For many, when fitness is mentioned it evokes an image of a gym filled with benches, huge olympic bars, racks of big, round weights, other racks of dumbbells and a host of other torturous paraphernalia. The truth of the matter is that more and more space in health clubs is taken up with treadmills, stationary bicycles and weight machines and far fewer free weights. Not that free weights as fitness equipment is passé, it is just that there are alternatives, some of which will provide similar results to “pumping iron.”
Weights fitness equipment comes in several forms: Free weights, weight-loaded equipment and body-weight-resistance apparatus.
• Free Weights – is the term applied to metal bars in several shapes and lengths onto which are loaded metal plates to increase the weight. Dumbbells, short bars with weights on either end intended to be used individually or as pairs in each hand. Specialized benches are used to perform a variety of exercises with the free-weights.
• Weight-loaded Machines – describes stationary equipment that involves cables, pulleys or other means, on which exercises are performed that are similar to a free-weight regimen. Weight machines are adjustable for different sizes of users and the amount of weight resistance may be varied.
• Body-Weight Resistance Equipment – these are devices in which the user’s body weight provides the resistance for different exercises. These include: Pull up bars, dip bars, push-up handles, sit-up incline benches and other specialized racks or benches.
Free weights fitness equipment will always be part of the health club and home-gym scene because they provide results and are much more versatile in how they may be used. They are easier to store in far less space that elaborate weight-loaded machines, this being of particular interest to the home-gym owner who may have limited space in which to store fitness equipment.
Machines have supplanted barbells as weight fitness equipment because they are easier to use for a wider variety of people with different goals. They are safer to use because no one has to “spot” the guy or gal doing heavy weight exercises. There are limit stops that may be employed to assure that the weights won’t fall on the user when their muscles reach exhaustion.
Innovations in weight fitness equipment include Nautilus, created by Arthur Jones and incorporating an eccentric cam that provides variable resistance through a full range of movement of the muscles being worked. Imitators of the Nautilus principle have designed similar approaches to variable resistance, all of which provide an injury-free weight fitness equipment experience.
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