When shopping for fitness equipment, you’ll find some terms mentioned frequently in listings. Here’s what they mean:

Cardiovascular
Cardiovascular (aerobic) training raises your heart rate (cardio) and pumps blood around your body (vascular). It’s excellent for overall fitness, stamina and circulation.

Popular cardiovascular fitness items include treadmills, elliptical machines (also called cross trainers), trampolines, rowing machines and exercise bikes.

Strength Training
Strength training and resistance work such as weight lifting or Pilates builds muscle. The more muscle you have, the more efficiently your metabolism works and the more calories you burn.

Weightlifting is not just for men. Women’s muscles become leaner and more efficient, giving them more tone and definition and increasing their metabolism and energy.

Popular strength training items include dumbbells and free weights, weight lifting benches, Smith machines, multi gyms and steppers like the Lateral Thigh Trainer.

Flexibility
Flexibility training (stretching) such as Yoga or Pilates helps improve your posture, breathing and muscle tone. It also helps you avoid injury by training your muscles to move through their full range.

High Impact vs Low Impact
High impact exercise, such as running, is the ultimate calorie-burning cardiovascular workout – and also strengthens the bones and muscles. However it can also put pressure on the joints, so it’s wise to combine high impact training with some low impact workouts (commonly known as “cross training”).

Low impact workouts do not put pressure on the joints but involve more resistance work, so they can be hard work on the muscles. Low-impact exercise can be cardiovascular (such as swimming, cycling or stepping) or anaerobic (non-cardio). Anaerobic low impact exercise includes the range of weight and flexibility training, such as weight lifting, Pilates and yoga.

Monitors
Look for information about monitors when you’re shopping for an exercise machine. Most cardiovascular exercise machines have monitors that offer feedback while you exercise, so that you know how hard you’re working. Even budget exercise machines often come with a built-in pedometers to show the time you’ve been exercising, distance covered and calories burned.

The more expensive models have sophisticated computer consoles that include heart monitors. If you buy an exercise bike, treadmill, rowing machine or other exercise machine that has a heart monitor, remember that your maximum heart rate is about 220 minus your age.

Many also have one-touch control for speed and incline, as well as pre-set workouts such as hill, terrain, flat and mountain. When shopping, look for the number and type of programmes on offer and type of screen. LCD screens display information digitally, and LED screens are particularly easy to read.