total Gym tip for you is that in the course of 3-4 minutes you can do a very quick workout that gets your blood flowing. It can be very easy as well. You can apply just a little incline and get a workout in that does not make you sweat, but gets you going.

Of course you can also really work your muscles aggressively, but the biggest draw that we see is that this is something that you can easily incorporate into your life every day. Imagine just doing a 5 minute workout a day for 30 days.. you would have such a win in your mind. You would then remind yourself that you did this. This is what we talk about in PEERtrainer all the time, stacking small wins on top of each other. When you do this you put yourself in a position where you are set up to win.

Easy rituals like this are great. Imagine if every day you woke up 10 minutes early, had half a cucumber and some green tea and did 5 minutes of Total Gym. We have a yoga mat right next to our Total Gym so we can hop off and stretch for a couple minutes. These are the kinds of rituals you can genuinely look forward to. Quiet time, if you have kids you can do this before you wake up. It can be a lot of fun! 

Btw- we were given our Total Gym by the company, and we need to disclose that. But we get sent a lot of things by companies looking to promote their products and a lot of it gathers dust or is given away. Ours sits in our garage and is between our office and kitchen. This is a high traffic area.

Why You Should Get A Garmin If You Want To Run Further and Faster

This is a new article and a new post that details a new discussion on the site about Garmin Forerunner GPS watchers. Please note that this is not sponsored by Garmin in any way. In fact we reached out to them to ask for some help creating some content about their product line and their response was basically "read the manual and don't steal any copyrighted material from us." 

Okaaay!!  Anyway, the product is so useful that we should be able to explain the value of it to others using only the feedback from members of the PEERtrainer community. We did find some helpful videos from the company blog on YouTube which we have embedded.

Should I Get A Garmin? Article that seeks to answer this question as well as list out some actual feedback from PEERtrainer members. About 25 comments, but if you read them all you will get a sense of how people respond to the product.

If You Own A Garmin Would You Recommend It To Others? This is a new PEERtrainer community thread where we will be collecting newer and more detailed input about the Garmin GPS watches. 

The objective here is to help those people who have started running to run further and faster. The Garmin is an essential tool in helping to get to that goal. 

-Habib

Half Hour Leg, Core and Lower Body Workout Using Resistance Bands

this video leads you through the following exercises over a half hour period. You will need a resistance band set to do them as well as a door that you can anchor the bands to. 

side to side shuffle- this is excellent for improving overall speed and agility.

rock climber- helps strengthen legs for forward movement

squats, calf raises, hamstring curls, lunges, ab and oblique twists

Does Long Distance Running Hurt Your Knees?

Since I started training for a marathon, people keep warning me that I will ruin my knees or my feet. The reality is that knee and feet injuries are prevalent. I came across a very interesting study in the New York Times recently, that provided some insight into this question. A group of Austrian researchers had studied the knees of marathon runners over a 10 year period. The following is a summary of the study and the findings.

"OBJECTIVE: The aim of the study was to evaluate long-term damage in the internal structures of the knee joints of recreational long-distance runners. 

MATERIALS AND METHODS: Ten years after their participation in a baseline study concerning their knee joints, seven long-distance runners and one who had given up long-distance running were invited to participate in a repeat magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) investigation. The same evaluation criteria and the same technical equipment were used, and the results of the two investigations were compared.

RESULT: No adverse long-term consequences were observed in six of the seven active runners, regardless of pre-existing damage at the baseline investigation. In one case the arthrotic changes were progressive in nature. The person who had given up running presented with severe deterioration of the internal structures of the knee joint. 

CONCLUSION: Non-physiological maximal loads secondary to the marathon race do not cause any permanent damage in the internal structures of the knee joint in individuals without significant pre-existing damage. A disposition for premature arthrosis was not registered in the population investigated. A protective value of long distance running on the internal structures of the knee joint is discussed."

Other studies have shown basically the same thing- that running does not cause your knees to wear out, and that running often helps improve the long term health profile of the knee. The important caveat here is that if you are overweight or running in an improper form, you can develop serious injuries.

If you have anything to add to this discussion we WANT to hear it. Please click here to add to it!

Bodylastics and Total Gym On Sale This Week

By Habib Wicks, PEERtrainer co-founder

We are big advocates of people getting physically stronger. And we strongly recommend having stuff at home that you can use. Two things that I use literally every day when I am at home are Bodylastics and Total Gym. You can get both products at a discount this week.

Bodylastics

Bodylastics makes resistance bands sets. There are different options depending on how much resistance you are looking for. This company makes the highest quality product in the market. We cover resistance bands a lot in our fitness content. If you have been thinking about buying a set, for the next week the company is offering PEERtrainer members a 5% discount. You can apply the discount by clicking on this link and then entering the word "peertrainer" (you need to use lowercase) in the coupon code field. This code expires in a week. Btw, Blake runs this company and is my buddy. I can personally vouch for the product and the people behind it!

