The Best Workout Accessories EVER!!

These are the accessories that I use during every single workout! They make my workouts more enjoyable!

(… and one of them I think is a MUST HAVE!!)

The FIRST Accessory…

Wireless Head Phones!

I love these headphones! I don’t get tangled in my chord, and it doesn’t get in the way while I’m lifting weights. I might be a little anal, but the chord was so annoying because it was aleays in the way and a bit distracting. Now, I don’t even have to have my iphone or ipod on my bnody if I don’t want to!

It’s pretty cool, you can adjust the volume, and talk on the phone if it rings in the middle of your workout. You can also charge it so that it doesn’t waste a bunch of batteries, and isn’t too heavy.

My headphones don’t, but my husbands headphones can even skip songs and control which playlist he listens too. Pretty sweet!

The Second Accessory…

The MUST HAVE! :0)… A Heart Rate Monitor!!

This is a great way to see if you are working hard enough, or if you need to step it up a bit! It’s also great for if you want to stay in a certain heart rate zone. A perfect example is…

I like to stay in my Fat Burn Zone! I want to burn fat, but not the muscle that I work so hard to build. So I need to stay in a certain zone. My watch will beep if I let my heart rate get too low, or too high! Have you determined your target heart rate, or your heart rate zones!? If not…click on the link below and see what it is!!It’s super fast and easy!

You can easily find your Target Heart Rate (thr) with this simple method. Subtract your age from 220 (226 for women) to calculate your Maximum Heart Rate (mhr).

Healthy Heart Zone (Warm up) — 50 – 60% of maximum heart rate: The easiest zone and probably the best zone for people just starting a fitness program. It can also be used as a warm up for more serious walkers. This zone has been shown to help decrease body fat, blood pressure and cholesterol. It also decreases the risk of degenerative diseases and has a low risk of injury. 85% of calories burned in this zone are fats!

Fitness Zone (Fat Burning) — 60 – 70% of maximum heart rate: This zone provides the same benefits as the healthy heart zone, but is more intense and burns more total calories. The percent of fat calories is still 85%.

Aerobic Zone (Endurance Training) — 70 – 80% of maximum heart rate: The aerobic zone will improve your cardiovascular and respiratory system AND increase the size and strength of your heart. This is the preferred zone if you are training for an endurance event. More calories are burned with 50% from fat.

Anaerobic Zone (Performance Training) — 80 – 90% of maximum heart rate: Benefits of this zone include an improved VO2 maximum (the highest amount of oxygen one can consume during exercise) and thus an improved cardiorespiratory system, and a higher lactate tolerance ability which means your endurance will improve and you’ll be able to fight fatigue better. This is a high intensity zone burning more calories, 15 % from fat.

Red Line (Maximum Effort) — 90 – 100% of maximum heart rate: Although this zone burns the highest number of calories, it is very intense. Most people can only stay in this zone for short periods. You should only train in this zone if you are in very good shape and have been cleared by a physician to do so.

A couple things to remember… always place the chest strap directly on your skin! Not on top of your shirt, not on top of your sports bra… on your skin! And always remember to wet it first, it will adhere to your skin better and make sure to give you an accurate reading! What good is it if it’s not accurate right!? Take a look at the video below and I’ll show you a bit about both!

Talk you you all soon!!

And hopefully you’ll have burned tons of calories by then!! :0)

Tags: ear phones, heart rate monitor, luvbeinfit, luvbeinnatural, training, wireless earphones, workout

By luvbeinnatural in Blog on May 10, 2012