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Total Gym Fitness is launching their holiday sales season with special deals on the glide trainers. If you are familiar with a Pilates-type workout, you already know the benefits a complete trainer like this can offer.

Take advantage of two special offers:

1. 10% off plus free shipping (using code: 11001 at checkout) at Total Gym® today.

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

More than 2 million people have already purchased a Total Gym – including Hollywood celebrities, professional athletes, trainers, and folks new to exercise. These affordable gyms give you every exercise you need to work on strength training on all parts of the body — arms, shoulders, back, chest, abs, and lower body. It’s a complete body transformation and one of the easiest ways to exercise.

Total Gym® Home Fitness Equipment.

Why buy new? The reconditioned Precor EFX576i Elliptical Crosstrainer is a used commercial model that has been refurbished “like new.” This is the version 4 series which is an upgrade from the version 3 model. It has the new Precor EFX body style and features.

These commercial grade trainers have been selling for $6500 to $8000 but you can get the Precor EFX576i for less than $3000 as a reconditioned model!

If you’ve been working out on Precors at your health club like I have, you know these are rock-solid machines. Precors have been our favorite elliptical machine at our gym for years because of their quality and reliability.

Cardio Training at Home

The gorgeous Precor 576i features 14 workout programs including Manual, 2 Intervals, Cross Country, Glutes, Heart Rate Control, Weight Loss, and Performance runs (Hill Climb, Fitness Test and 3 Cross Training) and more.

Working out on an EFX elliptical yields significantly more glute and quad activity than using a stairclimber, cycle, or treadmill. And you don’t need a trainer to tell you what to do: Designed for heavy commercial use, the EFX546i features commercial grade construction and components, but it has an easy-to-use console that allows you to get on and start peddling and selecting a program workout without messing around with settings.

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Can you really use ab exercise equipment and get a firm midsection? The answer is emphatically, yes! Like most people, you’re probably a little bit out of shape and the pants are feeling a wee bit snug. Or maybe, a whole lot of snug.

If it’s time to do something about all those hours spent on the couch, and you don’t fancy any notion of doing thousands of “crunches” or sit ups trying to get a flat stomach. Maybe it’s time to take a look at the variety of exercise equipment that can help you reach your goal.

An Ab Machine That’s Right For You

The best abdominal exercisers are designed to focus on those groups of muscles around your middle as the primary target area, and they will also exercise your back – the support muscles of your frame.

Cardio exercising and dieting are also important, but to really target the abs, you’ll need the isolate and tone the muscle group for the best results.

Great abs aren’t just for show. Like most people, you’ve probably experienced weight gain around the middle which is the result of taking in more calories than you expend through exercise, thermogenesis, and your body’s usual metabolic functions. If you want the best results in reducing this problem area, you’ll need some ab exercises that can really work those slow-twitching muscles.

The best abdominal exercises are those that are variations of the crunch which is, basically, what an Ab/Back Machine will do for you.  By doing proper exercises just a few days each week will produce results in a matter of four to six weeks, not months.

Work slowly and with enough weight to tone the muscles safely and correctly. Then you can maintain on an ongoing routine to develop better strength and shape in the abs and in the rest of your body.

Make weight training exercises a lifetime habit and you’ll enjoy great looking 6-pac abs, or just take off a few pants sizes.

State-of-the-art Weight Training

Without a doubt, Body Solid home gyms are among the finest systems you can buy for your personal use.

Body Solid is the largest supplier of light commercial home gyms and strength training equipment in the USA.

The multi-exercise stations include workouts for chest press, triceps press, shoulder press, high and low pulley stations, a chest row and pec deck, and more.

Built to last for years, the gyms have a legion of satisfied owners.

Body Solid home gyms have health club quality features like gas assist seat adjustment, selectorized weight stacks, and even a patented Bi-Angular® Press Arm System that replicates the balancing and feel of free weights.

