Chapter 25
Ten Great Fitness Investments
under $100
In This Chapter
Reviewing the best fitness bargains
Picking up valuable accessories
Rewarding yourself for your hard work
Y
ou can spend thousands of dollars on high-tech exercise machinery, but
some of the most valuable fitness products around cost less than $100.In this chapter, we recommend simple products and services that can turn
pain into pleasure and drudgery into fun. These ten cheap fitness invest-
ments are sure to pay you back many times over. We list them roughly in
order from cheapest to most expensive.A Water Bottle
You’re a heckuva lot more likely to down your eight to ten glasses a day if you
carry around a water bottle — at the gym, at the office, or in front of the TV. If
you have to hop off the treadmill and traipse halfway across the room to the
water fountain, you won’t. Honestly, you have no excuse not to own a water
bottle. They’re often offered as freebies when you join a gym or buy a bike,
and even if you have to break down and pay for one, you’re still only out $5.Although water bottles are the ultimate indoor exercise accessory, there’s an
even better product for outdoor workouts: a hydration pack. It’s an insulated
pouch that you wear like a lightweight backpack when you’re cycling, walk-
ing, hiking, skiing, or snowshoeing. You fill the pouch with water; to drink,
you bite down on the end of a flexible tube that hangs over your shoulder.
Camelbak, the inventor of the hydration pack, even makes a nifty winter
version that has an insulated tube that won’t freeze. Research suggests that