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"Home Fitness Machines Shouldn’t Cost You A Fortune"

By Phil Beckett

Home fitness machines vary greatly in cost, types and number of exercises you can perform, warranties, etc. The first things you have to consider before buying any home fitness machines are your short-term and long-term goals. There's no point in spending thousands of dollars on something you may only use for a couple of years.

A big mistake a lot of people make when first considering home fitness equipment is failing to determine how much room in their home they can permanently designate to their home fitness machines. Once you set up your home gym you won't be moving it. All home fitness gyms are huge and weigh a ton. Where can you buy the best home fitness equipment?

Actually I've found that the best place is online. Why? Because most online home fitness equipment stores have a larger selection at a lower cost than what you’d find in a typical store. There are many home fitness machines you can buy and with them you can add more variety to your home fitness program. Some additional exercises you can do with the best home fitness machines includes: leg curls, lat pulldowns, leg extensions, tricep pushdowns among others.

I personally don't think most people have to invest in home fitness machines because almost any workout can be performed with much cheaper equipment that costs very little, when compared to home fitness machines. Here are the alternatives to home fitness machines that I'd suggest:

Free Weights - Free weights, which include barbells, weight plates, etc. are the most basic and cheapest type of home exercise equipment you'll find. You can buy either standard or olympic weight plates. Barbells come in different shapes and sizes that you can use for a great variety of exercises.


Powerblock™: The Powerblock™ is one of the best pieces of home exercise equipment you can buy. The Powerblock™ is an adjustable dumbbell set that is very simple to use and only takes up a couple square feet of space in your home. It basically replaces a complete dumbbell set like you would find in any gym. You can get them all the way up to 125 pounds. They make smaller sets as well. The point is that you can do almost any resistance exercise for any part of your body with it. I own a Powerblock™ myself and I use it for some of my workouts at home and to train clients in their homes. It's something that can be transported very easily and all my home fitness training clients love using it.


An Adjustable Bench: An adjustable bench, one that you can use for incline, flat and decline exercises is a good addition. They are usually very cheap and affordable for most people.

Here are some other options to home fitness machines that will work for many people especially if your workout is not too intense and if you're not a hard-core body builder. You can start with almost anything you can find around the house. Take a look around your home, I'm sure you can find a lot of items that you could use as exercise equipment. Do you have a water cooler at home? The big bottles that go on there can do a great job.

If you take something like a water bottle and do a workout session carrying it up and down the stairs you'll burn an amazing amount of calories and it's a terrific cardiovascular workout as well. You can also start out with something smaller like a bag of flour.

Another exercise you can do involves using two dining room chairs. Place them so that they are facing each other. You can do dips with these two chairs that will work your triceps and with a change of position you can work your chest and shoulders as well.

Here's how you can use them for a good triceps workout. Sit on one with your palms turned downwards. Hold the chair with a firm grip and put your heels on the opposite chair. Lower yourself forward in a slow and controlled motion so that your butt lowers down in between the chairs. Keep your arms tight to your sides. You can lean up against your desk and use it to do pushups to work your chest.

Use any wall in your house to work your quads and glutes. Stand with your back against the wall with your feet approximately 2 feet out from it. Using a slow and controlled motion, slide your hips down until you reach a 90-degree angle with your knees. Stay in this position for as long as you can.

As you can see, even if you can't afford any home fitness machines or even the cheapest types of home exercise equipment you can still effectively exercise your body. You can also do wall squats using an exercise ball. Place the ball between your lower back and the wall with your feet about 2 feet out. As above, lower your body until your knees reach a 90 degree angle, hold for a count of two then raise your body up to the starting position. Repeat.

Some very cheap items you can buy include wrist and ankle weights or even a weight vest. You can use these doing almost anything and can be very effective depending on your goals. As long as you use some sort of weight or resistance you will start to improve your health and level of fitness. The more your muscles work the more calories you will burn and the stronger you will become.

Even wearing ankle and wrist weights or a weight vest around the house while you’re doing your chores will have positive benefits. Exercise balls can also be used for many different exercises at home including hamstring, chest and abdominal exercises. When you combine an exercise ball with dumbbells you can do even more. This is a very inexpensive item you can find in any exercise store.

If you really do want some home fitness machines to use and have the money to spend then go for it. You can still save money by looking in the classifieds, going to garage sales or checking out used exercise equipment stores. You'd be amazed at how many people buy home fitness machines with every intention of using them but finding out they made a mistake then try to sell them at a very cheap price. And in most cases these used home fitness machines look like they've never been used.

About the Author:

Phil Beckett is a home fitness training expert in Calgary with over 20 years experience. Regardless of what your goals may be Phil will help you reach them. For more information on home fitness programs please visit Phil's website at: www.fitness-training-solutions.com