Things to Know Before You Buy a Pedometer

A pedometer is a device that can sense the motion of a human body and thus can be used to count footsteps of an individual. If the length of a person's stride is known, the distance covered by a person can be calculated with the help of his footstep counts. Thus, a pedometer can be a great motivating tool for a walker giving him a precise idea how much distance he covers during his daily walks.

A pedometer is a wearable device and one can wear it while going out for a walk. There are several types of pedometers available in the market but before buying one, a person needs to have some brief knowledge about pedometers and its uses.

Essential Feature of the Best Pedometer:

There are different types of pedometers and all can give you step counts but you need to choose one that can give you more accurate results. In fact, the accuracy of a pedometer depends upon their functioning mechanism. They use different methods such as coiled spring mechanism, hair spring mechanism and accelerometer. In general, an accelerometer is considered to give the most accurate results. On the other hand, hair spring models are often considered as notorious, giving inconsistent footstep counts.

Besides this, you need to select between a dedicated walking pedometer and an all-day tracking pedometer. A dedicated walking pedometer will track your daily workouts. An all-day tracking pedometer can keep running throughout the day and can measure your total daily steps. Depending upon your needs, you can choose between the two.

Your pedometer 's display is another important feature and you need to make sure that its display is easy to read and you need not to remove it from its waistband every time you wish to read the display. There must be a reset button allowing you to configure the display results when you wish to do so.

Wearing a Pedometer:

If you buy an old-style pedometer based on the spring mechanism, you need to be always conscious that you are wearing something to count your footsteps, because for getting the best results you need to keep it in an upright position. If it gets titled anyway, it might not be in a perfect position to measure your footsteps. On the other hand, if you get a pedometer with accelerometer mechanism, you will get accurate step counts even when it gets tilted. You can wear such a pedometer on your waist or can keep in your pocket, but it will keep counting your steps consistently. There are several wear-anywhere models available today that you can wear on various body parts such on your wrist, arms or on your waist.

The size of your pedometer is another crucial aspect that you need to give a due consideration. If you are planning to buy a pedometer to count your total daily steps, you will preferably choose a small one that can be perfect for your all-day wear. It needs to have clips and a safety strap to keep it in its place safely and restrict it from falling.

3 Tennis Elbow Exercises to Strengthen Your Arm

It is a widely acknowledged fact that tennis elbow exercises are absolutely necessary to strengthen the arm. Repetitive and sometimes forceful movements of the arm can result in a severe inflammation of the elbow and its surrounding areas. The term tennis elbow is quite a misnomer because this ailment affects office and factory workers and not just tennis players.

If you are prone to this problem then you will benefit greatly from practicing tennis elbow exercises regularly. They are surprisingly easy to do and will save you a great deal of discomfort and money. There are many tendons, ligaments and muscles in the elbow and forearm that can get injured because of repetitive use. All of them will gain a lot of strength and flexibility as a result of these exercises. This ensures that future injury is unlikely to happen.

The following tennis elbow exercises will be of immense help to you:

1. Repetitive squeezing with your palm. Grab hold of something that is very easy to squeeze. A tennis ball would have the perfect size and flexibility. Squeeze and release it repetitively for a few minutes at a time. Increase the duration of this exercise as you feel your muscles and tendons strengthening.

2. Twisting the wrist rhythmically. This is a great exercise to strengthen the pronator and supinator muscles of the wrist. Hold a light weight in your hand; a can of soda will suffice at the outset. Your thumbs should be aligned upwards. You have to exercise these muscles by turning the wrist inwards, holding the position for a couple of seconds, and then turning it outwards.

3. Extend your hand as if to shake someone's hand. Move your hand upwards and downwards in a repetitive manner.

Be very careful to practice these exercises only as long as you don't feel any pain. If you keep exercising thinking that the pain will go away you will just aggravate your condition. Monitor your progress very carefully and only increase the number of repetitions very gradually. You should also be very gentle with your movements. If you make sudden and rough movements then you might injure yourself further.

