November 29th, 2011 by Joe Alter | No Comments | Filed under Equipment, Nutrition
It is amazing that with all of the fitness products that have come out over the years, there has never been a product that has made it easy to reach your target body weight. Yowza Fitness has just introduced our new IWM (Intelligent Workout Management) system. Currently available on our Daytona and Sebring treadmills, the IWM system comes with a precise digital wireless weight scale. Just press the IWM button on the console and step onto the scale and IWM does the rest! The machine will compute your BMI (Body Mass Index) and will assign a target weight based on that and other variables. The treadmill will automatically control your speed and incline in order to get you to your target body weight. Each day, you will weigh yourself prior to the workout and the machine will make incremental adjustments in order to keep you on track. For a full description of Intelligent Workout Management click on the IWM logo on our homepage http://www.yowzafitness.com/.
October 20th, 2010 by Joe Alter | 1 Comment | Filed under Equipment
Please read this letter that I just received from one of our customers Ken Brown who bought a Navarre elliptical.
Ken Brown - Yowza Navarre user
It was a cold January 2010 here in Missoula, Montana as I watched the snow fall outside and I was in my polar bear hibernation mode gaining weight and becoming more and more lethargic that I knew something had to be done. I was beginning to crest the 400lb mark and at 6’1” even with my large frame the weight was beginning to take a major toll on my quality of life. I began doing extensive research as most folks do during their New Year’s resolution to lose weight on what options there were for someone of a large size to begin to work on getting some type of cardio workout to burn calories and lose weight without having the luxury of going outside. I wanted something that I could do that did not have to involve travel outside especially with the bad weather that could easily be in my home. With it in my home, it would also remind me daily that I needed to keep on pace on my goal to lose weight.
In February 2010, I made the decision to purchase a Yowza Navarre Elliptical. It was the best rated unit for someone of my size within the price range that I wanted to spend for a unit that was not commercially rated. Not only have I been extremely excited with my unit but I am here to testify to the support and service that Yowza stands behind their products 100%. I did experience a few minor issues with the unit in the beginning and Yowza quickly found a local representative right here in Missoula that was qualified to work on my unit and had me back in operation within days. From the online trouble ticketing system to the quick response by the customer service and sales staff, Yowza is a top notch customer oriented organization that puts the customer first no matter the level of fitness.
As you can see from the pictures of me in January and today, I am over half way to my goal of loosing close to 150lbs and thanks to Yowza and my new Elliptical I have a way to safely and comfortably get there. If you are someone that has to lose 10, 100lbs, or more I highly recommend that you look into an elliptical especially the units from Yowza. They are one of the top of the line on the market for low impact and high cardio workouts that give you great results. I even liked it so much that I joined the Yowza Demo Program and I am a product representative right here in Missoula. So if you are in my area and would like to take a test drive of the Navarre just contact Yowza.
June 15th, 2010 by Joe Alter | No Comments | Filed under Equipment
In any industry, you will see manufacturers selling antiquated designs while trying to make it appear that there is some advantage of a larger specification for some key component. Car companies still make 5.0 liter V-8′s when turbochargers or gas/electric hybrids can create more torque while using less fuel. Computer manufactures brag about their Intel processor speed, but Apple is able to blow them all away by using better software.
For the first 8 years that we manufactured ellipticals we used a single-stage drive system, which required a very heavy flywheel (between 45 and 62 lbs. depending on the model). With that design, you would have felt a little lag or hesitation in the motion if the flywheel was not heavy enough. Most manufacturers on the low end of the market had that problem but with our heavy flywheel design, ours were nice and smooth.
But like any other industry where new technological advances tend to obsolete the established norm, there is a better way to go. High end, rear drive units like those made by Yowza, Precor and Life Fitness have multi-staged electro-magnetic drive systems which can create an even smoother feel than the old weighted fixed-magnet designs. The reason for this is because with the newer rear-drive ellipticals it is possible to create a massive amount of inertia by making the aluminum disc that runs through the braking system spin faster. Additionally, these new drive systems will allow for more levels of resistance and therefore you can fine tune your workout even better.
Front drive ellipticals, by their nature have less inertia and therefore have to require a weighted flywheel in order to work well. But beware that there are still a couple of manufacturers who are still selling the old weighted flywheel designs simply because they are concerned about infringing on the various design patents that are out there.
April 2nd, 2010 by Joe Alter | 13 Comments | Filed under Equipment
Just like in any business we get lots of calls from potential customers who all seem to ask the same questions over and over again. Will my elliptical fit under a 7′ ceiling in my basement? If I put my treadmill in the garage and it is humid will it void my warranty? bla bla bla. But there is one issue that bugs me and it has something to do with our business model.
