Cardio Trek - Toronto Personal Trainer

5 Best Treadmills with Web Surfing

By Petra

A treadmill is an excellent investment for both home and professional use. It's always available and can get used no matter the outside weather. Also, running on cushioned tread has a lesser impact than running on outside terrain. The great thing about treadmills is they can track your workout, and some treadmills can simulate different terrains. In addition to basic features, some modern treadmills can get used for web surfing. They also let you listen to music and watch videos. In the text below, we gathered the five best treadmills that allow web surfing and mentioned some of their most significant features to help you find the most suitable one.

NordicTrack Commercial 2450

The NordicTrack 2450 features a 14" screen that allows watching videos and films while working out and taking care of your health. At any moment, you can check your activities by switching to the stats tracking mode. In addition, by automatically adjusting the treadmill's pace, incline, and descent, the iFit app will assist you in concentrating on your running and following the instructions. Other features include space-saving design and FlexSelect cushioning that makes running comfortable and easy.

Artis Run

Artis Run shares the basic and minimalist design of the Artis series. It includes strength and cardio equipment, and it got designed to provide maximum performance and complete training. It features a big cushioned running surface that adjusts to your pace precisely. Also, it comes with 21 inches multimedia touch interface that has an ergonomic placement. The touchscreen serves to watch TV series and movies, enjoy music, and surf the web while the workout gets tracked. The advanced technology enables minimal power consumption and quiet operation. Fast track controls are programmable and easy to use for interval training. For uphill training, the treadmill can imitate an incline of up to 15%.

Matrix TF50

Matrix TF50 is a sturdy and durable treadmill that has a lot to offer. Various connection options include Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, and Android. It features a 16" touchscreen display and 5W speakers. Furthermore, it's integrated with many popular apps like Netflix, Facebook, and Hulu, along with workout programs. Other features include the maximum speed of 12.5 mph and incline range up to 15%.

Among other apps, Matrix TF50 includes a web browser. You can browse almost any website you want. You can run on a treadmill any time and don't have to worry about missing sports events. It has enough computing power to visit more demanding HTML5 websites, such as online games with detailed graphics. If you have one of these treadmills, be sure to check how they cope with these types of casino games because it will be a good benchmark for everything else you throw at it. On top of that, the treadmill has a dent so that you can put a tablet in it. Load it with your favourite apps and combine it with the touchscreen.

ProForm Pro 9000

The 60"x 22" belt surface area of ProForm Pro 9000 provides a large running area for running. The steel frame makes this treadmill durable for many years of workouts. The 10" full-colour touchscreen has a Chrome browser for surfing the internet. Also, the treadmill supports iFit integration, allowing you to use it as a personal trainer with automated decline and incline adjustments.

FreeMotion 890

FreeMotion 890 treadmill has a large running area ideal for heavy runners. It also has multiple incline and decline ranges, while the 10-inch touch screen can connect to the Internet and Android. It even has HMDI and RCA ports for connecting to a laptop. Additionally, iFit and 40 workout applications are available. The integrated fan can get used while working out to keep yourself fresh.

Good News and Bad News: Archery Focus Magazine

Well, I have good news and bad news...

The good news is I have another article that is being published in "Archery Focus Magazine". It will be coming out in the November-December 2021 issue.

The bad news is that the November-December 2021 issue will also be the final issue, the farewell issue, of the magazine.

It saddens me that the final issue is coming so soon. I am aware that many magazines thrive and survive based on subscriptions, and that if those subscriptions eventually falter that the magazine may be unsustainable. Many print media magazines and newspapers have ended during the past 20 years, and digital magazines are similarly vulnerable due to the subscription format.

Between 2017 and 2020 I contributed five articles to the magazine in the following issues:

2017, July-August (Marketing Strategies for Archery Coaches)
2018, July-August (Adaptive Archery)
2018, November-December (Teaching via Narrative Storytelling)
2020, January-February (Reinhart Target Ball Review)
2020, September-October (Trick Shots)

I regret not writing more articles. Contributing 1 or 2 articles per year was one of the highlights of teaching the sport, but I could have written more. I have been very busy doing other things like teaching, raising my son, and writing multiple series of fantasy books... But I could have contributed another article or two. Sadly, we writers have to learn to live with our regrets, just like archers have to learn to live with their botched shooting.

