Setting goals for working out has proven to be an effective way for making sure you sustain an efficient and diligent exercise routine. Optimizing your physical fitness is crucial towards the health of your mind and body. Therefore, it is necessary to remain active through daily cardiovascular and strength training. Those who fail to maintain a constant balance of cardiovascular and strength training, are those who are responsible for the fact that the the rate of obesity is so high in the United States and even more importantly, those who do not exercise on a regular basis, become sick and have lower life expectancy rates than those who make staying physically fit a priority in there life. Unfortunately, many of us do not see physical fitness as an important priority in our lives, as evidenced by the overwhelming amount of overweight adults and children in the United States. Over the past 30 years, the obesity rates for adults in North America have doubled. Today, 34% of adults in our nation are obese. Additionally, the obesity rate for children has tripled within that same time frame. Since 1980 our adults have got twice as fat, our children have got three times as fat and we have no excuse. Healthy food is available. Gyms are open. What is going on? Well, we are too lazy and eat to much. In a study done comparing the life expectancy rates of every nation i the world, the United States ranks 31st in the world.

So what is the answer? How do we as a nation combat obesity? Well, first and foremost, we need to exercise more. If you have more TV’s in your house than pieces of home gym equipment, that is a problem. Every household should have at least one piece of cardiovascular training equipment such as a treadmill, elliptical, rowing machine, stair stepper or exercise bike and one piece of strength training equipment, preferably a home gym. It is difficult to stay true to a fitness routine that is predicated around going to an actual health club or fitness facility. It is hard to cut off the fat and get straight to the meat unless you have health club quality fitness equipment at home. Time wasted in traffic while traveling to and from the gym can be tilting for anyone. Waiting to use your favorite fitness equipment at the gym is a pretty bad beat too. Once again, it is difficult to perform at your best while having to take breaks from exercising, due to the fact that some random guy is using the machine that you were trying to get at least three or four sets in with. How many times have you finished your second set of reps while weight lifting, got up to get a drink of water, got back and someone else was using your fitness equipment? Building momentum is essential towards optimizing ones exercise routine and it is hard to build momentum when your body is cooling down to involuntary breaks from exercising. We have all had the experience at the gym of someone using the fitness equipment that we were in the middle of using, or that we were planning on using. While we wait to use this fitness equipment, our rhythm is disrupted, our muscles tighten and we lose the momentum and adrenaline that we have built up. Distractions are detrimental while one tries to focus and perform an exercise at his or her gym.

Eliminate distractions through purchasing health club rated fitness equipment and assembling your own home gym. Finding time for running and lifting weights is much easier for those who have fitness equipment in their homes. Make health the the number one priority for you and your family in 2011. Make sure as an adult that you are not contributing to the fact that two out of three adults are fat. More importantly, make sure your children are not statistics contributing to the fact that the rate of obesity for our children has tripled in the last three decades. Home fitness equipment is great for the health and well being of one and their family. Excuses centered around no time, high gas prices, and crowded gyms will be a thing of the past once you have fitness equipment to use at your home. Wake up and jump on the treadmill right away. Get a 15 minute workout in right before breakfast. Studies show people with home fitness equipment are more likely to reman fit than those who do not have a cardiovascular and strength training equipment at home.

If and when you decide to put your health first through purchasing home fitness equipment, you must make sure to buy health club caliber and professionally rated treadmill and elliptical equipment. For example, a Weslo Cadence G-40 will not provide the same amount of benefits that a Life Fitness 95Ti would. In other words, the Life Fitness 95Ti is rated for usage in gyms and expected to work perfectly fine in your home for fifteen to twenty years. Not only will a gym quality treadmill such as the Life Fitness 95Ti last a long time in your home, but the 95Ti was built to withstand constant usage by men that weigh up to 400 pounds. Conversely, the Weslo G-40 Cadence will not last nearly as long as the Life Fitness 95Ti. The Weslo Cadence is rated to last under five years. Additionally, the weight capacity on the Weslo G-40 Cadence treadmill is only 250 pounds, whereas the Life Fitness 95Ti has a treadmill weight capacity of 400 pounds! Other benefits provided by the gym quality Life Fitness 95Ti over the cheaper and lighter Weslo treadmill include a wider and longer running area, user-interactive fitness programs and a stronger, higher quality drive motor. The heavy steel frame of the LF 95Ti treadmill will remain sturdy even throughout fast and intense runs. The Weslo Cadence treadmill is not designed to perform well throughout intense and consistent usage. Through purchasing a Life Fitness 95Ti instead of Weslo Cadence , your expected value will increase as will the quality of your physical fitness routine. To simplify, home fitness equipment is necessary for those who wish to stay in shape and remain healthy, however, budget and lightweight fitness equipment will lose you more dollars than weight. Health club quality fitness equipment is exactly what is needed for the home.

