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Kelly Holmes Pedometer and Pulse Watch
by askmeanything
This might set your pulse a racing, the Kelly Holmes pedometer and Pulse watch is £13 instead of £26 on promotion with Tesco today. This is a good price to buy it at and I personally do not feel to pay more would be value for money.
Dame Kelly Holmes is a retired double gold Olympic winner for running. She has launched her ... own product lines of various sports clothing and equipment in an exclusive deal with Tesco. This range is for women. When it comes to the digital LCD screened pedometer she knows what a sportsperson could want and need from the product without having to spend a fortune on it.
Positives:
The gadget comes in a pretty tasteful purple and white which seems very feminine to me. There is also a grey option which looks smart.
This handy gadget will monitor who well you are doing with those exercises so pump it up and feel great about your exercise progress.
I particularly like to see how many calories I've burnt after putting in my height, age and weight. I often go by a glass of dry white wine containing about seventy-seven calories. Every time I reach the magic number I can celebrate that I've burnt off (or made room for) another glass of wine!
It can also be worn as a chest strap but as a woman I would prefer not to put this against my skin, so I tried this once in private and found the strap stayed on and I feel that the heart monitor was more accurate than when on the wrist. I don't think this colourful watch would suit a man.
The watch screen is large and in the right light conditions clear.
This device is water resistant. I would not consider using it in the swimming pool thought Tesco website do say it is waterproof as the material is plastic. I have worn it outdoors, in the rain, and there are no ill consequences.
The product does come with batteries. After a few months of use I haven't needed to change the battery but I don't relish the day that I do have to and maybe I won't bother. It looks like it could be fiddly.
The stop watch works well and can be really useful, not just for exercise but also for fun and games with other people's children and they have never complained about it! There is also an alarm feature which has a clear sound.
Negatives:
The not so good is that it feels a bit bulky and for me I prefer not to feel encumbered whilst taking part in aerobic exercise. Once, or twice, when moving fast, and running, I have found that the watch has slipped and that messes up the accuracy of recording. As with the machines in the gym, I question the accuracy of these devices. The heart monitor is dubious, as sometimes, my pulse is so slow I think that would make me nearly dead or so fast that I get scared into stopping and calming the rate down before going on. However, it does drive me to compete against my own times and to push harder during my training. I feel the device gives me an indication of how well I am doing.
It can be hard to read the screen in certain light and also whilst moving but I should think this is the case with all these devices.
The wrist strap, on mine, is white which seems a mistake as it shows up the dirt and don't forget people are sweating a lot!
There are complex functions. Setting and resetting the buttons for the different modes was a little tricky initially and I had to get used to that. The accompanying instruction booklet is clear but it is difficult to adjust the modes in reality. Some people might find this a waste of time and quite frustrating. For me the pedometer was fairly new to me and I had little to compare the experience to. It was fun to have a device to monitor my progression and from time to time still is.
Personally, I am not a big fan of clocking up time, heart rate, and calories burnt because one can become obsessed and develop unhealthy fixations. Over time I have been using the pedometer less than during the initial excitement over technological advancement for the individual sportsperson. I am winding down the use from daily, to once a week, to fortnightly, and I can envision it being less frequent in the future. I do get a bit annoyed with the feel of it on my wrist though it is quite lightweight.
These negatives, I suspect, are universal, and does not make this a product not worth buying.
I would advise that this is very good for a start-out pedometer, especially at this price, with plenty of modes too, there is no reason not to give this a go. I think it does well for the budget and you might as well get the same functions that you'll find on a more expensive gadget because I am not sure that they are any more reliable. Kelly Holmes brings the pedometer with multiple functions out of the high price range and into a lower budget aiding sport for all.
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York Skip Rope
by pmcds
You'll never be short of options when it comes to buying a skipping rope, and the prices and quality will vary more than you would initially think. Quite often, it's the handles that make or break the rope, if you'll pardon the pun, as the rope itself can often fray after excessive use. However, this relatively cheap skipping rope is one ... of the better affordable options out there.
Skipping ropes can range from the dirt cheap couple of pounds to over £10, but really what you're after is something that you can use as often as you want without if deteriorating in the quality during the time you skip for. I find that time is of the essence, and I don't really have much opportunity to skip at home. The floorboards shake in most of the convenient places, and it makes a bit of a racket, so skipping when the boys are in bed asleep is not an option; so it has to be early morning, and I want to be able to skip for a good number of minutes without it being a hassle.
This rope is easy to pick up, use and put down, but then aren't they all? Well, a few are awkward to use to start with, the grips needing to warm up slightly before they're comfortable. The rope can be somewhat stiff if it's not been used often. This rope though is good to go all the time. The grip is soft and comfortable, the ridged element of it meaning it can mould to your hand very easily. But the best thing about the grip is that after around 15 mins or so of skipping, it's still comfy. I do sweat quite early on if I'm doing exercise, and skipping is no exception. The grip seems to absorb this quite well, and becomes slightly heavier, but it's not an issue even though it's noticeable. The grip maintains its flexibility and even though I feel I should need to adjust my grip, the fact that I don't actually need to makes this somewhat different to other skipping rope handles.