I have also been writing my own "how to book" with respect to archery, so perhaps I will devote more time in the near future towards finishing and publishing that book. Or I might solve my thirst to publish more articles by contributing to magazines like Traditional Bowhunter or TradArchers' World. We shall just have to see what happens.

One last bit of good news...

While the magazine is ending, the back issues will continue to be available. You can visit archeryfocusmagazine.com and get any of the back issues of the magazine dating back to the first issue from 1997. You can get unlimited access to 25 years worth of the magazine's back issues for $160 USD.

The 1000th Post of Cardio Trek

CardioTrek.ca recently surpassed 3.12 million visitors, but that is not the big news. This post is the 1000th post on www.cardiotrek.ca.

Yep. 1000.

Not bad, in my opinion.

I started teaching archery in 2009, but the business grew so fast via word-of-mouth that I eventually realized that I needed a dedicated website for it. So I started the website in December 2011, later got my personal training certificate because I wanted to be a "certified personal trainer" (the whole certification standard for personal trainers is bogus and meaningless by the way, what really matters is professionalism and experience, and I built my business gradually over time, capitalization on the idea that every blog post I did was building my business.

And it worked. I quit my other job and took up teaching sports full time, expanding to teaching boxing, swimming, ice skating and general personal training.

Eventually, because archery was so popular, I stopped teaching the other sports and focused solely on teaching archery. Which is part of the reason why most new blog posts on CardioTrek.ca are now about archery. That is my primary goal now and I no longer worry about trying to get boxing, swimming, ice skating or personal training clients.

I also have habitually accepted sponsored guest posts, creating a secondary source of income from the website, due to the site's popularity. I consider that to be a bonus that helps pay for my son's university tuition.

And finally my website is on the verge of going full circle... Where once upon a time I quit my job and took up personal training full time, at some point in 2024 or 2025 I expect to be quitting this job and taking up writing full time. My book sales are tripling or more each year, and if that trend continues then I will be able to quit my job again near the end of 2024 or the start of 2025 and focus solely on writing.

Writing 1000 posts over roughly 10 years wasn't easy either. Eg. In January 2013 I wrote 50 posts in just one month. That is 1.6 posts per day.

I kept writing 100+ posts per year for several years, but eventually in 2017 (when my son was born) it dropped to 60 per year. Then 50 in 2019 and 40 in 2020. (2020 was a bad year for many reasons.) Starting in 2017 I also started taking my fiction writing career more seriously, so between taking care of my son and writing fantasy books it was really no surprise that the number of posts tapered off.

And now here we are. August 2021 and I have written 1000 posts in less than 10 years. (Not true, a small percentage of them were sponsored guest posts by writers just wanting to advertise something.)

Still, this post is mine, and it is officially the 1000th post.

Note - I might retroactively go back and add posts to May, June and August to bring the total number of posts per month to 5 each. You may have noticed that some months have exactly 5 posts or exactly 10 posts. I just like having round numbers. I admit I am a perfectionist who likes symmetry.

And we archers tend to be perfectionists. ;)

2021 is Fully Booked for Archery Lessons - Prebook for 2022

Hello Toronto!

Bad news if you wanted to book archery lessons in Toronto for August, September or October of 2021. I am already fully booked and am no longer accepting new students for this year.

I am currently accepting new students for 2022. If you want to book for 2022 you should contact me now (if you know what your schedule will be like in the coming year), or if you're not sure what your schedule will be like in 2022, then I recommend contacting me in February or early March if you want to get your preferred time slots (before things start booking up).

I am expecting 2022 to be a very busy year for me.

If you have any questions feel free to ask.

Have a great day!

Limited Archery Time Slots Left / My Writing Career

Due to COVID I am going to be restricting how many students / time slots I teach this year during August, September and October. It isn't a matter of time constraints, I am available, but I am putting a limit on the total number of archery lessons I am willing to teach this year.

