Kivivi Blog

By ANJALI ATHAVALEY

Perre DiCarlo and his girlfriend, Frida Stein, used to shell out hundreds of dollars a year for everything from gym memberships to yoga classes at a local studio. About a month ago they stumbled upon a cheaper way to get toned: streaming workout videos from Netflix, a DVD rental site that offers them on demand to subscribers for no extra charge.

"It's one of those things where you are embarrassed how easily it came to you," says Mr. DiCarlo, a 34-year-old author in Los Angeles. He and his girlfriend now roll out their exercise mats in the living room of his apartment twice a week for Pilates and yoga classes displayed on his movie projector screen. "It's just so convenient. Spending money on [a gym] doesn't make much sense to me anymore."

We all need a little help with exercise sometimes, whether we're just starting out or we've been at it for a long time. Still, there are people who shy away from training, unsure of what they'll get out of the experience or whether it's worth the money. Take a look at just a few reasons people typically hire personal trainers and see if it's the right decision for you.

By Sarah Rubenstein

“Hazard: An overinflated fitness ball can unexpectedly burst while in use, causing the user to fall to the floor.”

That’s what caught our attention in a news release out from the Consumer Product Safety Commission, which said manufacturer EB Brands is voluntarily recalling fitness balls after receiving 47 reports of balls “unexpectedly bursting, including reports of a fracture, and multiple bruises.” Ouch.

Brian Anderson, president of the company’s fitness division, tells the Health Blog that the balls aren’t being pulled from the market and aren’t being manufactured differently going forward. (Turns out the word “recall” doesn’t always refer to pulling products off the market.) “The product is not faulty; it was not found to be defective,” Anderson says. He adds the 47 reports came over a period of several years in which it sold three million balls in the U.S.

But the company found that when the balls pop, the issue is over-inflation, Anderson says. Exercisers often balance themselves on the balls as they do sit-ups and the like. (Check out a slide show from the Mayo Clinic to get the idea.)

EB Brands says it’s warning consumers not to put too much air into them, and it’s adding a new sticker inside the product box and on the inflation pump to the same effect. It’s also revising its inflation instructions in the package, and it’s giving away measuring tape of lengths specific to the correct inflation sizes.

Burst Ball Bonus: Listen to this podcast in which tech maven Leo Laporte is startled when his own fitness ball bursts. That incident ended in laughter rather than fracture.

I've tried many things in fitness training from long distance endurance training to sprints, high-intensity intervals, a dabble in yoga, and, of course, weight training. I like the variety and the challenge of different training modalities and sports. And it helps to develop your biomechanical and physiological systems across a wide spectrum of conditioning.

But one thing I haven't tried is Pilates, which is a growing fitness activity. To quote Marguerite Ogle, the About.com Pilates guide: "Pilates is a form of exercise, developed by Joseph Pilates, which emphasizes the balanced development of the body through core strength, flexibility, and awareness in order to support efficient, graceful movement."

If you're looking for a change of pace, it might be worth giving it a go.

The word "yoga" means "union". Yoga exercises are based on the belief that the body and breath are intimately connected with the mind. By controlling the breath and holding the body in steady poses, or "asanas", yoga creates harmony. Yoga is not, however, magic.

Yogis (masters of yoga) do not have the ability to vanish into thin air or levitate off the ground. But they have been known to perform extraordinary feats more than once, such as holding their breath for hours on end, or slowing down their heartbeat in order to imitate conditions of death.

Yoga practice consists of 5 key elements: proper breathing, exercise, relaxation, diet, positive thinking, and meditation. The yoga exercises -- or asanas -- are designed to ease tense muscles, tone up the internal organs, and improve the flexibility of the body's joints and ligaments.