Just Cycle And fold away

There’s no excuse not to get on your bike this Spring. Get your indoor cycling fix and feel the benefits.

Great for general cardio (有氧运动) fitness, exercise bikes can be a convenient way of training at home. However, choosing the right bike is extremely important, which is something that Roger Black and his team recognized when creating the Roger Black Folding Exercise Bike. The special design makes the bike smaller and easier to store.

“Best present EVER are the words from my 77-year-oldfather who received his Roger Black fitness bike for his birthday. He said, it is so simple and easy to use, with no complicated (复杂的) operation. These at is VERY comfortable, so using it every day is a pleasure. It folds away neatly so it can be stored behind a door when necessary,” said Anna.

Roger Black is offering a 10% discount on the full www.rogerblackjifitness.com range of home fitness equipment for all Reader’s Digest readers. Please use discount code DIGEST10 at checkout.

As a child, I never considered myself an athlete at all as I was very uncoordinated (不协调的). However, I did love to run because I felt as if I were flying. But this all changed two years ago when I suffered a knee injury. I was bedridden (卧床不起的) for two weeks and I had a difficult time moving even short distances. I literally cried myself on my way to the car for a few days.

When therapy wasn’t working well for me, I signed up for a hot yoga class for girls, Bikram Yoga, to be exact. Starting a yoga practice was truly a godsend (天赐之物) because it helped me gain strength in my knees but, most importantly, yoga helped me attain a more peaceful state of mind, body and spirit.

Since each class was heated to 105℉, every time I stepped foot in the yoga studio, I’d feel a surge of negative thoughts come upon me like a big ocean wave. Some of these thoughts were, at the beginning of my practice, so strong that I walked out of the class several times. However, as the months passed by, I noticed that when I wasn’t disturbed by my negative thoughts, I could stay in the hot room for longer.

After 3-4 months of practicing hot yoga, I made some progress. I also woke up with so much more energy than I had before starting my yoga practice and I gradually started losing weight from my body. Yoga literally made me feel as if I’d taken a bottle of energy drink and just gave me the burst that helped my knee heal and made my overall health better.

As I saw some of my classmates do poses that looked appealing to me, I started to think maybe I could do them too. Therefore, yoga helped show me that I had no real limitations physically unless I set those limitations myself through eating junk food and thinking in negative limiting terms.

Also, practicing yoga in front of a mirror helped me have more confidence and practicing with a group of people really helped me to feel a greater sense of connection with humanity (人道). Overall, this yoga practice has helped me to see I’m part of a bigger picture in life!

According to a recent report, about 15% of the people in the UK are members of gyms. But are they more likely to be fit?

A study found that gym members were 14 times more active than people who didn’t belong to any health club. Gym members did six hours more exercise a week, and this activity did make them fitter than non-gym members. They also spent less time sitting down every day than non-gym members. The results were the same for men and women.

The study included 405 people between the ages of 30 and 64, and the main characteristics of those who were gym members were the same as those who were not. “But gym members did more training than non-gym members,” said the lead author, Elizabeth Schroeder of the University of Illinois.

While it might seem clear that gym members exercise more and are healthier than non-gym members, Schroeder says this has not been directly shown before. However, the study is only designed to show a tie between gym membership and more exercise. It may be that active people like to join gyms. In the study, people who exercised as much as gym members were also in good health.

You can get the same benefits wherever you exercise. This study shows a gym membership can make you do more exercise, but other research shows that exercising outside has other help. Outdoor activity can make you feel happy about life—especially if you run through a forest.

Outdoor exercise is also more interesting than going to the gym. The first five minutes of outdoor exercise is especially helpful in making people feel good. But Schroeder says that a gym may also encourage greater exercise because it can be social and fun.