The exercise equipment market is flooded with choices geared toward any and every fitness goal you can imagine. Choosing the best pieces of equipment for you can be intimidating and confusing, but once you evaluate your needs, you can select equipment that is efficient for your personal goals.
Types of Efficiency
Efficiency when it comes to exercise equipment may vary from person to person. An efficient piece of equipment may give you a quick workout, save space in your home, cost little, lead to quick results or simply be easy to use. While a smith machine may give you quick results through compound exercises, it's not very price efficient.
Stationary Rower
If you're looking to get an all-in-one aerobic and resistance workout, the stationary rower may be a good option. While it may look like just another cardio machine or a way to exercise your arms, working on the stationary rower works your upper body, lower body, back and abdominal muscles, all while getting your heart pumping. A 30-minute session on the rower burns more calories than 30 minutes on a stationary bike. According to Sound Medicine at Indiana University, rowers have bigger muscles, stronger hearts and denser bones than nearly any other athlete. By choosing a stationary rower, you will save time by combining your aerobic and strength workouts, and conserve space at home, as most rowers are very compact.
Smith Machine
The smith machine allows you to perform the same compound exercises you would usually perform with a barbell, but with added safety and ease of use. Compound exercises, such as squats or lunges, work more than one set of muscles and tend to mimic natural motions, so you will get better results in less time than if you performed isolation exercises. You can work your legs, back, chest and shoulders with this one piece of equipment. The machine may take up quite a bit of space and can be expensive.
Cable Tower
Of all the machines you can choose from at the gym, "Fitness" magazine recommends the cable tower. The two stacks of weights with attached pulleys are efficient in convenience and results. Each pulley runs up and down a track, allowing you to adjust it to fit a whole range of exercises. The set of detachable handles that typically come with the machine offer even more versatility, so you can work your entire body with one machine. Unlike most exercise machines, the cable tower gives you free range of motion. When you exercise like this, your body engages the small muscle groups surrounding the major muscles to act as stabilizers, giving you better strength results than limited range of motion exercises.
Dumbbells
A set of dumbbells are cost efficient, take up very little space, give you free range of motion when exercising and allow you to get a total body workout. Almost any exercise involving a barbell can be done with dumbbells instead, and the incremental weight increases make it easy to gradually increase the intensity of your exercises as your fitness level improves.
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