It is also a good idea to massage the elbow and surrounding areas very carefully so that the muscles feel some relief. The right tennis elbow exercises will save you plenty of trips to the doctor's office and you will be able to regain complete mobility of the arm.

Read about a few tennis elbow exercises that will help you reduce inflammation of your arm and elbow. These exercises will help reduce your dependence on medication or surgery for this problem.

Treadmill for Domestic Purposes

Treadmills used at fitness centers are often very robust and custom designed to endure constant drubbing from daily use. These treadmills used in fitness centers have essential requirement to be durable enough to be used by people with different weights. Moreover, these massive treadmills at fitness centers are designed as to be used straight for over 10 hours daily. Meanwhile, when talking about treadmills for home; these machines can only be used for limited hours in a week.

With the increasing consciousness for fitness and health, many people have started to purchase fitness equipment for home. Among all the fitness machines that you can buy for your health and fitness, Treadmill is the most commonly and widely used breed with amazing results. The treadmill allows you to walk, jog, sprint and run at single position; aiding in transportation of oxygenated blood via cardiovascular circulation all over the body. There are many vital features including heart rate, speed, calories burned and distance covered which you can calculate while exercising on treadmill. These all calculations can help you determine your physical condition giving you opportunity to modify your daily routine. Let us have a look into few most conducive treadmill categories for home usage:

Walking Belt Treadmill 

The walking belt is featured in every single treadmill, whether for home or fitness centers. The walking belt refers to the part of treadmill where you can place your feet for running or walking. The feature that put this apart from other treadmill is its compatibility with home environment. The Walking Belt treadmill can be folded and easily placed anywhere which gives it an advantage for home usage. There is a heart rate monitoring device, audio speakers for entertainment of music lovers, 1.5 horse power monitor to go with LCD screen displaying details of heart rate, speed, distance, calories burned and couple of different workout programs. Summarizing, these Walking belt treadmills are best for home usage owing to their small, compact size and compatibility.

Running Belt Treadmill 

Also referred to as heavy-duty treadmill, these machines are specifically designed to serve for running purpose. Running belt treadmills are heavier, larger and much sturdier than walking their walking belt counterparts. These durable machines are especially suited to people who are fond of running and marathons as they can bear daily pounding for several hours. Another great aspect of these machines is their certain degree of inclination and declination angles which serves great for people wanting to practice uphill or downhill running. There are six different programs offered by running belt treadmill.

Different treadmills are designed to serve different purpose. There is no treadmill that can serve all purposes simultaneously. No one can say that this treadmill is the best if it meets specific requirements suited to him. One must needs to have clear ideas about their needs and purpose of purchasing them. For instance compact and lighter treadmills are suited to people who just want to make regular exercise for few hours. Whereas, running belt treadmills better obliges the needs of people who want to have much tougher, rougher and sturdier exercise.

With the increasing consciousness for fitness and health, many people have started to purchase fitness equipment for home. Among all the fitness machines that you can buy for your health and fitness, Treadmill is the most commonly and widely used breed with amazing results. Treadmill allows you to walk, jog, sprint and run at single position; aiding in transportation of oxygenated blood via cardiovascular circulation all over the body.

How Can You Improve Your Health and Fitness With a Hearth Rate Monitor?

In today's hectic and busy world, we all follow a stressful lifestyle and so, our physical well-being is critically affected. Thus, it has become more important today to watch our health than ever before. With little time for exercising and daily workouts and healthy foods keep vanishing from our plates, we are more prone to become obese, and maintaining of our overall fitness is a crucial challenge in today's world. The whole scenario points out that for any person today, achieving a fitness goal seems to be a daunting task and today one needs a helpful device, called a Hearth Rate Monitor to help check the status of our health and accordingly choose an exercise regime to stay fit and healthy.

Health Benefits of Hearth Rate Monitor

A Hearth Rate Monitor or Hearth Monitor is often considered as a helpful device for someone who is acutely affected by an obesity crisis. The device is designed specifically to calculate your cardiac rate. This helps in strengthening of your muscles when you try to improve your cardio respiratory endurance after learning about your cardiac rate. Using the device, one can work out for improving his physical performance and can boost his cardio respiratory stamina. Thus, the device can significantly aid someone in raising his energy level, maintaining a healthy heart and keeping a tab on the body fat.

