The One Question To Ask Before Buying Fitness Equipment
Are you motivated? Because if you're not, don't bother. Put down your credit card, walk away from the pretty advertisements, you're just going to waste money. Seem overly simplistic? Maybe it is, but it's a reality most of us don't have the courage to face. Paul Michael over at Wise Bread offers up his own story as proof...
Most people buy exercise equipment because they have romanticized the idea of working out. They watch the ads and infomercials, and everything looks so easy and so much fun. Plus, people look great after just a few months.
It's not the equipment that's to blame by the way. My rowing machine works great. Elliptical machines and exercise bikes work really well. Weights are guaranteed to be effective if you use them correctly. No, what is missing here is a lack of motivation, and it's something that no amount of money can buy.
Here's the crux of the matter. Most of us already own a fantastic piece of workout equipment. It's our own body. We can use our own bodies to work out, using push ups, sit ups, jogging, yoga, pilates and more. I knew a guy in college that was built like a tank and he didn't own one piece of equipment. He couldn't afford it, so he worked out in his bedroom by doing a mixture of exercises, including 100 push-ups, every single morning. He had the motivation, and the dedication, and if he'd been given a piece of equipment you can bet your bottom dollar he'd have used it.
The promise of looking great, coupled with slick advertisements and the quest for a better, healthier body, is enough to make us all open up our wallets and drop a bunch of money on the next great hope. But sadly, for most of us, that shiny new piece of equipment will one day become a dusty new bargain in a garage sale.
If you are motivated, then we and our useless pull-up bar hate you with jealously. Go for a run already, and stop mocking us with your damn muscle tone.
Ready To Buy Some Exercise Equipment? Read This First. [Wise Bread] (Thanks to Paul!)
(Photo: lucyfrench123)
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Comments:
Wait, doesn't this article blame the OP?
A friend who is a personal trainer recommends renting exercise equipment instead of buying it. If you find that you use it regularly for a month, then go ahead and purchase it.
I wish my husband had heeded her advice. We have had a NordicTrak, 2 Bowflex machines and various other exercise paraphernalia and none of it got used for very long. What a waste of $$$!!!
This is what gym memberships are best for. You go to that place for one specific purpose- getting in shape. If you get bored with one machine, try another.
Too many distractions @ home (phone, kids, spouse) spoil many a good intentioned workout @ home.
@boomerang86: unless you have a specific place in your home to work out. my uncle's basement is his gym. both he and my aunt use it. every piece of exercise equipment you can imagine having at home is probably down there. my dad also had a small selection in the basement as well. the key is, it's in the basement away from all distractions.
A catch 22 is higher quality equipment could get used more. It feels better and you are apt to use it more and longer. So a $2,000 might be a much better value than a $800 - and if you really use it the $800 will break.
Of course the problem is if you don't use it you wasted much more money. I never thought about renting. I go to the gym I find it more interesting than working out at home.
But if they don't buy them, where will I find my rusty garage sale bargains?
The best bet is to buy used equipment. I know a guy who scored a Bowflex barbell set for only $200.
@doctor_cos: I just scanned the summary and didn't see a question mark.
Why not post the one question advertised in the headline?
Never mind the commercials. Find something you LIKE.
I've found that I ABSOLUTELY LOVE boxing. So I sink my money into a real boxing gym -- not a frou-frou place, but a place with a ring and spitoons and guys with broken noses.
I have never worked out at a more encouraging, more friendly, more kick-ass place. These guys have gotten me RUNNING. My fat ass. It's amazing.
I personally know someone who lost ≈60 pounds in his one bedroom apartment using a treadmill. If he wanted to watch TV he had to be on the treadmill, it didn't matter what speed as long as he was on it. In a few months he was a radically different person and smarter too because he liked to watch The History Channel.
If you want to work out at home, the best work out to start out is body weight exercises. You can buy some inexpensive equipment like pull bar, resistance bands, and exercise ball, or start with nothing at all. I followed a free program on the web, [www.iwantsixpackabs.com] with great success.
I'm just gonna wait for a magical medical pill that will cure all fatness.
Unused exercise equipment = good deals for the rest of us.
My husband bought a beautiful walnut NordicTrack off Craigslist for $50 several months- and 30 pounds ago.
You are right- motivation is everything. $50 was cheaper than a gym membership and my husband finds time to exercise before work in front of the TV, catching up on recorded shows. Efficient and healthy.
