Exercise Equipment Guide: Treadmills, Weights, and Home Gyms

What happens when your treadmill stops suddenly, and how can you troubleshoot common home gym equipment? Selecting the best mini-trampolines, resistance bands, and cross trainers can significantly improve your at-home fitness results and safety.

Woman hitting punching bag

Rock vs. Sand vs. Water in Freestanding Punching Bags

Freestanding punching bags use a reservoir as a counterweight to simulate the resistance and swing of a hanging bag. Theoretically, you could fill the reservoir with any substance heavier than air. In practice, most users choose to fill it with rock, sand or water. Each material has advantages and disadvantages.

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Can Hitting a Punching Bag Increase Your Strength?

The typical fighter athlete looks strong. He has cut, well-defined muscles and competes with reasonable success against other trained and conditioned athletes. These fighters participate in a holistic program of strength training, cardio training and diet.

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The Health Benefits of Using a Speed Bag & Punching Bag

All speed bags are punching bags, but not all punching bags are speed bags. In boxing parlance, punching bag is the generic term applied to all such tools, but most "civilians" mean a standard heavy bag. Both heavy and speed bags can produce health benefits if used correctly as part of a systematic regimen.

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Woman boxing in gym

Can a Punching Bag Workout Help Tone Your Abs?

The popular image of a boxer or other fight sport athlete includes someone who has set of ripped and visible abdominal muscles. Much of that comes from the weight loss practices inherent in combat sports coupled with hours upon hours of cardiovascular training and attention to diet.

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Is the Nordic Track Ski Machine a Good Workout?

The NordicTrack ski machine is built to imitate the motions your body goes through when cross-country skiing, an exercise widely considered the best cardiovascular workout available. Like any imitation, the NordicTrack doesn't provide a perfect recreation of cross-country.

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MOUTH GUARD

Instructions on How to Size a Mouthguard

Your mouthguard is an important piece of safety equipment in many sports. Football, boxing and many martial arts require it, while it remains optional but recommended in many others. A mouthguard cushions the impact of a blow to the chin.

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Pains After Hitting a Punching Bag

Working out with a heavy punching bag can build coordination, body strength and endurance in a session that's surprisingly rigorous to anybody who's never done it. However, the forces involved in this kind of training put a lot of impact on some of the smallest bones in your body.

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