Category Archives: fitness

Product Review: Empower Fitness 2lb Pair Walking Weights

Posted on by — 2 Comments ↓

{Disclaimers: 1) I am not, not do I claim to be a doctor. Before you attempt to use this product, check with your primary care physician and/or specialist health care professional to be sure that it’s right for you. 2) I received this product for the purpose of testing and was allowed to keep it as a courtesy for posting a review. I received no other compensation for this review and was specifically told, “Write whatever you want.” In other words: this is MY opinion and not a company-paid PR piece. Take that for what you will.}

Seeing as how I’m trying to find ways to kick up my workouts by a notch or so, as I get closer to the next marathon, it seemed only fitting that I try out workout weights. I’d been intrigued by them before, since they seem to come in so many flavors – things that wrap around your ankles, things that wrap around your wrists, things that wrap around your waist, etc. So, when I was offered a chance to try out weights that you hand-carry, I was definitely interested in seeing how well they worked.

The product I tested is a 2lb pair walking weight set from Empower Fitness; the set is 2lb total (1lb per weight). These are supposed to be designed specifically for women, and the softness of the sand inside them certainly did make them comfortable to hold. They’re enclosed in a bit of neoprene, with a neoprene strap to go around your hand – again, all quite comfy stuff. According to the Empower Fitness web site, the set retails for $9.99.

Empower Fitness 2lb Pair Walking Weights

Empower Fitness 2lb Pair Walking Weights

 

The tests:

I did a bunch of walks with these, both indoors and outdoors, ranging from as little as a half-hour to just over an hour. Distances covered were anywhere from 1.5 – 4mi, with my pace ranging between 17-20min/mi.

Typically, I was walking holding my arms parallel to my body with my forearms approximately 90 degrees off from my upper arm. Holding the weights seemed to force me to have better posture and hold my core muscles tighter than I typically would without the weights.

The results:

I liked them! They were comfortable to carry and they were light enough to be easily carried in one hand if needed, yet heavy enough to give me just that little bit of resistance I needed to make my walk a bit more of a workout than it was previously. The straps made it easy to hang onto them, and the squishiness from the sand meant that they had plenty of give for me.

If I needed to put them aside so I could get a drink, if I was indoors and on a treadmill, it was easy enough to put them on the shelf in front of me. When I was outside, they were light enough to transfer to one hand and carry as 2lbs on one side while I got my drink.

It’s a handy thing that you can wipe them down if you need to, although I will say that no matter how sweaty my hands got from wearing them during walking workouts, they never got stinky (big plus!). They  never slipped off my hands due to  sweat; they really seemed to fit my hands perfectly with those straps, and I appreciated the comfortable, tight-but-not-constrictive fit of the straps.

If you’re interested in spending short dollars to add a little oomph to your walks, I’d recommend giving these a try. I’ll definitely continue using them, and don’t be surprised if I purchase a carabiner to allow me just to clip them to a belt-loop for much longer walks when I want to alternate using/not using them. For my walks around my neighborhood, I often eschew wicking fabric in favor of my boy cargo shorts; they just make it a ton easier to carry stuff (granola bars, iPhone, etc.). Hence – a carabiner + these weights (or two carabiners, so I can clip one to each side) is a VERY likely outcome for future walks.

Where to buy:

You can purchase these at various places online, including Amazon.com. Check out the Empower Fitness web site for full details on purchase options.

Kicking my training up a notch…

Posted on by — Leave a reply

It’s not every day when someone shows up at your door with a box filled with stuff. With things piled on top of the box. I do so love days like that, especially when the stuff that the person shows up with happens to be stuff I can use.

In this case, it’s stuff I know I *want* to use, so we’ll see if I can kick my own behind into gear enough to be able to use it properly.

This all stems from one of those “it’s who you know” things, where I happen to know someone who works for a company that makes fitness equipment that’s designed specially for women. Now, I say this not to get all mushy – “ooh, it’s pink and it has wings!” NO NO NO. “Things designed for women” isn’t code for “looks like a tampon and smells like Febreze”. In this case, it’s fitness equipment that was designed for different body needs. Will dh use any of it? Uh, yeah. Why? It’s not because he wants to get in touch with his feminine side…it’s more that there will come a point when his curiosity will get the better of him. (He was already sniffing around the fitness mats and was excited that there was more than one.)

