Fitness Reads: Be as distractingly fit as firefighters? Be an active phone talker?

What did the SNEWS team read this week that other industry insiders might find interesting? Read on to find out!

• It seems kettlebells get more popular every year, and judging from your answers in our FitBiz Survey they’re hot sellers. But maybe the guys and gals purchasing them don’t quite understand how to use them. There are a ton of articles on how to use kettlebells, but we liked this 15-minute kettlebell workout we found in Women’s Health Magazine, which was linked from an article that said runners who strength trained could run longer and faster than those who didn’t.

• Let’s face it: Who doesn’t want to be as fit as a firefighter? Have you ever been to the market on firefighter grocery day? Trust us. But we digress. The point is that Cybex Research Institute brings you these three separate programs to train like a firefighter.

• The other day a colleague asked if we were testing fitness watches, because on our desk was a pile of fitness trackers, GPS watches and their respective chargers. We’re only testing one of them. The rest are our personal gadgets, and sometimes they drive us bonkers. Installing the different programs on our computer for all the watches, syncing them to Runkeeper and other apps we use to track our fitness — it’s exhausting. Turns out we’re not the only ones who feel this way. Though fitness trackers are great to motivate people, the tracking of everything other than steps (like sleep and heart rate) is too much for some consumers. Check out this ABC News story on the topic.

• It happens to all of us: You call your favorite uncle and end up gabbing like gossipy old ladies for over an hour. Instead of sitting on your duff during all that good bonding, you should read this Dallas Morning News story on how to make the most of your phone time. Do stuff like planks or even squats in place. Shoot, maybe lift a dumbbell and alternate phone-holding and dumbbell-holding arms.

• We don’t get extreme. Some of us here prefer the flavor of the leisurely paced marathon with a pinch of Zumba and some light weight training sprinkled in. We know high-intensity interval training is all the rage, but honestly it’s a wee bit intimidating. After reading this Columbian article, where many of those interviewed said they hated it the first time and swore they’d never do it again and now are hooked, we might try it.

• We get teased a lot because of our overwhelming desire to host hula-hoop parties (don’t judge — we got the idea from Kelly Osbourne, who does this instead of going out and consuming empty alcohol calories). Turns out hula hooping is an integral part of this circuit, along with a “fun ladder” and a jump rope. We’re particularly fond of the Empower Cardio Core and More Customizable Weighted Hoop.

• Let us preface this by saying we don’t condone the use of the word “cougar,” but there’s no doubt that the women who are called cougars are pretty fit. This column, originally published in 2010, offers fitness tips to ladies who are around the age range to be called a cougar. Some of the tips are to abolish doubt and stop eating so much.

• One of our college organizations had a saying: “Excuses are monuments of nothingness. Those who use them build bridges leading to nowhere.” This proves to be true especially with exercise. No excuse is going to get your customers fit, prepared for a race or healthier. But how do they turn those monuments of nothingness into success? The answers lie in this article.

• We know this: If there were a free outdoor yoga class in our neighborhood we’d be all over that. Someone once told us that it’s easier to introduce people to yoga outdoors because there’s less pressure to be perfect. Perhaps it has to do with the abundance of space and fresh air. Check out this story on how a free outdoor yoga class led to a new group of yogis, some whom have been attending the class for months.

• We’ve told you time and again that women control majority of the spending. So when you get a gal in your store who wants to get some guns, you should show her this suggested workout from Muscle and Performance. The workout includes classics that could be performed with accessories from your store, like the bent-over dumbbell lateral raise or the alternating one-arm dumbbell shoulder press.

Did you read anything interesting this week? Email it to us because we want to check it out too.