So my advice is that if you want archery lessons between now and the end of the season you need to contact me sooner rather than later and hope that there is still time slots available and I haven't reached my "quota" for the year.

Basically the point I am trying to make is that this year, due to COVID, I am setting a quota for the maximum number of lessons I am willing to teach. So if you want archery lessons in Toronto then you should email me today and start booking.

If you wait too long you might have to prebook for 2022.

My Writing Career

In related news, my book sales during 2021 are expected to triple my 2020 book sales, which tripled my book sales from 2019, which in turn dectupled my 2018 book sales... So if you can do math that means my book sales are up by a factor of 90 in the past 3 years.

If my book sales continue to triple annually I will be able to quit my day job (teaching archery) and focus on writing books sometime in 2025.

Now don't get me wrong, I love teaching archery. Absolutely love it. But there are days when I would love to just sleep in, spend more time with my wife/son, and focus on writing instead.

Teaching archery, and being good at it / able to make a living doing it, has given me the freedom to pursue my writing career during the cold winter months when very few people in Toronto ask for archery lessons.

Becoming a full time professional writer is the dream of pretty much every writer. I love archery and I love teaching it, but I foresee a time when I will just jack up my prices and only teach on 1 or 2 days per week so that I can focus my energy on writing.

Or quit teaching archery entirely and focus solely on writing. In addition to getting an annual tripling in book sales I keep getting 4 and 5 star reviews, so that's always a nice feeling to know people really like my writing. Cannot complain about that.

And what is the content of my writing? I mostly write heroic fantasy featuring, you guessed it, archery.

You can find my books, available in trade paperback and ebook formats, at amazon.com/author/moffat. I expect to be releasing audiobook versions in 2026 if my book sales continue to go up at the current rate. Hardcover versions of the novels are also expected sometime. If you have the paperback ISBN numbers you can order my books from your local bookstore.

5 Frugal Tips for your Dream Home Gym

5 Tips to Build your Dream Home Gym without Breaking the Bank

The pandemic made most people find creative ways to do the things they love the most, including working out. If you’ve missed the gym but aren’t ready to go back into that atmosphere quite yet, it’s easy to build your dream home gym without breaking the bank.

Here are 5 simple tips.

Keep it simple

Don’t go overboard, building a killer gym overnight. Not only will you likely buy equipment you won’t use, but you’ll go way over budget. Instead, start small. Think of the workouts you must do that aren’t non-negotiable in your mind and budget for those pieces of home gym equipment.

Aim to buy one piece of equipment at a time to see how often you use it and if you’re seeing the results you desire.

Get creative with household objects

Just because the gym you belonged to had all the bells and whistles doesn’t mean you can’t improvise at home. Think about objects around your house that can double as workout equipment.

Chairs are great for bars for balancing or even a spot to sit to do sitting exercises; paper plates can replace sliders, and gallon water bottles can replicate 8-pound free weights as a few examples.

Figure out how you’ll work out

Will you come up with your own routines or will you stream workouts from a gym or streaming service?

This will add to your costs, so figure it into your budget. If you don’t want to use some of your budget on streaming workouts, check out YouTube, they have millions of workout videos you can use either to get you started or to keep you structured.

Pick one room in your home to create the gym

If you want to make sure you use your gym equipment, pick a room in your home and dedicate space for your home gym. You don’t have to build a new area or renovate – just clear out an area of a room or an entire room if you have the space.

Some people add small pieces of equipment to their family room or office and others use garage or basement space that they use only to collect clutter.

Use a cashback or rewards credit card to buy equipment

When you’re ready to buy equipment, use the most beneficial credit card to make your purchases worth it. Cashback or rewards credit cards pay you for your purchases. Look for the credit card that will pay you the most as each credit card pays different percentages of cashback and/or rewards based on the category you’re buying in. HOWEVER this really only makes sense if you pay your credit card bill every month on time. Otherwise the fees means that it isn't worth it at all.