Of course, I haven’t yet had the chance to try this stuff out. My friend was kind enough to bring all this stuff last night, showing me everything from mats to medicine balls. As I try things out, I’ll post some reviews so that you can see what I found that worked for me. Bear in mind that my current schedule has me working out – at most – 3-4 times a week, with most of my workouts running maybe 35-45 minutes (and a longer one on the weekend). Some weeks I work out more, some less. I work out when I can, as we can fit it into our schedule (dh is training for his first triathlon). Add in full-time jobs and two kids and our schedule is almost military-level regimented from about 4:45am until the kids are finally asleep for the night.

Thanks to a fitness competition that was going on at work for the last few weeks, I’ve been focusing my workouts on walking, but now I can start to reincorporate core work. Hopefully, this will be less likely to kill me than what the sadistic incredibly sweet personal trainer at my gym had taught me earlier this year. (For such a nice guy, he certainly got an evil grin going when I was feeling near death halfway through his workouts. Yeesh.)

My eyes are on the prize(s): becoming fitter and finishing this year’s walking marathon without limping my way into the finish line. FINISH STRONG. As it happens, I connected with the Director of this year’s walk and there are a bunchload of people who live in my town that are also planning to do this year’s marathon; I suggested that she help organize a training club, and she’s going to see what can be done to make that happen.

So we’ll see if this works. I don’t consider this a reboot or even a .x release. This is just continuous flow. I haven’t stopped moving. (On the contrary, I was averaging well over 10,000 steps/day for the last three months.) I’d just like to kick things up a notch and, with a little help from my friends (and some new fitness toys!) I think I can do just that.

Who’s with me?

P.S. – If things work out nicely with any of the items I try out, there is a chance for giveaways. *claps hands in joy and grins madly* Keep your fingers cross, peeps.

I can see for miles and miles…

Posted on by — 1 Comment ↓

I’ve always liked walking. It’s certainly better than running, in my opinion, since I’m not usually winded and feeling like my lungs will explode from a good walk – which even a 1/4mi run will do to me. Also, based on what my doctor has said about my knees, running is dead out. So, it’s walking for me.

And with the marathon slowly approaching, about 6 months out, I feel like I have sufficient time to ramp up so that I can cross that finish line not limping…justwalking. Naturally, this requires that I find ways to get my endurance up, such as training walks during the week on the treadmill at my office’s fitness center. Those are a bit tough lately, what with my calendar turning into a sea of red from meetings piled on top of meetings, but I’m trying to get back into a 3-day/wk fitness center schedule. Then we get to the weekends, and things invariably get odder.

So this is where I noticed that as I was leaving the Y this morning, after dd’s swim class, I was curious about the mileage from our house to the Y. Turns out that we’re 5-ish miles from the Y. Hmm. That means I could send dh with BOTH kids to the swim class next week (ds would sit in the stands and watch) and walk over to meet up with them. Of course, that throws off the usual Sunday schedule of one parent at swim class and the other at the grocery store, with kids split evenly between us, but sometimes you have to make such sacrifices.

The loop I did last weekend turned out to be 4 miles (which was why it was such a breeze), so I’m looking to push the distance, even early in the training cycle. I could stay off the main roads and just stick to a loop around secondary & tertiary streets, but then it’s a matter of which ones have sidewalks and making sure I’m appropriately brightly colored for the ones that don’t.

What I would like to get my hands on is an iPhone app that helps you track how far you’ve walked in distance (not steps), so that I don’t have to rely on Google Maps to give me mileage. Don’t get me wrong – Google maps does fine, especially now that they have the walking directions feature – but it would be nice to have something I can just use to measure these right from my phone. I’m sure there’s one out there, but I haven’t seen one that really fits my bill just yet (so suggestions are more than welcome!).

It’s hard to figure out how to fit it all in. When your schedule during any given week is like playing a game of Jenga, it seems monumentally difficult to wedge in exercise/training time. I know that you have to prioritize it and all, but there are a lot of competing priorities in my life (kids, work, etc.) and sometimes it feels like the true marathon is just trying to go the distance on that without completely dorking everything up.

I’ll figure it out. I really want to walk across that finish line this year, finishing stronger than I did last year. That 26.2 sticker felt SO GOOD going on my car. I guess I just need to figure out how to juggle “marathons” and finish strong across the board. Sounds easier than it is, I’m sure, bu probably worth doing nonetheless.