Yowza was founded based on the idea that a truly factory direct business model can save consumers hundreds or even thousands on their purchase. But, by selling direct we are eliminating the retail showrooms where folks may want try out the unit. We do explain that we have a 60 day in-home trial period where you can return the machine if you don’t like it for a full refund. But considering the return shipping cost and size of our products, that can be a daunting task.
So I’d like to float the idea of starting a “Happy Yowza customer 10 minute demo program” the idea is that Yowza customers could voluntarily sign on to allow potential customers to come over and try our machine in a home setting for roughly about 10 minutes. The “happy customer” who provides the demo will get some sort of compensation for this service. We have talked about things like paying $50 for every demo that results in a sale, or giving a discount up front with the purchase if you sign onto the demo program. To be honest, I am open to any and all suggestions as this exercise is just to see how the folks feel about such an idea.
So please take the time and comment on this post with any feedback that you may have. Also understand that Yowza Fitness will respect your privacy and never give out your contact information unless you have asked us to.
February 22nd, 2010 by Joe Alter | No Comments | Filed under Adidas Table Tennis
Adidas Table Tennis
For 25 years now, I have been looking for the perfect contra-seasonal product line to go along with fitness equipment. As you can imagine the fitness business is busiest in the cold weather months while folks are cooped up in their homes and looking to burn off those excess calories that came along with the holiday season.
Yowza Fitness has recently entered into an agreement with Adidas which gives Yowza Fitness and parent company Greenmaster Fitness of Taiwan the worldwide rights to design, manufacture and distribute Table Tennis tables, accessories and clothing. Yowza is currently building a new website for Adidas Table Tennis and we expect to go live sometime in the second quarter of this year.
As with our fitness equipment, we expect to deliver a real value proposition offering both indoor and outdoor table tennis tables that all feature our patented one-step folding mechanism. In addition, Yowza will manufacture all Table Tennis tables in Germany under the direction of Mr. Frank Koch who is the President of Yowza’s sister company Green Fitness.
Look for Yowza to offer promotional discounts on Adidas Table Tennis products to our existing customers this summer as we launch this new and exciting business.
January 29th, 2010 by Joe Alter | 20 Comments | Filed under Fitness Tips
Think about this first.
Engage your core
Many people have asked me how to get the most out of our Cardio Core upper body motion which is featured on the Yowza Sanibel and Captiva elliptical models. First, let me say to you that this Core abdominal motion works just great, but you must put some effort into using your core and upper body muscles. Resist the temptation to let the legs do all the work. Also, you should understand that since you will be doing roughly 1500 repetitions of the movement at a relatively low resistance level, the machine is not designed to make you sore.
Unlike conventional weight training, Cardio Core is designed to target your core muscles effectively without having to tear the muscle fibers in order to make the muscles leaner and stronger. So you will feel the muscles working (if you do it right), but you wont be excessively sore the next day.
Here is the workout!
Start by doing a few minutes of regular elliptical motion to warm up at a medium speed roughly around 30rpm. Experiment with the various grip positions and make sure you begin to accentuate the body motion. Try to do more work with the core muscles and upper body than you normally would with a straight handled elliptical. Click here to watch the Cardio Core Workout video – New!
Now put your palms facing up to the sky and under the bottom of the lower handles and aggressively push upward with each motion trying to make you arms and abs do 80% of the work with you legs doing only 20%. You should see your heart rate really spike up quickly and that is how you can tell it is working. I recommend doing this motion in 30-90 second intervals depending on your physical condition.
Return to a normal movement for a few minutes and then cup your hands on the top of the handlebars with your palms facing down. Pull downward aggressively while twisting at the waist and you will really feel it in your upper abs and obliques. Again this movement is fairly intense and your heart-rate will spike upward so do it in short intervals always returning back to the standard movement when your heart rate begins to exceed it’s upper limit.
Lastly the most intense Core interval motion involves criss-crossing your arms by grabbing the right handle with your left arm and visa verse. You should grab the middle of the upper grip position and aggressively pull across your body and down with each movement. Be Careful because your heart rate can shoot up to over 200 beats per minute and this is not the motion for novices or deconditioned folks.
Repeat these intervals as you see fit and remember that you need to activate your abs by accentuating the twisting movement.
Good luck. Your on your way to a stronger leaner core!
January 14th, 2010 by Joe Alter | No Comments | Filed under Uncategorized
My name is Joe Alter and I am one of the founding partners or Yowza Fitness. I’ll be blogging on a regular basis on all things fitness, including treadmills, elliptical trainers, and especially our unique products like the Captiva VME variable motion elliptical and our brand new Core X trainer.
Sign up to the left of this screen to receive our newsletter, special offers and of course links to our latest blog. You’ll get new workout routines, industry news, information about new product breakthroughs and much, much more.