Review Body Solid Best Selling and Best Rated Gyms:

• Body Solid EXM1500S Single Stack Home Gym
• Body Solid EXM3000LPS Double Stack Home Gym
• Body Solid G5S Home Gym
  (pictured below)

How does owning a piece of abdominal exercise equipment help your overall toning? With the fitness craze in full swing, you’ve probably got other machines in your home gym (treadmill, elliptical, etc.) but you’d really like to target and tone your flabby abs and get a firm 6-pac you’ve always dreamed about. There is a variety of abdominal machines on the market that promise the world, but do they work?

Ab crunching

Abdominal machines are designed to help get rid of that excess fat around the abdomen, and many of the exercises will give you a double benefit-they will also work your back.

How? It’s the yin and yang of workout, because all muscles groups have opposing muscles groups, i.e., the back/abs, the triceps/biceps, and so on. Since it’s difficult to isolate and work on a specific muscle group, that’s where machines like an abdominal exerciser help.

Ab crunching equipment can range from the heavy machines to the smaller, roll bar contraptions for the floor mat. (A crunch is a type of exercise that can be done in several different ways and is a terrific way to tighten your abs.) If you’ve been to a gym, you’ve probably noticed that the Ab/Back Machine is usually in use – a lot!

You may notice a few people still on the mat trying to the more old-fashioned it-ups. The problem with sit-ups is that they won’t help your flabby stomach  if you do them incorrectly, which most people do. But abdominal equipment will help you to isolate the area for a serious workout.

If you want to see excellent results with minimal effort, you should check out reviews on the different abdominal machines. Most are quite comfortable and easy to use with well padded cushions, foam handles, and are fully adjustable.

Some ab machines even offer a weight capacity up to 200 lbs. for those who exercise often and have extremely powerful abs muscles. Try out several machines and get one that offers a smooth-moving mechanism and solid (not rickety) frame that will help you isolate abdominal muscles and burn the fat off.

Then enjoy the compliments you’ll get on your fabulous 6-pac abs!

Anymore, Dumbbell weight sets are a necessity in any home gym. If you’ve been pounding away for years on a bike or treadmill doing your cardio exercises – faithfully – but your fitness level has reached a plateau, what can you do? The answer lies in varying your workout by exercising with free weights, i.e., dumb bells and barbells.

Use Free weights to advance your training

Most fitness trainers will tell you that dumbbell exercises are a must in weight lifting. To get an idea of what they can do for you, imagine how muscles work together when opposing each other.

On any given lift, one muscle is contracting and another is relaxing, such as the biceps and triceps when performing a biceps curl with a dumbbell in each hand. Since the tricep must be move as well, the bicep is not completely isolated. Hence, doing multiple sets of repetitive exercises using dumbbells will work the target muscle — but it goes a step further.

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You heard about these systems: the Bowflex home gym helps you to develop your core stabilizer muscles as well build great arms, chest, back, and abs. The TV commercials do not exaggerate – you can develop a sexy set of six-pack abs and all that. Just don’t expect to do it with lifting alone.

Bowflex does include (in the fine print) that you will acheive dynamic results as long as you include cardio workout every week as well as a proper diet to lose the fat.

After you have the cardio and diet working, you can build and maintain a killer body using the Bowflex method of weight training for just 30 minutes a day, a few days a week.

These machines use two types of resistence: power rods and spiral discs. The systems allow you to adjust the resistance from 5 pounds up to 210 lbs.

All of their equipment comes with 5 to 7-year limited warranties on parts, lifetime warranties on the rods, and a 6-week Fitness Results guarantee.

We recommend you take a look at the company’s products and see if the power rod system is right for you.

• Bowflex Xtreme 2 SE Home Gym (Refurbished)
• Bowflex Revolution Home Gym

The Bowflex Revolution

Because Too much tush is a turn-off!

Maybe you’ve dreamed about having the kind of buns the models have, but you haven’t been exactly motivated to tone the tush. Motiviation? The thought of your upcoming beach vacation should inspire you to get into swimsuit shape.

In addition to weekly cardio and a proper daily diet, you should perform some easy exercises that can be done at home or in a gym to get your gluts in great shape.

If you’re looking to firm up the buns, pay special attention to the following exercises. You want to be sure to use higher reps (15 to 20) and lighter weights. And don’t dilute the workout by letting your glutes relax and simply pushing with the legs. Get intense! It is critical to use a mind-to-muscle connection when working the glutes.