Whether you jog, walk or cycle every day, a pedometer can measure the distance covered by you in each case and a Hearth Rate Monitor will measure your cardiac rate and thus will give you an idea about the calories you burn following your workout. It will also check your endurance level. Many advanced levels of hearth rate monitors will also allow you to measure your gradual fitness progression, which can urge you to keep up your daily workout regime in the anticipation of bettering results over time.

Not only running and walking, it can also help monitor heart rates of people who carry out power workouts such as dumbbells and kettle bells. The Hearth Rate Monitor can help you measure the rest time between different sets of exercising and thus you can be able to maintain the level of intensity during such type of exercises. Knowing the exact resting time during your exercising can help you to improve your performance level and can be very useful in weight loss and achieving a high energy level.

How to Wear a Hearth Rate Monitor

A Hearth Rate Monitor is designed in a way that can be strapped around a person's waist or his chest area. Today, these devices are available in very compact sizes or may look like a mobile phone or a handheld gadget that many people love to carry along all the time. One can easily carry them along with mobile devices. Today, modern and advanced Hearth Rate Monitors are available with Bluetooth features that allow users to send results to several computing and mobile devices. This way you can share your heart rate easily with your fitness expert or your doctors, who in turn can guide you further.

How to Use a Folding Bicycle

There are many different ways that a folding bicycle can be used. Most models are standard size and look similar to a regular bike, but they can be folded down to about one-third of their regular size. Whether for recreation, commuting or shopping, riders can use these bikes as a primary source of transportation that is conveniently stowed away once they arrive at their destinations. People can also take them along in the trunk of a car and go for a ride at whim.

Portable 

The bicycle folds into a portable state in less than a minute. From a standing position with the kickstand down, the rider lowers the seat and folds down the handlebars. A lever unlocks and releases the frame, folding it into thirds. It can be stored in a car trunk as is, or covered with a custom nylon bike bag for easy portability. Typical folding size is about 31 inches by 12 inches by 31 inches.

Commuting 

Riding a bicycle is good exercise and is also environmentally-friendly. It also helps the rider to avoid traffic snarls, using it as a primary source of commuting or as a link to public transportation. A folding bicycle often has a luggage rack, which is helpful for bringing a briefcase or other supplies to the office. Some styles come with a bungee cord to attach bags and other items to the luggage rack.

Recreation 

When choosing a foldable bike, look for one that has several gears and a quick thumb shifter for gear adjustments on the fly. Fenders on the front and rear and a brush guard provide trail protection. Some models come with an ergonomic design and a gel saddle for comfort. When driving to a favorite park or bike path, the folding bicycle can be stowed in the car until it's time to ride. The bike unfolds quickly. On some models, dual levers lock into place without any tools and the bike is ready to use in seconds.

Shopping 

Rather than vying for a parking space in a vehicle, the folding bicycle is convenient for door-to-door service at the mall. Shoppers can lock it up at a bike rack or fold it up and take it inside. Most styles with an aluminum frame range from 30 to 35 pounds.

When choosing a folding bicycle, riders should select one that is lightweight and folds to a compact size without tools. A luggage rack with bungee cords and a nylon bike storage and carrying bag are accessories that offer convenience and portability for work, school, shopping or recreation.

The Adustable Kettlebell - Should You Buy One?

The popularity explosion of the kettlebell in recent years has led to many people wanting to include them into their home gyms. A great idea in principle as so much variety can be added to your training sessions using these.

Whatever the aim of your training routine the Kettlebell can provide. Whether you want to apply the overload principle to a mass building routine, create a Kettlebell circuit to perfom HIIT (High Intensity Interval Training) to burn fat or use a high repetition full body movement such as the Kettlebell Swing for your more traditional cardio - The Kettlebell can be used for all these purposes.