The rope itself is tightly wound and flexible from the start. I've gotten this wet before, and left it in the sun, and not used it for weeks, and it still maintains its state. Nor does it change state the more you use it. I find that the rope itself actually moves at the same level from the moment you pick it up to the moment you put it down, and that the weight is balanced just about right for me to achieve a steady pace of skip.
There are a couple of issues I have with it though, and both are sort of related. The first is to do with the rope length. If anything, I could do with a bit more slack on the rope. It feels as if I'm about to catch it either on my head or under my feet despite the jump and it doesn't make it the most comfortable I've ever skipped. The second issue is when I want to speed up or slow down, and the weight of the rope just doesn't feel quite right, as if doing this won't work as well. I feel it hard to alter from the usual speed, which I have encountered with other ropes but not as much as with this one.
But these are minor issues, and I am more than happy with maintaining one steady pace and keeping my skipping tight in above and below me. Done regularly, I feel this benefits me greatly - it certainly gets me off to a good start in the morning, gets my blood pumping and doesn't cost a thing. It doesn't disturb anyone and our high ceilings mean I can do this as long as the racket of the floorboards doesn't wake the boys - in the morning this could be the ideal thing to get them out of bed though!
At an affordable price as well, it's a rope I'd certainly recommend. Not perfect, but I'd rather have a rope that doesn't deteriorate and feels comfortable in the grip from start to finish than one with a smoother swing and slightly longer length. Highly recommended.
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Davina 1kg Dumbbells
by scooch12
I am not a fitness fan - exercise is actually my worst nightmare. But, I am dieting all the time, usually not very well, and those dreaded bingo wings are something I am working to get rid of before the Summer months are here. I purchased the Davina dumbbell set from Argos at the reasonable price of £5.99 for a set of 2 to try and help ... them along. My aim was to use them twice per day for as long as my arms could take to work out those upper arm muscles. I didn't want to end up looking like a body builder, that was for sure but with these weights only being 1kg I didn't think that was likely.
At 1kg, these weights were the lightest ones available in her range. It was not the fact that there was a celebrity endorsement on these weights that attracted me, to be honest, I couldn't really care less whose name was printed on them (although I do like Davina's shows on TV), it was just the fact that they were the cheapest ones available at the shop and I didn't want to spend lots of money on something that had the potential to end up as a five minute fad. There are also heavier weights available in her range - 2kg ones are £10.99 (and in pink) and 3kg ones are £15.99 (and in blue).
These 1kg dumbbells come in a lime green colour, not my favourite colour really but they are only available in this shade. The colour is quite light so started to get a little dirty around the edges pretty quickly even with my limited use. The dumbbell outer material is made from Neoprene and although it feels rubbery, it isn't smooth and it doesn't help with the dirt situation, I don't think they'd be brilliant for sweaty strenuous exercise just because I think they'd end up looking grubby very quickly. I haven't tried to clean them with water yet because they don't feel like they'd take water very well and I'm scared it will make them look worse. It would have been much better if they'd have come with a plastic outer coating or a smooth rubber coating instead.
The dumbbells have Davina's signature at one end and the weight size at the other. Each of the weights have two hexagon shaped larger ends where presumably the weights are and then a thinner length joining the two ends together. They also have handles that come up from the middle part of the weights to aid in their use, although if anything these are a bit annoying rather than helpful - they'd be just has good if not better if the handle wasn't there. Although, I am talking from my experience of using the weights - the handles may be handy to people using them as part of an aerobic fitness workout as I assume they'd give better grip and stop them falling from hands. I suppose this is really what the weights are designed for primarily as with their weight being quite light, they are pretty perfect to be used in conjunction with other fitness routines.
I only use them a couple of times per day for a few up/down movements and out/in movements to work on those upper arms (sorry I don't know any technical terms). I find that for someone like me with a fitness phobia, these are perfect as they obviously have some weight to them, even though it's not much, to make a difference to my arms when used for any length of time. They aren't so heavy that I struggle to use them at all. Obviously I do get to the point where it feels hard work but as they say no pain no gain and I continue for a little bit longer. I only used to be able to do 20 per go before my arms would start feeling achy but now I've used them for a bit I can use them for a much longer length of time.
As for the bingo wings, unfortunately they are still there but I think they have made a bit of a difference to them and I think if I'd started to combine them with a fitness DVD that included routines using small weights then perhaps I'd have noticed a bigger difference. I can't blame the weights for my laziness really. I think they are exceptionally good value at £5.99, more so really than the bigger weights in the range - they seem to add £5 on per extra kg.
I rate them 4 stars overall, with only the material that they're made from letting them down.
Thanks for reading :o)
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