Happy New Year’s Eve to all of you from The King of Cardio! Here’s to a great new year, with good health and good friends. Please remember good health is, in part, is up to you. Exercise, eat well, and you will have more energy, and better spirits, to spend with those you love. Attitude is a choice. Look forward to spreading great joy and love, and you’ll get it back. Karma. And staying in good health is certainly one way to be positive–no more complaining, moaning, wishing you were stronger or could lose a few pounds. Make yourself happy. Get into a workout routine. Use that stairmaster, that elliptical, that treadmill, every day if you can. And if you don’t have one yet, but are thinking about buying one, well, there is no better time than New Years to finally get in shape.

Peace and all good things,

As I travel around the country, going from place to place in order to transform the unhealthy into the fit, it is alarming to see how many people are truly obese and overweight, and seemingly do not care at all.  It is understandable for the weight of a human being to fluctuate due to lack of exercise, or excess eating from time to time, but what I have seen is not normal, by any standards, liberal or conservative. When I say, “What I have seen is not normal”, I am referring to the disproportionate amount of overweight people versus the amount of people that would be considered healthy by national standards, and yes, there are set standards of how much Joe Johnson should weigh based on his height and age. The question is, why are we so fat? How did it get to the point that every time I am in a mall, baseball game, or movie, there are more overweight people than non. Is it because we do not exercise as much as our European friends? Are the United States of America the fattest nation on the globe because we eat bad? According to the social conservatives, we have the best health care in the world so there is no way that our health care system could be to blame for the fact that the U.S.A. Yeah right, sure, the U.S.A. is not even in the top 10 when it comes to nations with the longest life expectancy rate, but our health care system is so spectacular! Ha! So what are your thoughts? How can we curb obesity? Is it as easy as making sure everyone spends at least 30 minutes of their day exercising? If everyone in America had a treadmill, what percentage of them would use the treadmills? If you guessed 1/10, then you are very optimistic and should be applauded for your positive outlook, but you are surely mistaken. More like 1/1000 people would actually use fitness equipment in their home on a regular basis if they had it. That is if they had the equipment at home at their disposal to use anytime they wish. Try and imagine the amount of people that actually take the time out of their day to go to the gym and stay physically fit. That number is more like 1/10000. It is crucial to maintain a consistent workout regimen and set goals. GOALS. You need to set goals. Aimlessly exercising is not optimal. Set goals and aim to achieve them.

The goal is to make health care not an issue. How can I not worry about health care you ask? Take control of your life through a balanced diet and daily exercise routine. Many of our problems are brought on us by our own inability to take care of ourselves mentally and physically. Mentally, we work too hard, and stress out as a result. Physically, we damage ourselves through eating too much, drinking too much and not exercising enough. The first thing all of our parents taught us are that “you are what you eat!” In other words, if you stuff yourself with trans fat and sugar, you are contributing to the problem, rather than the solution.

Setting goals is part of the psychological battle we fight in our war against lethargy and laziness. Another big part of the psychological side of exercising is remaining positive and optimistic. Staying in good shape and maintaining a balanced diet are long term events that should not be judged upon their short term results. The key is to progressively get better each and every day. I have said over and over that every day of your life you either get better og get worse! Which one will it be today? If you have an off day and take a step back, no big deal, just take two steps forward the next day and you will be right back on track. If you breakdown in traffic on the way home from work and go to McDonalds drive through for a double cheeseburger and french fries, who cares, just make sure you work it off the next day. We are not advocating fast food as good for you, we are just saying that just because you ate some fatty foods doesn’t mean that you should give up on your exercise routine and succumb to a passive, careless, lazy lifestyle. Even if you get off track one day, get right back on the next. Always remember, success is a journey, not a destination, so do not be discouraged with short term results. The definiton of a true champion is someone that can withstand adversity and overcome obstacles on that come up on the road towards success. Do not give up!