The main disadvantage to the Kettlebell as oppose to the Barbell is that additional weight cannot be added. This was originally a problem for home gyms using dumbbells until the adjustable dumbbell was created. The next logical step was the adjustable kettlebell.

The adjustable kettlebell appeals exactly like the adjustable dumbbell does, the two main reasons being cost and less storage required.

Think of the cost that would be involved in purchasing a set of dumbbells ranging from 2k to 50k. Now think of the significantly lower cost of purchasing to dumbbells and weight plates going up to 100k (meaning you can have a pair of 50k dumbbells).

Think of the cost that would be involved in purchasing a set of Kettlebells ranging from 2k to 50k. Now think of the significantly lower cost of purchasing a pair of adjustable Kettlebells with weights that can be added to continue overloading your body over time.

Both options provide a far more cost effective option and require far less storage - it is very likely a full weight rack would be needed to support a set of Kettlebells or Dumbells ranging from 2k - 50k, not to mention that the rack would need to support a grand total of 1300k! In comparison an adjustable Kettlebell with the capability to construct 2 x 50k Kettlebells is only 100k of weight and can simply be stored in a wardrobe or any other basic household feature.

So far you may be wondering why everyone has not went out and bought an adjustable kettlebell. As with everything in life there exists a downside. With the adjustable kettlebell the major downside it changing weight, the same issue you have with barbells down the gym will exist at home with adjustable kettlebell.

For example, one of the key training principles for building muscle is to keep the intensity of your workout high, the famous adage 'you can train hard or you can train long, you can't do both' springs to mind. If you are forever adjusting the weights the intensity of your training is severely hampered and so will your progress. This is the reason why any gym you walk into has fixed dumbbells and fixed kettlebells so people can get on and train with maximum intensity. People don't always do so and we have all witnessed people having 5 minute interludes between sets, but that discussion is for another day.

Ultimately the choice of buying a full kettlebell set or a couple of adjustable Kettlebells (technically speaking, as most kettlebell exercises can be done with one hand, only one adjustable kettlebell is required for a kettlebell workout) is up to you.

How Humidifiers Have Improved CPAP Machine and Mask Therapy

With a humidifier, the air coming through the tube into the CPAP mask is less drying for patients. Any time there is constant air flow, tissues will begin to dry out. CPAP stands for continuous positive airway pressure, and the air from the machine is necessary to help keep users throats from closing while they sleep.

What can happen when patients use a CPAP machine without a humidifier? Several things.

• Over-production of mucus
• Sneezing
• Swelling of nasal, mouth and throat tissues
• Bleeding
• Congestion
• Scratchy voice
• Possible infections

Getting more moist airflow into a CPAP mask is accomplished by both built in humidifiers and stand alone models. A built in humidifier is part of the machine and is non-detachable, although users can take out the water reservoir to clean or replace it.

Machine models with these kinds of humidifiers are more compact and easier to transport because there's one less piece of equipment. Most patients who buy new CPAP machines choose ones with a built in humidifier.

Many older machine models and some newer ones don't have built in humidifiers, so users purchase a stand alone version. These humidifiers are designed to be compatible with the majority of CPAP masks and machines. A short hose attaches them to the machine, and there are a number of different model types available.

Another type of humidifier is called an integrated humidifier, which is designed to be used with a specific machine. It attaches to the machine and does not have a power cord or a second hose.

Regardless of the type of humidifier a sleep apnea patient uses, they will have far more comfortable therapy than were they not to use one. All the top manufactures offer both built in and stand alone units that are high quality and durable.

Humidifiers are very important to people in CPAP therapy, because these patients must continue therapy, and they want to do it as comfortably as possible. The condition sleep apnea causes patients to stop breathing periodically throughout the night. These breathing cessations are called "apneic events" and can happen as often as 30 times per hour. The result is the brain becomes oxygen deprived.

In summary, breathing dry air all night can cause dryness in the mouth, nose and throat along with other related symptoms. But when humid air is coming into the CPAP mask, the user has a much better experience. Humidifiers can be built in to the machine or attached to it, or they can be separate units.