I'm, personally, one of those people that have practically zero motivation when it comes to exercise. There's a gym at work (free), one at my apartment complex (free), and at least three between work and my house that I could sign up for. However, after working in a very active job for 6 years (didn't have to go to the gym), I changed jobs and the new one has me sitting at a desk for 8 hours. Desk job + no motivation = a losing combination.
So my left-handed, no sports experience self decided to join a team sport - women's rugby. Not only did I not need to know how to play, but there's a lot of experience and motivation on the team and the camaraderie is great. Also - rugby is one of those sports where they need a spectrum of body sizes. Now the love for burgers and beer do slow down the process sometimes (who can skip out on a social? C'mon now.) but going to practice and playing in games has been great for me. Oh, and I'm 25 and our oldest player is 43 so anybody who can hang, can play.
Team sports FTW.
@ageekymom: The chain that rents equipment around here does so at an insane price, close to the price of the equipment. They also sell their equipment at a very inflated price. YMMV depending on where you live I guess.
You can get exercise equipment so cheap at garage sales or craigslist why buy something new? We got rid of equipment that wasn't getting used and got something new that actually did get used for about a year. The total cost was under $100.
@boomerang86: The best situation I had was using a gym that nobody else in our family belonged to. I left work and had no distractions.
@Blueskylaw: Me neither. I asked him if the seller was a druggie because nobody in their right mind would sell it for so little unless they were really desperate or under the influence. Cheapest I have seen them used is $450.
I think this article misses the point. The question is not whether the person is motivated when they buy the exercise equipment, which I think many of them are. It's whether or not they'll stay motivated after several weeks or months of using the equipment and seeing only modest improvement. A few months (or years even) of working out alone are not enough to overcome our genetic limitations, and when we don't get our expected results, we quit.
Gyms know this, so their business is based on long-term contracts. If people only paid when they actually used them, gyms would go out of business!
I know more people who pay monthly gym fees and never go than I can count on 2 hands. If you *might* use the home equipment it may be cheaper than the join fee and the monthly fee for a gym membership. Gyms love for people to sign those contracts knowing the attendance rate is terrible. Plus several won't work with you if you lose your job. A very large, very nice gym with tracks and climbing walls among other amenities in my home town refused to let a gentleman who lost his job terminate the contract. They were absolutely horrible to him about it and the layoff wasn't his fault. He was among many.
I guess that my play on words failed to find its mark.
Δεν βρέθηκαν λέξεις means roughly "did not find any matching words"
Ohh well, time to read the rest of the articles and plan my next witty response.
If people buy exercise equipment and have children in the house PLEASE be very careful. A family in our neighborhood, their child lost their fingers in the treadmill while mom was working out, husband was watching the toddler and got distracted for a minute - very sad and they will never ever forgive themselves. Not just treadmills that are dangerous, they can hurt themselves badly on Nordic Tracks and certain types of exercise bikes too. I know, I know, it all comes down to watching the kids like a hawk 24/7. But just be extra careful around equipment with moving parts.
I seriously just want to get a treadmill, because I'm less than motivated to go out walking in the dark, poor weather, or sometimes if it's too hot out. :)
Talk about unmotivated -- one of our neighbours was giving away a treadmill, and the rest of us couldn't work up the energy to take the truck down the block and load the thing! We all agreed it was pathetic.
I have a treadmill, some free weights and a yoga ball - that's it. The treadmill is essential as I love to run but it's snowy and cold 5 months a year here, and having the treadmill means I can still run in the winter without having to risk my life on slippery trails in the dark before or after work. Free weights, which were cheap, keep my upper body strong. And the yoga ball? I sit on it when I'm working, to keep a strong core.
Plus, unless you live really close to the gym, travel/changing/etc time can add another 45 minutes to your workout, and when you're pressed for time, sometimes all you want to do is go into the other room, run for 20 minutes, take a 5-minute shower and be done. Can't do that with a gym membership.
Aww but home exercise equipment makes such adorable clothing racks. Totally worth the money, right?
The best piece of workout equipment anyone could ever get is a workout partner. Even one found on Craigslist. Running, swimming, even park type calisthenics. It does wonders for balancing out those lazy times when s/he's nagging you, and when you're playing the heavy on their lazy times.
A bicycle is your best bet.
You can use it for transportation and even take it on the subway with you. Now if only the MTA could spring for the $500 per bus to stick bike racks on them.
This is a strategy I also like to use. Another one is that I schedule my workout during my favorite show and force myself to work out for the entirety of the episode. The best part of it is that if the show is really good, it distracts you from the toil of working out. Of course, that's only a good thing if you can maintain your intensity while being distracted. Some people start watching the tv and are going .3 miles an hour by the ten minute mark.
