anyone know anything about gym equipment ??

[Fionah]

Have decided to invest in some gym equipment for our holiday rentals - as well as for us to use to try and get a bit fitter!  We thought we'd buy a treadmill, crosstrainer and a bicycle but there are so many different type of them.  Does anyone have any views on what make/type to buy and what not to buy?  We didn't realise it would be this difficult!

[Iceni]

I think that you will have to look into the insurance cover you need for something like this. You will need professional equipment with safety 'breakers' that stop the equipment if and when there is a problem. I had a treadmill which cost over £1,000 which had all the required safety features.

What happens if someone uses the equipment and makes a condition worse???? Who will be qualified to advise etc. I think that this is on a par with supplying bikes to guests, something that can cause more problems than it solves.

We do have a 'healthtrainer' and I can assure you that they will be totally out of bounds to even visiting family. I could not take the risk of someone being hurt.

[Fionah]

Thanks for your views Di.  Insurance etc., withstanding I'm more interested in brand comparisons

[Richardbk]

It reallly depends how much you want to pay , for elliptical trainers I regularly use and would recommend www.visionfitness.com , or www.lifefitness.com  ,  which you tend to find in the better equipped gyms. prices start around 700 GBP. In any case you should try and go for models with electro magnets which is more controllerable and smoother than a fixed magnet system. Search on web to find suppliers in UK and france.

regs

Richard

 

 

[Catalpa]

I did some brand and price comparisons about this time last year and choices and pricing was much better in the UK - presumably because of volumes of machines used in the UK vs France which doesn't have so much of a gym culture. Also more companies selling = competition = competitive prices. Better = £1000 for a rowing machine in France translated to £700-ish in the UK, for eg.

UK purchase has obvious disadvantages if something goes wrong or you need to get annual overhauls taken care of. I'll see if I can find some of the brands and sites I looked at and I'll post them later today. I agree with richardbk - in general, I think Lifefitness would be my preference - they're robust enough to survive use in public gyms 16 hours a day so should survive holiday useage.

Re machine type recommendation - some people hate them but I reckon for non-impact general fitness a good quality (Concept II-type) rowing machine is excellent.

Carole

[Graham & Brenda]

Decathlon sell a variety of equipment but you need one of their larger stores if you want to see more than one type of anything. However their leaflet on gym equipment is quite good and splits it into "ordinary" and "professional" - the latter being more robust (and therefore expensive!) for more frequent use. See also

http://www.decathlon.fr/Magasin/sousRayon.asp?int_DeptId=32506&int_deptPereId=4908 

Graham

[Born_to_fish_68<P><IMG src="http:forums.livingfrance.comimagesline.gif"><BR>Born_to_fish_68 (AKA Paul)<P><P>North Yorks House 16 Lakes 24<BR><P>]

Look on ebay and try some resistance machines rather than multi-gymns as they are alot more flexible and serious harm won't be caused to people using it or to the equipment