Fitness Accessories

There is a broad and comprehensive range of fitness accessories available on the market, all designed to increase the comfort or effectiveness of your exercise programme. Fitness accessories can be broadly divided into three categories: monitoring equipment, clothing and footwear, and exercise props.

Monitoring equipment

Using devices to keep track of your progress can significantly enhance your workout regime, as you are able to see concrete results from your programme, and ensure that you’re working at the optimum pace and level of effort. Monitoring equipment available includes:

• stopwatch
• heart rate monitor
• pedometer

Clothing and footwear

Whatever your sport or activity of choice, specialist clothing and footwear makes you more comfortable, and optimises your performance, while you participate. Here are just some of the options available to choose from:

• Running shoes
• Training shoes
• Swimming goggles
• Gymwear
• Yoga wear
• Sportswear
• Sports bras
• Support bandages
• Sweat suits
• Weight training gloves

Exercise props

There are many ingenious devices available to help you get the most out of your workout. They range from the simple and classic exercise mat, to the very latest exercise technology in the form of stability discs:

• Ankle/wrist weights
• Buoyancy aids
• Chin up bars
• Foam rollers
• Resistance bands and tubes
• Skipping ropes
• Stability discs
• Swiss balls
• Toning bands
• Trampolines
• Yoga mats

While it’s possible to engage in a challenging and rigorous fitness programme without the use of specialist equipment, what the right workout aids can do is increase your level of performance quite dramatically. Take the Swiss ball for example. According to scientific research, the same abdominal crunches performed on a Swiss ball are 60% more effective than those same exercises performed on a mat.