@ncboxer:
The problem is that most people don't know what they're doing and are too lazy or busy to figure it out.
Treadmills might be more expensive, but I think for the average person it's probably a better value. I just graudated from college and I would say 99% of my friends never did anything work-out wise but run, or maybe do some situps/pushups at home. They still looked great.
On the other hand, if you live somewhere where running outside is an option, you could just do that and then do your free weights for an amazing body.
@Vanilla5:
This was why I joined women's rugby in college and it was FUN. But scary. Now I kind of want to find a women's team but I'm all scared of broken bones again.
@Blueskylaw: I did this for a while but I discovered I hate exercise more than I like TV, lol.
It did work for me cycling while surfing the web, but when I'd get interested, I'd stop pedaling. Probably a treadmill is better because you HAVE to keep walking.
@hdhrant: This boils down to motivation.
If you (generic you, not you specifically) are going to give up once you don't see a six pack in 6 weeks, then you were not really motivated to begin with. You were motivated to get great results fast, not motivated to do what it takes to get the results you wanted.
@GadgetsAlwaysFit: And they make it such a hassle to cancel your membership for any other reason. With LA Fitness, you have to mail in a form (no, the phone rep will not do it over the phone, which I am sure they could) and they have to receive it 20 DAYS before the next billing date. And it costs $25 to freeze your membership for at least 3 months (e.g. summer). They are just full of stupid fees and jumping through hoops.
Fitness equipment is good if you buy a Wii Fit. That way, even if you don't ever exercise, you can use it to play ski and skate games with a butt-operated controller.
@hdhrant: I dont think it misses the point, that is his point. If all of a sudden your motivated to buy equipment to work out on, you should ask yourself why you havnt been doing any "working out" for free, using your body.
@Julia789: good point, exercise equipment should be treated as a deadly hazard, because as you point out, it really is.
@mythago: I love my Wii Fit!!! And - if you play some of the Wii Sports - overly enthusiastically - you'll actually wake up sore the next morning. Try some boxing matches, getting riled up. People who know how to play to win (not me) flick the wrists. The rest of us are throwing actual punches, waking up the next morning going Christ, what did I DO last night?!
I thought when I got my dog that I'd finally have a great running partner. Turns out she's lazier than I am. She'll walk. Long walks, meh. She'll do it with encouragement. She's not in love with running. Sigh.
@Eyebrows McGee (now with more baby!): I'm actually using this same strategy. Since the end of March. I started in on the Stargate SG-1 complete series DVD set working out one episode a day on weekdays. I'm now up to 2 full episodes a day with a brief break in between which I use to cool off a bit, drink some extra water (I keep some with me on the treadmill too), and do some basic weight lifting with dumbells to help work give my upper arms and shoulders some exercise too.
Almost through the last disc of Season 4...6 more to go. And then I have the Atlantis series waiting for me to open it too.
If you have problems with motivation it may be the wrong exercise. You really have to find something you can enjoy. I hate running with all my heart-- but it turns out I enjoy lifting weights. I never would have thought this to be the case since I thought I hated all exercise but it turns out the solo heavy-lift workout is very enjoyable for me.
So if you want to get in shape find something you like. Maybe you will enjoy taking long walks through your neighbourhood (this is as close to cardio as I get). Maybe some kind of team sport. Maybe a solo activity like kayaking. Swimming. Maybe you've never gone jogging in your life before and it will turn out to be your favourite thing in the world.
Humans are wired to do things they enjoy not things they hate. So find something active you love, and do it.
"Most of us already own a fantastic piece of workout equipment. It's our own body."
...so aside from the "Most" people, the rest either...
1. don't own their own bodies, someone else owns it.
2. their bodies are not fantastic in this way, or
3. have no bodies because as cybernetic intelligences they have no physical form.
@aguacarbonica: Same here, joined my university's women's rugby team and dropped over 30 pounds during my first semester. Our workouts kept me motivated well after I graduated and now I'm down nearly 80 pounds.
@aguacarbonica: Ah - what's a coupla broken bones? I jest, of course, but you know ruggers are always welcome back.
Most of those ads do include the disclaimer "results not typical" . . .
Work out to make you feel better (healthwise) and to feel better about yourself. If you're doing it for any other reason, you will need way more motivation.
You will get out of any exercise program/routine/machine exactly what you put in to it.