Exercise Equipment

Nike has teamed up with Apple to create synchronicity between the music that provides a soundtrack to your morning jog and the work-out you experience. The Nike+iPod Sports kit contains a sensor that fits into Nike+ athletic shoes as well as a receiver that takes information from the sensor to provide a summary of your workout on your iPod nano. Your tiny iPod will even read the results to you, and then your information can be uploaded to Nike’s website, where you can analyze and compare your stats with other runners. Read more

Horizon Fitness has a new treadmill that keeps track of your steps throughout the day – whether you’re on it or not. How does it work? A user wears a wireless pedometer, which comes with the treadmill. At the end of the day, the user wirelessly transmits his or her steps to the treadmill. The treadmill then calculates the steps needed to reach a daily fitness goal, which can be anywhere between 1,000 and 10,000 steps. The treadmill then adjusts the workout to compensate for steps taken during daily activities. Read more

So you’ve been dragging yourself to the gym after work for months now. You write your name on a wait list and then wander around the weight room waiting for a treadmill or other cross-trainer to become free. You consider all of the other things you could be doing at that moment, and sigh. “I pay way too much for this,” you think.

Then on Saturday mornings you get up and stare at yourself in the mirror. “I wonder if gardening can count as cardio exercise?” you ask yourself foolishly. You put on some old sweats and hope there’s no young, gorgeous human specimen on the treadmill next to yours at the gym.