Health-and-Fitness online information.

You've seen them advertised on infomercials and in magazines (not this one, of course). You may have even seen them in the sporting-goods section of some department stores. They're called the Fitness Flyer or Gazelle, and Tony Little rode them all night long while reruns of Sanford and Son played two channels down.

Regardless of where you've seen them, the promises are endless: no-impact aerobic exercise, 10 great exercises on one machine, burn more calories than with a treadmill, lose fat in no time, etc. But hey, even though Little pimps them, they do involve honest exercise. The question is, just how effective is the exercise? That's what researchers at the University of Kwa Zulu Natal (Durban, South Africa) set out to determine when they compared the heart rate and calories burned by fit women exercising on either a Fitness Flyer or a standard treadmill at various levels of intensity.

Their test subjects--14 women who exercised regularly--agreed to report to the laboratory so they could be prodded and probed in the name of science and fat loss.

Flying Low | The South African scientists discovered that, with participants exercising at six different intensities, the number of calories burned was always lower on the Fitness Flyer. They concluded that while the Fitness Flyer offers the benefit of nonimpact exercise, placing less stress on lower-body joints, it also tends to require less energy to use than a treadmill. Bottom line: If you're looking for cardio equipment for the home, spend the dough and go with the treadmill.

# posted by Medical Information : 2:38 AM