Design a routine that will kick your butt

Women who want to reduce the size of a large fanny need to stay away from lifting heavy weights. Instead, the focus should be on doing shaping and reducing exercises that include lunges with light weights, or no weights at all. And don’t fall for the myth that many women seem to have; you will not “bulk up” if you lift weights. In fact, you will actually lose dress sizes if you train properly with weights.

Here’s a sample of the routines women can do to work the glutes:

Raised leg curls Get down on the floor on all fours. Raise your left leg to about butt level and extend it straight, away from your body and roughly parallel to the floor. Curl your heel toward your butt until your lower leg is perpendicular to the floor. Keep your thigh parallel to the ground. Later on, you can add a pair of ankle weights to increase the load. You can also use a leg curl machine if you find this floor exercise is too difficult.

Standing Kickback Hold the back of a chair or bench for balance. With your feet together, rotate your right foot to the right with all the rotation coming from your hip joint. Slowly lift the right let behind you keeping the knee soft but not bent. The actual movement will only be a slight lift. Inhale and slowly lower the leg to the starting position. Repeat with the other leg. You can also use a cable machine or wear ankle weights.

Lunges Using Dumbbells, hold a dumbbell in each hand at your sides. Bring one leg forward; making sure that your bent knee does not go past your toes. Lower yourself in a controlled manner until your back knee is close to the ground. Push on your front leg while squeezing your buttocks to help you move back up to the starting position. Complete all reps on one leg then switch to work the other. You can do this stationary, or as walking lunges.

Butt Squeezes This is an excellent way to increase the muscle tone of the glutes. Butt squeezes (isotension) require no equipment, no time worries, and you can do them anywhere-even standing in line at the grocery store. Do them standing or seated by simply contracting your glute muscles, and holding the squeeze for as long as possible. Then relax and repeat. Try to do three sets of 15 reps, and do them often!

And on the machine…

The Stair Climber In addition to a great aerobic workout, climbing on a high-impact Stair Climber / Stepper targets your butt, hips and thighs. Elliptical cross trainers are also effective since your legs and hips move constantly (like cycling) giving you a full range of motion in the muscles. Increase the machine’s resistance and you’ll get a good muscular workout, and a great cardio workout, but without killing your knees.

Work hard to achieve that tight tush

Women need to focus on being more intense while most men, who tend to ignore working out the lower body completely, need to do some work on the butt and legs. Just remember that you need to squeeze hard at each peak contraction when doing reps. Gluteal muscles go deep and you need to reach those far removed fibers to see real results.

Even if your aim is purely aesthetic – and not for athletic performance – putting in the gym time can give you reason to look forward to those revealing days at the beach.

Recommended Reading:

101 Ways to motivate yourself and get in shape. Number 43 may surprise you. Read all 101 NOW at Bodybuilding.com!

Home exercise gyms are handy and the fitness benefits they offer are almost ideal. In addition to having a home gym multi-station, you can also (and should) continue to make ample use of barbell and dumbbells which help teach your body balance and control while giving your muscles the variety they need.

Access to home gym equipment is great for beginners or advanced users. You can choose a squat cage (like a Smith machine) as your sole home gym which will give you the ability to lift barbells safely without a spotter.

Or you can choose a cable-type home gym with multi-stations that has a built-in high and low pulleys for a wide variety of cable exercises, and a plate rack for fast and easy storage of your weights. This kind of home gym equipment even includes the flat / incline / decline bench to use for bench pressing.

Multi-station home exercise gyms

Home Gyms are compact units that can fit into a corner of a room or garage, wherever you chose to set up your home exercises. Costs can range anywhere from $300 to thousands of dollars, so you’ll be sure to find exercise gyms to suite almost any budget. The freedom and access of working out at home is a simple pleasure for anyone who equips a home with a private gym.

What you can get: Exercise stations and a bench press station are standard and make a good starting point for your workout. This will give you a variety of exercises including Bench Press, Incline Press, Shoulder Press and Mid Row. A cable station will allow for a very wide array of exercises including Sports Specific, Core Training, and exercises that mimic Dumbbell Training. You can opt to get a multi-station home exercise gym with an ab Crunch Station for abdominal training.