When you are browsing around our website you may notice that we have a lot of technical terms and industry-specific language associated with our products and manufacturing processes. Well that is because we all come from a background of fitness purists who believe that there is a right way and wrong way to build fitness equipment and it is well worth the extra time and effort to get the bio-mechanics right when it comes to “feel-based products like elliptical machines.
Speaking for myself, I have always been fascinated by the physiology of exercise dating back to my days in College as a pitcher and 3rd basemen for coach Eddie Stanky at the University of South Alabama. I would spend hours trying to understand how to get more mileage out of the human body whether it was trying to crack 90mph on my fastball, hit the ball out of the park without over-swinging, or just avoiding injury with the proper mechanics.
Not surprisingly, I surrounded myself with like-minded people over the years resulting in the formation of Yowza Fitness – America’s premier factory direct fitness equipment company. Feel free to give us a call or drop us a line to discuss our products and how they were developed. We would love to chat with you!
January 14th, 2010 by Joe Alter | No Comments | Filed under Running
Gary and Amby Burfoot
Check out this blog post by Amby Burfoot (Editor at large for Runner’s World Magazine) http://footloose.runnersworld.com/ After winning the 1968 Boston Marathon he has continued to run for over 40 years! But some of us are not as fortunate to have survived the injury bug. Running outdoors on asphalt is OK for those thin guys who don’t have enough body-weight to inject heavy trauma onto their joints, but many people need to make the switch to a soft shock-absorbing treadmill.
That’s why our engineers at Yowza Fitness have spent years studying impact and knee sheer and designing better and better shock absorption systems with each new generation of treadmill we build. Our current line-up of treadmills features the best-selling Keewadin folding treadmill which utilizes the patented swing arm impact absorption system. Swing arm absorbs impact in the front of the belt where your foot lands on the deck but allows for a firm and stable surface in the rear of the belt to push off of. Check out the Keewadin here www.yowzafitness.com/Treadmills/Keewadin-Folding-treadmill
In 1982 a man by the name of Ken Hutchins invented a new form of strength training called “Super Slow” while doing some research at the University of Florida, Mr. Hutchins was searching for a new training method that would provide greater results than the various techniques that were being employed at that time.
He began testing the concept of doing “time-based” reps while using Nautilus machines, free weights or even the person’s own body weight. He soon determined that a person would gain 50% more strength over an eight week period if they lowered the weight, increased the time of each rep to a minimum of 20 seconds and did only one set to complete muscle failure.
How could this be true? Well with Super Slow your muscles are under a constant load for a longer period of time which is called (TUL) Time Under Load. By stressing the muscles continuously, Super Slow training eliminates the bouncing or ballistic movements that are normally caused when an exerciser changes direction. So for instance, if you do pull ups really fast, your muscles will only be loaded for a portion of the upward movement and under very little load on the downside, and you would be able to cheat from the residual bounce created there, in order to do more reps.
But with a Super Slow pull-up you cannot cheat and your muscles will be stressed to the max until they begin to quiver and ultimately fail. Lactic acid builds up at a faster rate and ultimately you will end up shedding body fat and seeing more muscle tone.
That said, Super Slow is a difficult and sometimes tedious method of training and probably works best as a portion of your overall weekly workout routine. It can be done in 10 minutes a day and also in regular work attire. So give it a try and experiment with the length of time that you allow for each repetition. Try doing only one repetition for each exercise and even take as long as five minutes to do one rep. Start with a pushup on your knees and advance to a full bodyweight pull-up or for seniors or deconditioned folks try using machines with light levels of resistance.
January 12th, 2010 by Joe Alter | No Comments | Filed under Equipment
Welcome to the Yowza Fitness Blog. This is the place where you will be able to get lot’s of information about fitness equipment, innovative workout routines, dietary information and all kinds of cool stuff. Please bookmark this blog site and forward it to a friend. It’s cold outside and Yowza is very busy now shipping our hot-selling Keewadin treadmill to customers who need to run inside.
Our marketing team here at Yowza Fitness was very busy last week shooting our Core X web commercial and workout videos which will be available soon on youtube and www.yowzafitness.com. Be sure to check it out when it goes live very soon.
It is amazing that with all of the fitness products that have come out over the years, there has never been a product that has made it easy to reach your target body weight. Yowza Fitness has just introduced our new IWM (Intelligent Workout Management) system. Currently available on our Daytona and Sebring treadmills, the IWM system comes with a precise digital wireless weight scale. Just press the IWM button on the console and step onto the scale and IWM does the rest! The machine will compute your BMI (Body Mass Index) and will assign a target weight based on that and other variables. The treadmill will automatically control your speed and incline in order to get you to your target body weight. Each day, you will weigh yourself prior to the workout and the machine will make incremental adjustments in order to keep you on track. For a full description of Intelligent Workout Management click on the IWM logo on our homepage http://www.yowzafitness.com/.
