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Fitness Equipment

Fitness equipment comes in about as many shapes, sizes, and flavors as the people that utilize it. The reason for so much variety is that there’s a similar variety of things to do to stay in shape. There are the organized team sports, such as baseball, basketball, football, and soccer. There are also individual pursuits, such as running, swimming, weight training, yoga, or aerobics. What you do to stay in shape depends on where your talents and preferences lie.

If you have a group of friends that likes to play a specific sport, it’s natural for you to get together to do that sport. The fitness equipment you need in that case is usually the personal sort. For soccer you need cleats, shin guards, shorts, and a t-shirt.  For basketball you need sneakers and an outfit. Football takes cleats, a uniform, and may require pads, depending on the style of play. Baseball requires that you have a glove, cleats, and possibly a bat in addition to your outfit.

Of course, all those sports also require you to have a field or court to play on, as well as other features, such as end zones, baskets, goals, or a diamond. Those things are more than likely to be found at a part or gym in your area, which takes the onus of ownership off of you.

The individual pursuits have fitness equipment requirements that are specific to the sport as well. For instance a runner needs an outfit and running shoes, oh and somewhere to run. A spot to run doesn’t have to be equipment, but if you chose to run on a treadmill it will be. This option is especially nice for urban dwellers that may not have a park nearby.

Swimming on the other hand merely requires a swimsuit and a pool. Swimming laps in 100 meter pool is one of the lowest impact forms of exercise out there. It works a variety of muscles through a full range of motion without the jarring impacts that accompany land based sports. Of course, you’ll need a pool for that, but if you have a local pool it is a great fitness option.

Weight training is one of the more fitness equipment intensive practices. While what you have on you is less important, the equipment you work with becomes vitally important in weight training. You need free weights for certain exercises, like curls. Others, such as squats, are best done with a machine. What becomes really impressive is how many different machines you need for various different exercises. You’d think you could do multiple exercises on the same machine, and in general each machine can be used for a few different ones. But it seems like each muscle group requires its own devoted piece of equipment.

That is why body builders congregate at gyms instead of purchasing their own equipment. At a thousand bucks or more a piece in some cases, it’s just not economical for most people to furnish their home with a complete gym. So they buy a membership to a local gym and let the company make sure they have all the latest and greatest workout equipment to bulk up.

 

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