Total Gym

The best way to describe Total Gym is by presenting part of their Wikipedia Entry:

"In 1974 (before there was any thought of an informercial) the very first Total Gym was developed by Tom Campanaro (then a competitive body builder) and his partners Dale McMurray and Larry Westfall in San Diego, California. They started a company with the name "Total Gym Incorporated". The device encouraged "functional exercise", a way of duplicating movements the body performs in everyday life, with and against gravity. This caught the eye of Physical Therapists and other medical professionals. The machine was found to engage all muscle groups, allowing over 100 functional exercises on different levels of inclined resistance. The full range of motion and variable resistance levels (heavier resistance near the top and light resistance when more horizontal) brought much attention to various professionals. Customers were starting to use the product for upper and lower body exercises to do stretching, strengthening, and comprehensive movements similar to aerobics. The easy concept was found to help facilitate key components of exercise: cardiovascular endurance (aerobics), muscular strength, muscular endurance, flexibility and body composition. The machines typically take up much less space than a complete set of weights and machines."

I simply LOVE this machine. Right now I am training for a marathon and find that it is an excellent addition to my overall training. Until August 20th you can get the top of the line model (the XLS) for almost half off. If you have been thinking about getting one, this is the time! Click here to buy a Total Gym XLS with the discount.

Full Body Circuit Workout With Resistance Bands

This video shows you how to get a full body workout using a high quality set of resistance bands. As you can see you can get a very effective workout quickly with resistance bands. In this case we are using the Bodylastics set designed by Terrell Owens, a well known professional football player:

Click here to learn more about Bodylastics resistance bands or purchase a set.

Learn more about resistance bands from PEERtrainer.

How To Build Shoulder Muscles

This is article is designed to answer a very common questions many men have- how to build shoulder muscles. If you look at a guy like Terrell Owens, you see that his deltoid muscles look like someone put a deck of playing cards under his skin. They pop right out.

And a lot of guys want that look. The secret to developing these muscles is to work them smarter, not necessarily harder. Most men are familiar with things like pushups, shoulder presses, bench presses etc. The important thing to realize is that those muscles work the big muscles primarily. In order to really work the deltoid in the optimal way, you need to do two things.

 

1) Get a set of resistance bands and do sets of bicep curls combined with shoulder presses. For some reason this works the entire shoulder and upper arm in a way that you simply cannot get with conventional weights. Do your other workouts as well, but also add sets with the resistance bands. The best resistance bands are the ones that T.O. actually developed- the T.O. Bands from Bodylastics. Less than $100 for an insanely good piece of equipment.

 

2) Find a Total Gym. Again, the idea is that you want to hit these hard to isolate muscles in ways they have not been tested before. With the Total Gym, you workout on an incline. The resistance is a combination of your bodyweight and the level of incline you are using. Total Gym allows you to do a shoulder press where you get on your stomach and push your body up along the incline. It works incredibly well to isolate your shoulders and upper body. Total Gym usually has good deals on their website. You can often find equipment 50% off as well as factory refurbished units.

 

With both these pieces of equipment you will be able to do a wide array of exercises beyond just working out your shoulders.

Related:

Get Motivated To Exercise By Getting Out Of Physical Pain

How To Build and Workout Your Biceps and Forearm Muscles

Biceps forearms

Just about everybody who works out, regardless if you’re a man or a woman, has at least some desire for nice looking bicep muscles.  Whether you’re a guy wanting great looking “guns”, “pythons”, or “pipes” on the beach, or a woman who wants some nicely defined arms in your summer dress, nice looking biceps are perhaps the most widely sought after muscle. 

There are of course tons of ways to build your biceps ranging from free weights to resistance bands such as Bodylastics to bodyweight exercises like chin-ups to an exercise machine like Total Gym.

In this video, we demonstrate how you can build your biceps, as well as your forearms) using a Total Gym XLS system.  While this is by no means the only way to get some nice looking guns it is certainly one good way that has other advantages.  If you’re in the market for a nice, compact home gym system Total Gym is excellent because of the sheer number of exercises it allows you to do in one small space.  You can work so many different muscle groups and transition from working one body part to the next very quickly and easily.  In 20 minutes you can get a pretty kick-butt full body workout, including a good dose of cardio (you may want to add other cardio to your workout depending on what you’re into and what level of conditioning you’re starting from, but you will definitely get your heart going using the Total Gym.

Here are some of the bicep and forearm exercises you can perform using Total Gym:

Seated Biceps Curl- The basic bicep curl, only with a Total Gym you’re using your own bodyweight on the glideboard rather than barbells, dumbbells, etc. 

Inverted Biceps Curl- A variation where you lie back on the glideboard and work a fuller range of motion.  This is a killer that REALLY works out the biceps!

Preacher Curl- Another standard bicep exercise only instead of using a preacher curl stand you stabilize your elbow with your opposite hand.

Lateral Biceps Curl- To do this exercise on a Total Gym XLS, you sit with you legs hanging off one side of the glideboard and perform the curl exercise using just one arm at a time.  This notches up the intensity of the exercise nicely. 

Forearm Curl- By bringing your feet up onto the glideboard and bending at the knees, you create the position necessary to work your forearms.  You work both sides of the forearms for nice definition and muscle tone. 

Continue Reading The PEERtrainer Review of Total Gym

Continue Reading How Resistance Bands Build Muscle