Final Thoughts

Start small and build your home gym carefully, being mindful of your budget and also the benefits of having a home gym. It’s a big switch to go from working out with a group of other like-minded people to working out on your own.

Don’t go overboard right away – improvise with household items and buy only the equipment you know you need to have an effective workout. As you get used to working at home and you save enough money or have the right credit card to buy the equipment, you can build up your gym to make it your dream gym.

Traveling to see the Tour de France / The Virtual Tour de France

The Tour de France cycling competition ended a week ago, but it isn't too early to start thinking about visiting France in 2022 and watching the massive cycling competition in person.

This year's competition lasted from Saturday June 26th until Sunday July 18th.

The event is a huge cash cow for cyclists. Each stage they manage to win is worth 11,000 Euros, and the person who wins the entire competition gets 500,000 Euros...

Which is chump change compared to a tennis tournament or a golf tournament, but in the world of cycling that is the biggest prize cyclists can hope for.

But for a little added excitement, you can also go there in the off season (when it is NOT currently the Tour de France) and then cycle the same route. Just start in Landerneau and copy the route of the Tour de France, from beginning to end with extra bits between the individual stages, until you end in Libourne.

For convenience sake I suggest doing the Paris section of the race after Laval instead of leaving it to the very end.

Will you be able to do it in the same amount of time the professionals do it in? Nope. Definitely not.

Counting the extra distances you will have to cycle, it will be about 5000-6000 km you have to cycle. So you will probably want 4 weeks to do it in.

But if you succeed, you will have spent 4 weeks cycling around France and seen some amazing pieces of scenery.

Three Hot Travel Tips

If you book your plane tickets months in advance you can some a good chunk of money.
Book your "cycling vacation" during the off season, so the tickets are even cheaper.
Book via Air France, as they often have the best rates for traveling to and from France. As Canadians we can get some pretty inexpensive tickets for flights from Montreal to Paris or flights from Toronto to Paris for relative little.

Also you should decide now whether you want this to be more of a fun journey, or whether you are being competitive about it.

Two, you should decide whether you want to do the cycling version of "Glamping" (Glamourous Camping), or whether you prefer the idea of actual camping. Because sleeping in a tent and cycling every day is not for everyone. Even professional cyclists usually try to stay in the best hotels when doing the Tour de France.

Staying in a nice hotel to me sounds so much better than having to pitch a tent (and carry it with you on the bicycle!) for 4 weeks.

Assuming the route you choose is 6000 km you will want to spread that out over 28 days. But that still amounts to 214 km per day, which is a lot! If you are fast (30 kmph) it will take you 7 hours of cycling every day to reach your destination.

However...

You could just take a train from each stage of the Tour de France to the next stage. That way you are only doing the 3414 km that the pros are doing. True, it means you are spending a chunk of the time on trains (and may feel like you are cheating), but whatever. You are saving yourself a lot of time and effort.

That 3414 km divided amongst 28 days is 122 km per day, which suddenly feels a whole lot easier. You could cycle at a more leisurely 20 kmph and still be done in 6 hours each day.

Or... How about this idea?

Skip the Tour de France, visit a bunch of places in France that you want to see... And buy a cheap used road bike from someone when you arrive, and if it breaks you just buy a different one.

Personally there is a list of places I would like to see - mostly along the coasts - some of which a bicycle would kind of useless in visiting.

Eg. I would love to visit Mont-Saint-Michel, and just looking at it you know a bicycle will be rather useless there. Good place for hiking up and down lots of stairs... Not so good for bicycles.

Another place I would visit is the Alignments of Carnac, which is essentially a big graveyard of huge megalithic stones - beneath which are tombs of prehistoric kings. Very rocky terrain. Again, no point taking a bicycle there. Good place for a hike however.

Honestly France has lots of good places to go hiking. Pick a place and just go!

Horsebows and Poundages

The bow in the photo above (and below on the right) is a Samick SKB horsebow (sometimes also called a shortbow).

