Steppers are extremely beneficial to your health. Especially nowadays, when obesity is becoming more of an epidemic in the western world, experts consider stepping simulation to be one of the most effective exercises.
Purchasing a stepper for regular home exercising could be a fundamental step towards maintaining your health, improving your physical fitness, strengthening your muscles, heart and lungs and even losing weight.
Let Us Help You Choose the Right Stepper
The better equipped steppers will help you effectively strengthen not only your inner and outer thighs, but also your sides and abdominal, back and chest muscles. You’ll achieve this by “twisting”, side-stepping and using resistance bands while exercising.
Basic categories
- Steppers with handlebars – for longer, more intensive exercising, resistance adjustment, twist movement sideways, resistance bands or side-step board included.
- Mini-steppers – for less-intensive, casual exercising, sometimes with resistance bands for strengthening the upper half of your body, with the option of twisting sideways and side-stepping.
All steppers have a computer that displays the time of the exercise, number of steps, calories burned and a scan. The more advanced models also measure speed, distance, burned fats and, through attached handlebars, heart rate frequency. See how to correctly calculate your optimal heart rate frequency in our sports watch guide.
Mini, Twist or Multi-Purpose Stepper?
Twist-steppers are great for strengthening the difficult areas - your sides and abdomen. Thanks to their low price, these steppers are one of the most popular exercise machines among all age groups.
Mini-steppers don’t have very high weight limits, but they are easy to store. When you feel like it, you can easily take them out in front of a TV and exercise while watching your favourite TV show.
Modern steppers are equipped with resistance adjustment, a necessary feature if you want to gradually strengthen your thighs and glutes. You can adjust the resistance by moving and turning the shock absorbers or there might be a magnetic resistance system.
All steppers from the Czech manufacturer inSPORTline, be they for home or professional use, are distinguished by their silent running. Some steppers have hydraulic shock absorbers that determine their price and quality.
There is a universal set for strengthening your entire body – stepper EasyStep, combined with a twister and vinyl dumbbells.
10 Key Parameters to Consider When Picking Out a Stepper
As a basic requirement, before purchase you should consider available exercise space at your home, your exercise plan, your height and weight and then think about the following criteria:
- Brand (warranty, customer service)
- Price
- Resistance adjustment
- Resistance bands
- Weight of the stepper (7.5 – 66 kg)
- Maximum weight limit (100 – 150 kg)
- Adjusting the height of the step
- Step counter
- Heart rate frequency measurement
- Speed of the exercise
Benefit From the Experience of Other Users
Reviews from those who already own a stepper are a valuable source of information. They will help you form an opinion of your own and sometimes even save money. Reviews will also tell you how user-friendly particular models are, how hard they are to assemble, if they are durable and balanced and if the price corresponds with the quality of the product.
Users who review products also note if the manual is easy to understand, compare various steppers and point out the health benefits of particular exercises.
Finally, we offer a piece of advice from inSPORTline coach, Petr Kopřiva: “If you consider a stepper a long-term investment into maintaining your physical fitness and a way for your family to exercise for some time, it is definitely better to spend more money on a sturdier model with more functions and longer service life.”
