Image via Complex Original
With the holiday season comes baggage: family feuds, stressful gift giving, love handles from the insane amounts of turkey and dinner rolls that you’ve packed away. But a new year is coming up, which will be the perfect opportunity to get back in shape and tone up what you’ve let go. To help you on your journey to becoming Hercules once more, here are 10 items to check off your fitness wish list this holiday season.
Fitbit Aria WiFi Smart Scale
Price: $130
In today’s world, everything is smart. You have a smartphone, so you should also have a smart scale. In addition to your weight, the Aria scale tracks your body fat percentage and your BMI. It syncs it all up in a handy online graph that you can view from your mobile devices. It can recognize eight different users, and, using your Wi-Fi, it will send updates to each of their personal accounts. It may not be a hoverboard, but, in a way, you’re standing on the future.
Bowflex SelectTech 552 Adjustable Dumbbells
Price: $299
The price is somewhat steep, but if you have limited space in your apartment and can’t make it to the gym every day, it’s well worth it. The Bowflex Adjustable Dumbbells go from five pounds to 52.5 pounds, giving you a diverse workout, as well as plenty of room for improvement with the simple twist of a knob.
Fitbit Zip Wireless Activity Tracker
Price: $68
Fitness buffs are secret technology buffs under all of that lean mass, but it makes sense. Fitness aficionados are constantly reading up on biology and nutrition, so they do have some scientific interests. Now, most of them are obsessed with the Fitbit. It’s also an experiment in social media—you can share your activity, like counting your steps, how far you’ve traveled, and how many calories you’ve burned, so that your friends can hold you accountable.
Basis Peak
Price: $200
Basis Peak may be the best that fitness technology has to offer. It tracks heart rate, perspiration, skin temperature, steps, and calories. But Peak doesn’t stop when you stop being physically active. It’s one of the only fitness and sleep trackers to automatically detect your sleep cycles, including REM and deep sleep. It can even be your own personal trainer. Peak adjusts your goals every week depending on your progress. It even sports a four-day battery and waterproof design.
Columbia Trail Summit Running Glove
Price: $40
It’s hard to get going in the winter, especially if your main form of exercise is running. You want to dress warm, but not to the point where you’re sweating uncontrollably and then getting a chill when the wind blows. The Columbia Trail Summit Gloves are perfect. They’re thin, but they are super-warm, and their fabric wicks away any wetness. They have a secure grip, and you can use your touchscreen device without removing them.
Pure Fix Bicycle
Price: $329
Not everyone has the knowledge (or time) to build their own fixie by hand. That doesn’t mean that you have to keep using your Huffy from middle school. Pure Fix Bicycles come in at a cheap $329, and they still manage to look dope. Cycling is quickly becoming the preferred form of transportation, and it’s not only good for you, it’s good for the environment. This is a great starter bike for those trying to get into the sport. It can take a pretty good beating on the road and still ride like new.
110% Play Harder Flat Out Compression Sox
Price: $47
Here’s something that a lot of gym rats keep to themselves: One of the most important parts of working out is your wardrobe, and the most important items are on your feet. Good shoes go without saying, but you have to think about your socks, too. Yeah, compression socks are what your grandma uses so she doesn’t get spider veins, but they’re ideal for an athlete. Compression socks help with circulation and they get the blood pumping back to your heart faster, which provides your muscles with more oxygen and speeds up the removal of lactic acid. That means fewer cramps and less pain.
110% Flat Out Sox offer great support to your arches and calves, while their fabric keeps your feet dry.
OPTP Pro Foam Rollers
Price: $35
People swear by foam rollers. They roll out any knots or tightness, and are a great way to start or end your workout. Don’t get crazy though—there are people who spend their whole time at the gym “working out” just using these things, but still update their status to “At the gym #workingonmyfitness.”
Perfect Portions Digital Scale + Nutrition Facts Display
Price: $50
Becoming healthy is a mixture of exercise and diet—something that a lot of people don’t want to hear. No, you can’t burn off two Big Macs in an hour at the gym. The Perfect Portions Digital Scale is a food scale and a nutritional calculator, making eating healthy that much easier. Counting calories isn’t fun, but big gains mean big changes.
TRX Suspension Training Home Kit
Price: $200
Personal trainers swear by the TRX Suspension Training Home Kit. You can take it anywhere, it comes in its own mesh bag, and it’s a total full-body workout. Included in the kit is a DVD workout, the home suspension trainer, an over-the door anchor, and a setup guide. It’s a pretty simple tool, but by using your own body weight, you can train every muscle in your body in just 30 minutes.