http://articles.fitness-equipment-plus.com/rss.xml A blog about fitness-equipment-plus.com daily 365 1901-01-01T00:00+00:00 http://articles.fitness-equipment-plus.com/?a=36510 <p>by Gregg Hall</p><p>Ebay is the biggest internet store in the world, and you can find just about anything for sale there, including books, music, and entertainment, enterprises, collectibles, and yes, fitness machinery. There are over 12000 categories of things for sale on Ebay, so take your time checking before you buy, and make sure you're getting exactly what you think you're getting before you make that decision. <br /><br />You have to be good at using the category system if you want to have any chance of finding what you're looking for on Ebay. When I looked there were over a million things for sale under &quot;sports&quot;, over 340,000 under &quot;sports; sporting goods&quot; and then 7146 items when I narrowed the search down to &quot;sports; sporting goods, exercise and fitness&quot;.<br /><br />How Ebay works is that you can either bid on a product for sale, or buy it outright, if the seller provides that option, which isn't always the case. This means that there is a great likelihood that you'll have to wait through an auction system if you hope to buy a piece of fitness machinery on Ebay. The problem with this approach is that you're not guaranteed to win the auction, so you might end up wasting a lot of time before you finally get what you're looking for. The advantage is that you can get some really good deals if you're lucky.<br /><br />I looked at several products: The Total Trainer is a system based on the Total Gym advertised by Chuck Norris and Christie Brinkley. Whereas Total Gym sells for around $500, Ebay had a Total Trainer up for sale at the price of $277 for a straight purchase. <br /><br />I also looked at a copy of Fast Abs, which is an electronic muscle stimulating belt that goes for about thirty dollars plus shipping if you buy it from the manufacturer. The copy was selling on Ebay for ten to fifteen dollars, and shipping was free. <br /><br />Smart Abs, which usually goes for anywhere between seventy and eighty dollars in the real world was for sale on Ebay for fifty dollars. <br /><br />The Gazelle Freestyle Elite by Tony Little sells for around four hundred dollars, but the Fitness Quest Glider, which is a comparable product, was on Ebay for around half that price.<br /><br />Finally, I took a look at an exercise system involving weights attached to shoes, introduced by Jolie World. At her website they sell for twenty bucks, but on Ebay I found them offered for fifteen, which is a saving of one quarter.<br /><br />Do your research and make a careful decision. There are a lot of items for sale on Ebay that look and sound good, but turn out to be defective or substandard when you get them. It is worth your while to go the extra mile to make sure you know what you're getting. Ask the seller questions about the product to be as positive as you can be that it's high quality. If you find a good product at a good price, thank your lucky stars and go ahead and buy it. <br /><br />Do not wait, because there are other people on Ebay looking for that exact item, and if they buy it before you make up your mind, you'll have to start your search all over again.</p><h3 class="popup">About the Author </h3><p>Gregg Hall is an author living in Navarre Beach Florida. Find more about this as exercise equipment at <a href="http://www.fitness-equipment-plus.com/">http://www.fitness-equipment-plus.com</a></p> 2006-11-24T18:21-05:00 http://articles.fitness-equipment-plus.com/?a=36509 <p>by Gregg Hall</p><p>People are so overweight today that physical fitness has become a very important commodity in the marketplace. Today our lifestyles no longer allow us to rely on nature to keep us fit; the regular way of life leaves the average person with not enough exercise. <br /><br />We are forced to rely on spending time in deliberate exercise programs. It takes dedication of time, energy and cash to keep our bodies looking the way we want them to look. A lot of people do opt to become a member of a gym, but many of us do not feel comfortable using perspiration drenched machinery, and exercising in front of probing eyes of dozens of other people working out around us. <br /><br />If you're overweight the last thing you want to think about while you're working out is how you look. Obviously the idea is that you don't like how you look, so it's hard to feel comfortable about being scrutinized by everyone else while you're working out. <br /><br />For this reason a lot of people are attracted to the option of a home fitness system that offers many exercises and a complete work out program in the security and privacy of your own home. Before making the decision to buy one of these systems make sure that the system is right for you. Think about what you want to get out of the program, research the machines that are available out there and find the best one for your needs. <br /><br />TV, the Internet and magazines are full of advertisements for all types of fitness machinery. The two biggest names that you are apt to see again and again are Total Gym and Bowflex. <br /><br />Let's take a brief look at these two systems:<br />Bowflex has improved its system in several ways in the many years since it first came out. The system is quite expensive, but you get a lot out of it. The Bowflex machine looks pretty much the same in general shape as the basic machines you find in the average gym, but it uses rods to create resistance instead of weights. Bowflex claims that this variation makes a workout with their machine smoother than with other machines that use weights for resistance. Bowflex is a single machine that can let you do many of the same exercises that people do in the gyms using weights. One of the benefits of the Bowflex system is that it is compact and easy to store. The basic system can fold up and fit under a bed.<br /><br />The Total Gym folds up and goes under a bed just like the Bowflex can. The way it works is by pulleys, and a board that slides up and down. The pulley system uses the weight of the person exercising, and additional weights if you choose the upgrade, to allow the person to exercise using the pulleys. You can use this machine to exercise virtually the whole body. Two famous spokespeople, Chuck Norris, the famous martial artist, and Supermodel Christie Brinkley, are responsible for making this a very popular machine.</p><h3 class="popup">About the Author </h3><p>Gregg Hall is an author living in Navarre Beach Florida. Find more about this as fitness equipment at <a href="http://www.fitness-equipment-plus.com/">http://www.fitness-equipment-plus.com</a></p> 2006-11-24T18:17-05:00