Learning how to shoot a horsebow is trickier than learning how to shoot a traditional recurve, although they have many similarities in design. There are some additional challenges, which is why I recommend that students take 3 lessons of traditional recurve before progressing to shooting horsebow, so that they have a good grounding in proper form in that style before proceeding to a more challenging style of archery.

(Same goes with anyone wanting to learn how to shoot Longbow or Olympic Recurve. Definitely study traditional recurve first, then make the transition.)

There is an issue concerning the matter of the poundages made available by the manufacturers.

Many manufacturers who make horsebows do not make low poundages: 20 lbs or less.

This phenomenon of manufacturers not making lighter poundages is not limited to horsebows either. Some manufacturers who make longbows and the higher end traditional recurves also limit what poundages they produce, knowing that their target customers are adults (and mostly men).

The Samick SKB horsebow shown above (and on the right) only comes in 25 lbs to 55 lbs (with 5 lb increments). The bow I purchased was 30 lbs, which I felt was a good poundage for my needs as an archery instructor, and knowing that most of the people wanting to learn horsebows usually have an end goal of purchasing a horsebow that is in the 30 lbs to 50 lbs range.

This consequently creates limitations on who can potentially be using the bow. Eg. Most children won't be able to pull it properly, and many people who are complete beginners really should not be using a 30 lb bow.

However someone who has done 3 archery lessons previously, and proven that they can handle 18 lbs, 20 lbs and 24 lbs, and expressed an interest in learning horsebow. Well, then we can discuss the matter as they might be capable of pulling 30 lbs.

Otherwise they will need to purchase their own equipment - which is usually the standard situation when it comes to anyone who wants to learn how to shoot horsebows (or compounds, or Olympic recurves), and archery in general as the goal of most archery students is to eventually buy their own equipment so they can practice on their own.

Someone who is petite in size will find a difficult time finding a quality horsebow that is sized correctly for them and offers a poundage they can use properly. There are a few manufacturers who make children's bows (and youth bows) that offer lighter poundages, but the issue of quality means there is a gap in the market for well designed bows that fall into these age categories. In some cases they simply don't exist, and what does exist is slim pickings.

The big name manufacturers simply aren't interested in making certain types of bows aimed at children, youth and petite adults.

Still, that doesn't mean a person cannot do archery. It just means they are limited to doing traditional recurve (or potentially longbow or compound shooting) because there are bows being manufactured and sold which are aimed at children, youth and petite adults.

The market is there in my opinion, but nobody is making them.

Jogging 30 Day Challenge: Day 9

I did not go jogging on Sunday. I was very busy that day (working + a family event).

However I have since made up for it by going jogging twice yesterday... and I am planning to extend my 30 Day Challenge by an extra day to make up for the lost day.

Call it a penalty day.

I missed a day so I have to make for it by going twice the day after AND I have to add a penalty day when the 30 days has elapsed.

I have been thinking about what should happen AFTER the 30 days is over. Do I just stop jogging and go back to my "normal routine" of not jogging?

Or should I make jogging "my new normal" wherein I now jog every day?

I am leaning towards the latter. Just keep jogging every day.

Not sure what I will do during the winter... Might have to buy some jogging pants that are warmer.

We shall see.

Jogging 30 Day Challenge: Day 3

I went jogging yesterday morning and this morning.

The big difference yesterday was that I got up earlier to do my jog before eating and before having a shower. I figured it would be better to have the shower AFTER I go jogging.

Today it has been raining on and off, so I timed my jog after breakfast (but before the shower), and I timed it so it had stopped raining during the actual jog.

Not giving myself the excuse of "Oh it is raining, I should go jogging tomorrow or delay..." actually felt pretty good.

I have also determined that the cooler temperatures in the morning (or on a rainy day) actually feels pretty nice while jogging.

The physical jog also felt a bit easier today. I am not sure if that was just in my head, but I suppose it doesn't actually matter. Motivation is all in your head anyway. I was even tempted to jog a bit further today.

Tomorrow, if I am feeling up to it, perhaps I will jog a bit further.

Still jogging for less than 6 minutes however, so this still counts as "6 Minute Cardio".

Topics