The National Sporting Goods Association (NSGA) discovered exercise walking as the number 1 participant activity surveyed, with an increase of 7.6% in 2008.  May 2009 reports will show that 96.6 million Americans walked for exercise last year.  Closely behind exercise walking, with a 6.1% increase was swimming.  With the number 2 spot, swimming enticed 63.5 million individuals.  Following in 3rd place was exercising with equipment.  Exercising with equipment attracted 63.0 million participants.  The list continues as follows:

4. Bowling: 49.5 Million Participants

5. Camping (vacation/overnight): 49.4 Million Participants

6.  Bicycle Riding: 44.7 Million Participants

7. Fishing: 42.2 Million Participants

8. Workout at Club: 39.3 Million Participants

9. Hiking: 38.0 Million Participants

10. Weight Lifting: 37.5 Million Participants

Please keep in mind that the National Sporting Goods Association survey considers a participant to be 7 years of age or older.  Those individuals must engage in an activity more than once in a calendar year to be recognized as a participant.

It’s a heart rate monitor that fits on your finger! The LifeSpan Heart Rate Ring is an inexpensive, fresh and unique idea to keep you heart healthy. This compact personal heart rate monitoring device is accurate, convenient and easy to use. Not only does the ring give you a continuous heart rate reading from your finger, it also provides clock and stopwatch functions too.

Walk on your treadmill, enjoy an outdoor hike or perform everyday activities and know your heart rate. The ring’s My Zone personal target heart rate zone feature allows you to enter your minimum and maximum heart rate and keep your heart rate within that zone as you exercise.

“It’s important to easily monitor your heart rate, whether you’re an avid exerciser trying to lose weight or manage a chronic disease such as diabetes or high blood pressure, or you’re following an exercise prescription from a physician,” says Janet Brady, M.S., Director of Medical Programs at LifeSpan Fitness. “Your heart rate is a major contributor to whether you’ll achieve your desired goals from your exercise. If you’re sick, you take your temperature then take action to improve your condition. Many people who exercise don’t ever check their temperature — their heart rate.”

Because time for so many exercisers is limited, having a simple tool like the LifeSpan heart rate ring can help you maximize the benefits of your exercise time, and most important, keep your exercise safe! “Not everyone will stop and count their pulse or put on an uncomfortable chest strap, but they may be willing to put on a heart rate ring that is as simple as putting on a piece of jewelry,” says Janet.

According to a recent article in Forbes.com a government-funded trial concluded exercise may benefit those with heart failure.  The trial included 2,331 people with heart failure from United States, Canada and France.  A portion of those were to regularly exercise aerobically, such as walking on a treadmill 25-30 minutes a day, 5 days a week.

The goal of the study stated in the article was to determine if “regular exercise would reduce the incidence of death and hospitalization caused by heart failure, the progressive loss of the heart’s ability to pump blood.”  Thirty months after initiating the study professor of Medicine at Duke University, Dr. Christopher M. O’Connor stated “our primary or first analysis did show a very modest reduction in the primary endpoints, but it did not achieve the nominal level of statistical significance.”

After the researchers analyzed the initial results they decided to take another look and make a few adjustments confirming that exercise did in fact lower the incidence of hospitalization and cardiovascular death.

“My belief, based on these results and when you look at the totality of information, is that an exercise prescription should be offered to patients with heart failure who meet our entry criteria,” O’Connor said.

Compact LifeSpan Elliptical Trainers Earn Top Reviews and Awards

Looking for an elliptical trainer?  If you’re like most shoppers you’ll want an elliptical that is comfortable and easy to use, and gives you a smooth, fluid motion.  You may also consider the space you have available in your home.

The new Lifespan EL1000 and EL3000i elliptical trainers were carefully designed to meet consumers’ needs by including features that are meaningful to them. LifeSpan ellipticals are ergonomically engineered to fit your body’s natural arm movement and walking motion.  Closely spaced pedals and an excellent stride pattern and length simulate your everyday motion.  Converging handlebars allow the distance between your arms to narrow as your arms extend forward, creating a more natural motion with greater range than on ellipticals with the traditional horizontal arm pattern.  These natural fit features will not only make your exercise more comfortable, they will also help decrease the stress to your spine and other joints and bones as well as minimize your risk for injury.

If maximizing floorspace is important to you then you will definitely want to consider the new LifeSpan ellipticals.  The compact, stacked drive design saves floor space without sacrificing quality, durability or power.  And even if you’re 6 feet tall and have a 7 foot ceiling height, a LifeSpan elliptical is ideal due to its low step up height.

LifeSpan Elliptical Trainers were highly rated in annual fitness equipment reviews of best rated treadmills and elliptical trainers for 2009.  The compact ellipticals were also awarded the symbol of manufacturing excellence award for combining high quality with innovative, compact design.  “The LifeSpan EL1000 elliptical is a solid unit offering a good value for the money,” says Treadmill Doctor in its annual award reviews of treadmills and elliptical trainers.  Ratings were high in reliability, quality, value and ergonomics.  “The EL3000i elliptical looks good with its combination of quality and price.”

It’s spring and time to get moving!  Counting your daily steps can help you increase your physical activity and live healthy and fit.  LifeSpan fitness equipment keeps track of the steps you take, and will motivate you to take more steps.  Whether you use a LifeSpan treadmill, LifeSpan elliptical trainer, a pedometer or other method to count your steps, increasing your daily step count can have positive benefits for your health such as losing weight or managing a chronic disease like high blood pressure or diabetes.

Here are some tips to inspire you to move more.

• Participate in a Step Counting Program – There are step counting programs such as the Center for Disease Control’s (CDC’s) 10,000 Steps a Day or AARP’s walking program.
• Set Realistic Goals – In an article published by the Journal of American Medical Association (JAMA), studies which had a step goal increased physical activity. Studies without a step goal had no significant increased physical activity. Possible goals can be choosing how many steps you want to take each day (such as 10,000 steps), identifying a percentage increase in the number of steps you want to take daily (such as doubling or tripling your steps) or selecting a destination to walk to such as a historical journey. If your goal is to lose weight, start slowly then gradually work your way up and increase your step goals. Goal-oriented step counting can result in more significant health benefits than merely counting your steps.

Keep Track of Your Steps — Record your steps each day and monitor your progress toward achieving your goal.  Your LifeSpan treadmill or elliptical will show you how many steps you have taken as you exercise.  Create a chart so you can visibly see if you are meeting your daily step goal. It can also help you identify obstacles preventing you from achieving your goals. Be Creative in Your Journey — Picking a route or destination and creating a personalized chart for your progress with rewards along the way can make it interesting and keep you motivated. One LifeSpan customer who is traveling across the country for vacation next year has chosen to walk the distance before the vacation. Internet mapping software such as Google Maps or Microsoft’s Streets and Trips can make your journey fun to create and implement.Focus on the Outcomes — Monitoring your daily steps is a process toward achieving better health. According to the CDC, 10,000 steps is roughly equivalent to walking five miles and “will burn between 2,000 and 3,500 extra calories per week, which will result in achieving a vastly better health profile and longer life.” Maintaining a healthy weight, increasing muscular strength, improving cardio-respiratory fitness, increasing bone mass, reducing stress and anxiety, and improving self-esteem are all reasonable expectations you can achieve from being more physically active.