workouts

If you're like most folks, your New Year's resolutions included something like "lose weight" or "get in shape." Easier said than done, right?

Try FitnessClass, a new iPad app that serves up more than 200 workout videos. No trips to the gym, no fitting your workouts to someone else's schedule--just on-demand professional classes for just about any kind of workout you want: fat burning, core strengthening, arm toning, and so on.

In fact, you can search for classes based on your goal (weight loss, strength, etc.), the time you have available (from 10 … Read more

Arguably, the only reason standalone MP3 players still exist is to keep people entertained at the gym. After all, no one wants to sweat all over a fancy smartphone.

If you just need some motivational background music for a morning jog, you'll want something small enough to clip onto your shirt, and cheap enough to easily replace if it gets trampled.

We rounded up five fitness-friendly MP3 players that are all small, relatively inexpensive, and attach to you in one way or another. Some, such as the iPod Nano or Haier Trainer, also use a pedometer to keep track … Read more

Say you're into yoga, but you have neither the time nor the money to make it to actual yoga sessions regularly. Or you're a cyclist who'd like motivation beyond music in your ears. Or you're trying to do weight training without having to glance at the text on your phone every minute to see what's next.

You might consider MynaTime, the personal workout assistant software announced Monday that gives users the ability to type in specific workouts.

The application--now available on Amazon.com for $24.95 for those with Mac OS X versions 10.5 (… Read more

There's more than one way to skin a cat make a wireless MP3 player, and building it right into a set of water-resistant headphones is an excellent way to do that and ensure that it's ready to hit the gym right out of the box. This is the route Sony took with its original W-Series Walkman back in 2009, and the company is continuing the tradition with the latest iteration of the device. The fitness-friendly player still features an ample 2GB of internal memory, and Sony has knocked $10 off the MSRP, bringing the W-Series down to an … Read more

Most of us gym-goers are dependent on our carefully tailored workout playlists to keep our legs moving during an otherwise dreary exercise. Needless to say, this entertainment is difficult to achieve underwater, but that hasn't stopped well-known swim gear brand Finis from helping swimmers have some fun, too. With this in mind, the company has updated its unique waterproof MP3 player, the SwimP3. Version 2 is carefully designed for comfort and practicality, and it's sure to sound a lot better than the splashes of a freestyle stroke.

Like the first version, SwiMP3 v2 uses bone conduction technology. It … Read more

RunKeeper Free is a no-cost but still full-featured version of RunKeeper Pro, a fitness app that helps runners (and even hikers and cyclists and the like) track the speed, pace, distance, and location of their workouts. The app has a streamlined, two-button interface--Stop/Start and Pause--and a large display that shows time elapsed, current speed, pace per mile (or kilometer), distance traveled, and GPS strength. What makes RunKeeper Free so useful--and motivating--is its ability to track the history of your runs, showing a quick list of the date, start time, duration, and distance covered for all your runs, and even … Read more

Muscle Builder allows users to create and print workouts, or at least, that's its claim. Our experience was that the program is really just a thinly veiled advertisement for a couple of bodybuilding Web sites.

The program's interface is simple and easy to use, consisting of a single screen on which users choose exercises from a couple of drop-down menus, one for strength training and another for cardio. For each exercise users can enter the number of sets and repetitions, or length of time. This is easy enough to do, but the program falls short with the limited … Read more

MP3 players fulfill many roles for the people who use them. For some, a portable audio device is true to form as an essential commuter companion; others turn their players into home audio systems by attaching them to speakers. But one of the most popular uses for an MP3 player is as a workout motivator, which is why companies have packed fitness-friendly extras into the devices over the years. The most recent example is found in the Haier America Trainer, a 2GB player with a surfeit of features aimed at getting you in shape. At $60, the Trainer is a … Read more

The one thing you don't see or hear too much about is e-book readers at the gym. But if you're into reading on the treadmill, elliptical, or stationary bike, the Kindle 2 and other e-readers are pretty ideal.

The key is there are no real page turns to deal with and you don't have to worry about keeping the book--especially a paperback--flat. You just reach out and press the "next page" button to keep reading.

The only problem I had was that on some machines my positioning put me too far away from the Kindle … Read more