Gazelle: The Perfect Home Workout Machine!

The winter holiday season has a way of putting pounds on people and getting many folks thinking about their needing to exercise. This often becomes a New Year's Resolution, and brings requests for exercise videos, club memberships, and all sorts of crazy contraptions and home exercise machines on Christmas Wish Lists.

The current line-up of exercise bikes, treadmills, stair-steppers, and most other home exercise machines are just too gimmicky, and those machines take up way too much space at home. On top of all that, the majority of these mammoth machines end up collecting dust, being used as clothes racks, and cluttering rooms and stealing valuable floor space at home.

The biggest not-so-secret secret to a successful home exercise program is to do something you really enjoy doing, and then do it regularly. Unfortunately many people are suckered by advertising into buying exercise gadgets and machines that they do not enjoy using.

There seems to be an inverse correlation between the complexity of an exercise apperatus and the probability of owner usage - the more bells and whistles the machine has = the less likely the machine will get used! Easy to use machines get loved and used much more regularly by their owners.

My favourite way to exercise is to ride my real bicycle most of the year. When the weather is just too nasty outside, I have a Gazelle for working out indoors.

Yes, a Gazelle! You probably have seen the goofy TV Infomercials with Tony Little for the Gazelle. Get past the TV goofiness and check out a FitnessQuest Gazelle at any of several major retail chains. They have floor models setup that you can try before you buy.

The Gazelle sort of mimics walking or running, and most important to me - it is much like cross-country skiing! In any of the modes the Gazelle works both upper and lower body (something that most treadmills or exer-bikes don't do). The Gazelle provides a good cardio/aerobic workout with resistance training in one easy workout while also being very low-impact!

The Gazelle adapts immediately and automatically to different users no matter their height or length of legs or arms. No need to make adjustments to seats or handgrips. Just step onto the foot platforms, grasp the cushioned handles at a comfortable level, and begin the striding motion to start you on your way!

In use, the Gazelle is almost silent. No need for earphones (and those tangled wires) to listen to your favourite tunes while working out on your Gazelle. It is easy to position your Gazelle in front of the TV and watch your favourite channel. Why be a couch-potatoe when you can watch your shows and still get a workout!

BIG PLUS -- the Gazelle folds flat and can be slipped under a bed or couch (or just leaned up against the wall) when you need to reclaim the floor space. To fold and hide or set the Gazelle back up takes only seconds and no tools!

Another consideration for home exercise equipment is cost. Many of the available machines cost hundreds, some of them thousands, of dollars! I got my Gazelle from a national retail store for only $79.00 (plus tax of course). The Gazelle also comes in a box that fits in the trunk of an average car making it easy to buy and take home. Many of the treadmills and exer-bikes require waiting for delivery. The Gazelle is also easy to set-up. Took me less than 30 minutes to read the directions and assymble my Gazelle, and it even included the wrench to tighten the bolts right in the box!

P.S. If you really must have a gadget with your exercise machine ... the standard Gazelle model comes with a digital read-out on the center bar that displays time, distance, speed, etc. However, for those folks that have to have a lot of gadgetry - Gazelle offers a more expensive version with a "thumb-pulse" heart-rate monitor gizmo - that model sells for about $169.00.