Best cutting aid?

[Grunt76]

On my quest to a leaner shape... Well, not right now, but my EVENTUAL quest for a leaner shape, I find that having a piece of cardio equipment at home is a must when I'm serious about getting my BF% way down. And keeping it there, too.

Anyways, the first one I've had was a rower, which did a splendid job of shedding bodyfat, but it was a cheap, clunky and noisy thing with the air pressure resistance. Then I had an air recumbent stationary bike, which was OK but was too noisy and kinda boring to use. The wife took that along with everything else when we divorced.

When looking for something you can use every day for a half-hour and more, it needs to be silent, high-quality and possibly also stylish enough that you can have it in a room that isn't dedicated to being a home gym all by itself. Nothing wrong with that, but those of us who live in the city don't all have that kind of space.

I like the rower best, because it lets me spread the load over my entire body. This is the thing I found which seems to fit the bill the best. It's about $2000, not cheap by any measure, but then again, a lifetime of leanness is worth much more than that. This thing uses a sealed water compartment for resistance, and is alleged to be very silent and natural-feeling when rowing. It sure looks nice.

Anyone tried this? What do you guys reccomend the most? I must believe that anyone doing contests must at least have some cardio implement at home?

Found it here:

http://www.waterrower.com/

EDIT : OOPS,this should have gone into the "Fat loss" section... If someone would move it?

 

[Beelzebub]

i prefer eliptical's. low impact on the knees, easy to maintain, small (depending on what you get), and decently priced (once again depending on how advanced you go). sears has a bunch of good ones.

 

[ctgblue]

I did my cardio on the treadmill.
I got the Vision Fitness 9600 with a 60" deck.
I just walked at 4-4.5 mph on the hill program at the max level for about 30-60mins each night, along with another 30-60min each morning.
I like the treadmill because you can just walk or run if you like to. I have too long of a stride for ellipticals, except the $3500 adjustable stride Life Fitness model (treadmill $1700, no brainer there).

Plus, walking the incline really helped bring out the split in my calves.

 

[Achilles13]

I'm with Beelzebub on this one. The Elliptical is easy on the knees and burns a crapload cals. Easy to store away, but price can be a little high.

 

[okboy63]

I bought a healthrider EX treadmill used a couple of years ago and it's about the only treadmill I can run on.
It has a wooden deck that flexes which makes it different and very good for bad knees.

 

[Jack Tragic]

Not to confuse anyone...but diet is the BEST cutting aid...clean carbs, more protien (2 GMS/LB of body weight) Lots of water, watch your electrolite intake. If your really in shape already...you shouldn't need any (or very little ) cardio at least ...:burger:

 

[Beelzebub]

i agree.

that is, if you have mr. bean genetics. try telling an endo that.

diet is the most important but cardio has it's place in leaning out.

 

[bpmartyr]

Yeah, my diet is great and when cutting at 2000 kcals ed that 800-1000 cals an hr running on the treadmill knocks an extra pound or so a week off for me. Good diet + cardio = leanimus to the maximus.

 

[GTOman]

First off, it's nice to see someone asking about excercise equipment for cutting rather than which new miracle fat-burner they should use!

I have a healthrider treadmill I bought at Costco a couple of years ago for $800.00 and I love it. My wife and I both use it (I only use it while cutting) and it has stood up very well.

The nice thing about a treadmill is that you can use if from very low intensity cardio (walking) all the way up to HIIT.

 

[Grunt76]

Treadmills, stationary bikes, stair climbers, ellipticals. They all have something in common besides being aerobics or cardio-vascular exercise equipment. what's that? They all work the same bodypart: From glutes to calves. Nothing else gets worked. We've all seen and especially HEARD rowing machines. Different? Sure, but they're noisy and they don't fit into gyms very well because people actually MOVE on them, which makes it impractical for other people walking around. Moreover, these things have you pretty much on the ground and that's pretty uncomfortable when you have strangers walking around you.

But at home, it would be a different matter. You could burn fat by distributing the load to almost every muscle in your body, which is optimal, as muscle cells can only take so much load before they burn glycogen instead of fat. By distributing the load to more muscle groups, you lessen the glycogen-burning effect and enhance fatloss. If only one could get rid of the noise, and have a machine that's nice-looking enough that you don't have to hide it as far as you possibly can?

My best lady friend just got herself a rowing machine. It is the Water Rower from waterrower.com. It is a stylish, smooth, silent exercise machine. It's so smooth in using it that if you close your eyes, you might think you're actually rowing on water. For resistance, it uses water in a tank and this gives the rower a feel that is extremely close to an actual boat.

What's even better is that I will be moving in with her on July 1st so I get to use it too.

It looks like this:

Sadly, my friend's shopping experience at Waterrower.com was so unimaginably horrendous that I have no option than to say AVOID THAT COMPANY AT ALL COST!!!! Even though the machine itself is great. Here's the main points of the shopping experience, so you are all warned:

1. It took two whole months for her to receive her machine
2. When not receiving it, she was accused by Waterrower staff of lying and deceiving about not receiving the machine
3. When she got the machine, it was obviously a second-hand item.
4. That second-hand item had unmatching parts, meaning some of them were new.
5. We know that some of them were new because they were so defective that they could not be assembled on the frame.
6. On top of being second-hand and impossible to assemble, some parts were HEAVILY damaged.
7. After reporting this to WaterRower staff, she was insulted by them, called a liar, and insulted again.
8. Getting to have her machine consumed about 40 hours of her personal time with phone calls and emails.
9. She had to explain to WaterRower staff how shipping companies (FedEx) function in terms of billing and taxes in order for things to happen.
10.Shipping, which was reported as being fully covered in the WaterRower invoice, was billed to her, and she had to fight FedEx into billing WaterRower, which had included shipping costs on the invoice.
11.When demanding a rebate for all this hassle and the two months' interest on her money gone without anything to show for it, she of course got nothing.

I personally defecate on waterrower.com. I do believe there are some other comparable rowing machines by other manufacturers, and they cannot possibly be as awful as waterrower.com.

Here's another company that makes a fluid-based rower: http://www.firstdegreefitness.com/Default.aspx?tabid=78

 

[Rocky82]

Seeing as how I equate the joy of cardio with pulling my toenails out slowly one at a time, I've always liked the variety of equipment in the gyms I belong to. I'll do elliptcals one day, treadmill the next, then stair climber, rowing machine, and I'll even throw in some walking outdoors if the weather's nice. I just really wish I had access to a nice swimming pool. One summer back in high school I got really into swimming recreationally, then when I saw how much leaner it made me, I would do laps as a cardio supplement and not only is it more enjoyable, its one of the best cal for cal fat burning exercises you can do (Rowing woudl be THE best, 700+ cals per hour depending on your body).