Now I know there are some of you out there that have a six-pack and like 3% bodyfat and have never used an elliptical in your life, but you are the exception to the rule. The amount of people that are in shape and don’t workout are slim and it shows. Have you walked around a mall in America lately? Have you gone to the movies? It is gross. To quote jay Z, “What More Can I Say?”  Last time I went to the movie theatre the 9 year old kid sitting next to me must have weighed 250 Lbs. at least, and was no taller than 5’5! Obesity in the United States of America is at an all time high and we need to do the best we can to exterminate this lazy, cocky lifestyle that way too many people in America have adopted. A lifestyle defined by your average Joe Johnson that will eat whatever, never exercise, drink and smoke, and go get pills from a Dr. when he getssick from living an unhealthy lifestyle.

Get your home gyms and treadmills tuned up and ready for the change of weather! Soon it will be cold in most parts of the country and nobody likes exercising outside in cold weather. At least most people that work for the Kings of Cardio, but then again, we get the nice and sunny weather of beautiful Los Angeles, CA.
For those of you who are not as weatherly blessed as we are here in Los Angeles, you must not stop running and walking just because it is starting to get dark earlier and colder by the day. The great thing about purchasing home gym equipment is that once you have it, your options remain open, and you can always go back outside once in a while to exercise during winter, but make life easier for yourself and get some home fitness equipment.

The most common excuse for not neing able to work out and exercise on a daily basis is “Well I just don’t have enough time in my day.” While for most of us this excuse holds merit, we fail to realize how important daily exercise really is towards our health and overall well being. With that said, you need to carve out that 30 minute time frame each and every day in order to maintain a fit amd healthy body. Home fitness equipment is so essential to those who do not have the luxury of taking 2 hours out of there day to go to the gym.  Having a treadmill or an elliptical, or any other piece of exercise equipment at home will make fitting the time to exercise in your daily routine that much easier.

The weather is starting to get colder which means that exercising outside becomes less intriguing as each day passes. Who wants to run outside at night in Cleveland, Detroit, New York, or anywhere that is cold for that matter. This is why treadmills, ellipticals and other home gym equipment was invented. These days it is easier than ever to purchase quality fitness equipment for your home, making stay in shape possible, even if your window of opportunity to exercise each day shuts as new things come up into our schedules un-announced. When you have fitness equipment at home, you do not have to carve 2 hours out of your day for going to the gym, showering, sitting in traffic, so on and so forth.

If you are not really juiced up for this years NFL and NCAA Football seasons then there is something wrong with you! These guys are such great athletes and we take great pride in supplying them with the best fitness equipment known to man. If you want to find out how structurally sound an Elliptical Cross Trainer is, then put a 6’5, 310 lb. middle line-backer on it and if the fitness equipment remains quiet while in use, and does not rock back and forth, well, then you have found yourself a winner! Big, strong and sometimes fat people are really the best way to determine the strength and quality of gym equipment.

edit: Side note, if your name is Julie, and you are 5’5 and 130 lbs., it does not matter if the piece of cardio fitness equipment you are looking for can support the weight of a Giant, it just matters wheter or not the exercise bike, fitness stepper, home gym, treadmill, or elliptical is comfortable for you.  That is not to say that you should not be concerned over the structural integrity of the exercise equipment that you may potentially purchase, we are just saying the mechanical capacity (user weight capacity), is of no importance to you. Sports equipment and gym machinery will always support at least 150lbs, unless specified otherwise.

However,  most of the people that call the Kings of Cardio, are not small and skinny, in fact, for the most part, they are big and heavy. In order for exercise equipment and gym gear to work safe and effectively, it must be sturdy enough to withstand continuous usage over time by people of all shapes and sizes. For these two reasons, we make sure that we provide our customers with the highest quality fitness equipment on earth and in return they love us for it! We hope…

Send us in a picture of your home gym. We are looking for the best home gyms in the U.S.A. the Home Gym contest will be ending on Dec. 21, 2009 and at that moment we will be giving away a Life Fitness Treadmill, a Precor Elliptical, a Hoist or Vectra home gym, the StairMaster 4400pt and a rowing machine which we have not decided onm yet. Criteria is basen on how many pieces of fitness equipment you have, the quality of your sports exercise equipment and most importantly, how much you use it! So please also send us your best fitness picture. Long essays are unnecessary as pictures are worth a thousand words!