Remind yourself everyday how important exercise through writing a blog. Often times, people like to put working out to the back of their mind and love to forget that it is there. Putting your thoughts in writing will be a great way to consistently remind yourself to exercise. It will be hard to lie to yourself when you are forced to put down on paper what physical training you did that day. Hopefully, you will have too much pride to let yourself write down that you did nothing to better your health for several days in a row. Turn yourself into a trainer through creating your own fitness blog. Teaching yourself about working out and writing things down will really help gain a better understanding of your health and level of physical fitness!

One of the first thing we think about every morning when we wake up is how we look and how we could exercise more and eat better. The last thing any of us want to do is spend a lot of money on home fitness equipment. However, it is really difficult to find home fitness equipment that is going to last for a long time, for less than $1000.00. For example, there are over 100 diferent elliptical crosstrainers on the market today for less than $1000.00. With that said, out of those 100 or so pieces of elliptical exercise equipment, no more than one or two at the most will be a good piece of home gym gear. Therefore, never value the price over the quality of the equipment. It doesn’t matter if you get an elliptical, treadmill, home gym, rowing machine, stair climber or exercise bike, if you buy one that you do not use or like, it doesn’t matter how low the cost was because it was a total loss and waste of money. When looking at home fitness equipment, try to focus on reputable name brand equipment such as Precor, Life Fitness, Star Trac, Cybex and stay away from low end equipment like Proform. Always ask one of our reliable and friendly fitness experts about any and every piece of equipment that is a potential buy. The friendly fitness experts of the Kings of Cardio, are open 24/7, and can be reached at 800-990-1108.

Has anyone noticed the amount of fitness equipment suppliers there are on the internet? I mean it is insane at this point. Last night, I had a man call and inquire about a Precor AMT 100i, and I am not kidding when I say we were on the phone for 2 hours. This caller must have known every single fact about this Precor AMT that there was…and then some. If there were a written test on the electrical specs, workout courses, dimensions and history of the Precor AMT, I would bet this caller would do better than the Precor manufacturers who are responsible for the development of Precor gym equipment. So I asked him, “Sir, just out of curiousity, are you writing a book on the history of the Precor AMT 100i, and other Precor fitness gear, because you sound like you know every single thing possible there is to know about this elliptical. I bet you even know how thick the steel framework is?”….”I do he said”…. and then he proceeded to tell me that the reason he knows everything about this Precor AMT, includung what it future value will be in 2012 (just kidding), is because he has already talked to “at least 15 different internet fitness stores.” Just a year ago, if you GOOGLED “Precor AMT 100i”, there would be no more than 2-3 people advertising for that product. Now there are 20-30 rotating ads for that one elliptical alone.

The good part is that, there are not any stores that has reviews as good as the reviews for kings of cardio.

As we near July, it has become evident that I have not done all that I need to in order to look good in my bathing suit for the summer, and I am not ready to accept that. Every single year I promise myself that by the time summer comes around I am going to be toting a six pack and not weigh more than 170 (I am 6’0). The nor weighing more than 170 pounds thingn is only when I am not weight training really hard, if I was lifting weights every day and eating lots of protein and around 4000 calories, then I would be satisfied at like 180 pounds or even 190 pounds as long as my body fat percentage remained under 6.5%. But anyway…..back to the swimsuit thing and I am not totally out of shape, there has been some work done on my part, but you get out what you put in and right now I don’t have too much that I can take out, so I have to put a lot more work in and just pray that by mid-July, my swimsuit body will be ready, if not, I will consider myself a total failure….just kidding, kinda, sorta. Ha! Anyway, as I mentioned, I am 6’0 and right now I weight around, like, ummmmmmmmmm, 183 pounds. I need to get down to 170 pounds and I was looking for some good ideas from the KOC bloggers and bloggets as to what my best course of action is? Should I just go all out and exercise for like 4 hours a day? Different people have told me different things. I have heard that yeah, if you really want to look your best and feel your best, get some cardio and strength equipment for your home and just go crazy. Don’t let up, no matter how sore you are, just keep pumping iron and doing cardiovascular workouts and the rest is history. The counter argument to that, which I have heard quite frequently as well, is that if you try and push yourself too hard, through daily physical training, cardio and strength training, that you will become so sore and beat up that you will just burn yourself out due to exhaustion and just not want to exercise anymore at all.