Next: A Low Pulley Station for Low Rows is ideal for working the abductor and adductors using leg kicks. One the High Pulley Station you’ll be doing Lat pull Downs, and Triceps Push Downs.

Why Get a Home Gym?

Not that public gyms are bad. No doubt they have the social aspect going for them, but if that’s the reason you’re there then don’t expect amazing gains. Social time takes away from your workout and chatting becomes a good excuse not to work out.

If you want to exercise and lift weights like you mean it, you need the advantage of home gym equipment. And without having to wait in line for equipment and machines to free up, you’ll be surprised at how much better a home exercise gym can be for your workouts.

Standard, upright stationary bikes come in single or dual action models. Dual action bikes have handles or levers to work the upper body and have been shown to provide more effective cardio workouts, burn more calories, and also improve overall body tone more efficiently than single action bikes. Dual action bikes work well for those with hip or leg injuries who need to exercise but also need to go easy on their legs. The dual action allows the arms to work harder to operate the machine, thus requiring less work from the legs.

A recumbent bicycle, sometimes called a “bent,” is a type of stationary bike that is more laid back…literally. It places the body in a semi or fully reclining position, taking pressure off the back area. Some people feel the position is difficult to adapt to at first, but many who choose recumbent bikes say they are very easy and comfortable to ride. They usually come with a larger seat, which often means you will stay on the machine longer or not have discomfort
later.

Because of the reclining position, a recumbent bike works the abdominal muscles more and also creates more hamstring action. The lower center of gravity makes for better balance as well. Doctors feel they are better for those with back problems or with cerebral palsy and related diseases. The recumbent bikes also bring your feet more closely in line with your heart, keeping blood pressure low and providing for a safer overall workout.

Features and Prices

Most stationary bikes come with ways to assess your speed and distance. Economy models have a tachometer/odometer combination and a design that utilizes a flywheel to provide resistance. These models are not programmable and provide the least effective workout, but are at under $200 can be an inexpensive way for a beginner or someone on a tight budget to get some exercise. They can be purchased at manydepartment stores.

Standard models usually come with more features such as a programmable consul that calculates heart rate or allows you to pick a heart rate and then adjust the resistance accordingly. These bikes may use flywheels, fan blades, or magnetic resistance, depending on the quality. Magnetic resistance is usually the best method as it operates more smoothly and is quieter. These models can range from $200 up to $1500 and provide the broadest range of selection for the average person.

More expensive stationary bikes often use magnetic resistance and typically need to be plugged in to an outlet. They come with all the bells and whistles, including extended warranties, more varied programming features, and comfort options such as built in fans. They typically cost over $1500.

Compared to Other Equipment

All types of stationary bikes provide a low impact workout that many feel is an advantage over treadmill exercise. The force on the knees, ankles, feet and other body parts that occurs with walking or running can cause swelling or discomfort in the joints. It can irritate old injuries or sometimes even produce new problems. A stationary bike provides non-weight bearing exercise that reduces impact on these areas.

In the health and fitness industries, and among customers, there is an extensive debate over which machines burn more calories and give a better cardio workout. There is evidence on both sides of the issue, but many people agree that a stationary bike should have dual action to optimize weight loss and heart health. The pumping of the arms has a significant impact of the effectiveness of any workout, and a treadmill is less effective as well if you hold onto the hand supports rather than letting your arms swing or pumping them in rhythm to your motion.

Elliptical trainers are another exercise option that provides a low impact workout, but many feel they do not provide the same cardio benefits. Rowing machines are boring, more difficult to use, and can be hard on the back. Other equipment has disadvantages as well, making stationary bikes a good choice for overall effectiveness and satisfaction. Consumer buying shows that exercise bikes continue to rank as a top choice for exercise and fitness training.

In the ever expanding world of health and fitness equipment, there have been some true advances as well as a bunch of gimmicks. A stationary bike is an old standard that has been a proven exercise tool for years, and that continues to improve and adapt through new technology. The overall effectiveness, ease of use and variety of designs and prices makes a stationary exercise bike an excellent choice for beginners and advanced enthusiasts alike.