Choose a Motor
The most inexpensive treadmills have no motor and require little maintenance, but they make you work for your workout. Manual treadmills depend on a runner's movement for power, which means you need to run to get it going and as you slow down, the belt slows down.

Electric treadmills typically run on DC power and have two motors, one to drive the belt and another to control incline. They get up to your desired workout speed quickly and don't slow down when you do, motivating you to keep up a steady pace. Although electric treadmills cost more and may require occasional maintenance, they can include a lot of great extra features such as a digital readout for speed, distance, and calories, a fan, CD player, or heart rate monitor.

When choosing an electric treadmill, look at how much horsepower it has to offer. The larger the motor, the more horsepower it can deliver. The amount of power you need depends on whether you want to walk or run and on your body weight.

• Continuous Duty: The amount of horsepower that a treadmill motor can deliver under regular anticipated use. This measurement general means more to people than peak horsepower.

Heavier runners will want to look at treadmills with a minimum of 2.0hp.

• Peak Performance: The amount of horsepower that a treadmill motor can deliver for a short period of time.

Choose the Right Belt
Treadmill belts come in varying sizes, with widths between 16 and 22 inches and lengths between 45 and 66 inches. Make sure the belt on the treadmill you want to buy can accommodate your longest walking or running stride. Runners and people with a long stride will want a longer belt and should consider a wider belt to compensate for natural side-to-side running movement.

Understand Speed
Most treadmills operate between 0 and 10 mph, and some go up to 12mph for serious runners (people usually walk 3-6mph and run 6-10 mph). Some treadmills offer one-touch controls to quickly change speed settings.

Incline Control
When working out on a treadmill you can keep the belt flat or create a hill with inclines up to 15% (commercial treadmills go up to 25%). Running uphill makes your workout more challenging and offers an excellent way to train for races. You'll find three types of treadmill incline controls:

1. Manual Incline: Treadmills with manual incline cost less than power incline and heart rate control inclines, but you need to weigh cost against the inconvenience of taking time out of your workout to manually adjust the setting.
2. Power Incline: Touch a button while you work out to achieve a 0% to 10 0rade.
3. Heart Rate Control: Most high-end treadmills offer automatic incline adjustment based on your heart rate.

Bike Types
You'll find three types of stationary bikes on the market:

• Upright: Traditional upright exercise bikes make you sit up on a traditional bike seat while pedaling.
• Dual Action: Upright bikes with movable arms help you get a more intense workout while working your upper and lower body.
• Recumbent: Sit back in a chair or bucket seat while pedaling. These bikes work great for people who have back problems.

Most bikes accommodate a wide range of body types. For example, most have an adjustable seat for people of different heights. However, some exercise bikes have a weight capacity.

Resistance and Your Workout
Pedaling on a stationary bike without any resistance wouldn't make much sense. You'd pedal against nothing, literally just spinning your wheels. Stationary exercise bikes create resistance, making it easier or harder for you to pedal, by one of the following methods:

• Direct Tension: Manually adjust resistance by turning knobs or adjusting a lever.
• Flywheel: A heavy wheel regulates resistance and ensures smooth operation of your bike. You'll need to pedal to create the kinetic energy needed for the wheel to maintain resistance.
• Air: Pedal against the air flow from a fan built into your wheel. The harder you pedal, the greater your resistance. As an added benefit the air from the fan helps cool you down.
• Magnetic: Popular in gyms, magnetic resistance offers friction-free pedaling while allowing you to effortlessly increase difficulty.

Monitor Your Workout
Most bikes let you know your speed, how many miles you've pedaled, and how much time you've spent on the bike. More expensive bikes can also measure your heart rate, determine how many calories you burn, or offer pre-programmed workouts that mimic outside environments such as hills or the park.

• Dual action: Movable handlebars on dual action elliptical machines let you work out your upper and lower body. If your arms tire first, just let go of the handlebars.
• Dual direction: Dual direction machines let you work all of your leg muscles by walking forward and backwards.
• Pre-programmed courses: Pre-programmed courses can let you walk in the park, climb a mountain, or set a course with mid-range difficulty. Some even let you program custom courses.
• Display: Make sure the display is large enough so you can see how many calories you burn, the distance you walk, how fast you move, and your heart rate.
• Portability: If you want to save on space, make sure your equipment folds up for quick storage in the closet.
• Safety: Look for non-slip foot pedals.

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Stair Machines & Steppers

Tone your glutes, hamstrings, and calves with a stair machine or stepper. Like treadmills, you'll find manual and electric options and the more advanced features you want, the more expensive your equipment.

Choose Your Steps
When choosing which type of steps you want on your stair machine, you have two options: dependent or independent motion.

• Dependent: Steps come linked together and when you push down on one step, the other step goes also moves. You can cheat in your workout by shifting your weight.
• Independent: Steps do not come linked together. You need to push down on each step to make it move.

If you want bars to hold onto while you exercise, make sure you look into a stair machine/stair climber instead of a bare-bones stepper. If in doubt, look at the pictures provided in item listings.

Adjust Your Workout
The type of resistance used by the stair machine will help determine your final price, with more advanced features increasing the value of the machine.

• Cylinder-driven: Cylinders work like shocks, providing resistance using air or hydraulic fluid. You change the resistance by turning a knob. If you want an independent-motion stair machine that has cylinder-based resistance, make sure the cylinder has a large load capacity to accommodate your full weight. Cylinder-driven stair climbers will usually tell you how long you worked out and give you information about the total number of stairs you climbed, the approximate distance you traveled, and how many calories you burned.
• Computer-controlled: Magnetic resistance machines offer predictable changes in resistance and smooth movement. They provide feedback about your heart rate, distance, steps climbed, and calories burned and come with pre-programmed workouts that mimic hills and mountains.

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Home Gyms

When shopping for a home gym, make sure the items you consider will help you meet your fitness goals.

• Do you want a series of elastic bands to provide resistance or do you want a system of cables and pulleys to lift a stack of weights?
• If you decide on a gym with a weight stack, does it include enough weight?
• If you want to do some major strength training, does the gym include free weights?
• Does the gym have add-ons for leg lifts and other lower body exercises or will you concentrate on your upper body?

Gym Sizing
Before you bring a gym home, decide where you want to keep it. Sellers will list a gym's height, length, and width in item listings. Measure your space and check to make sure the home gyms you look at will fit in it. Also, decide how many stations you want right off the bat.

• If only one person will use the home gym at a time, a single-station gym setup will work well.
• If more than one person wants to work out on the gym at once, consider a multi-station setup.
• If you want to save space, make sure the gym folds. The Total Gym and Bowflex both fold up so that you can store them out of sight under the bed or in a closet.

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Free Weights & Benches

Free weights give you the opportunity to build strength at home without spending a lot of money. Start out buying what you need and if you find that you want more weight later, just add to your collection.

Metal vs. Synthetic
Highly durable metal weights will last a long time, but may damage your floor if you drop them. Some chrome weights need regular maintenance to prevent rust. Weights coated with plastic, acrylic, rubber, or neoprene will cause less damage when dropped and do not require regular maintenance, but the coating may degrade over time. Still, coated weights give beginners a great grip and peace of mind that they won't destroy floors when exercising at home.

Get Started Right Away
If you want weights that you don't have to assemble, buy a set of dumbbells. Dumbbells don't take up a lot of room and come in set weights.

Some Assembly Required
If you want the ability to add weight as you work out, look into a barbell that will let you add weight plates. Those interested in bench pressing will also need a workout bench.

Bench Basics
Different benches can hold different amounts of weight. If you want to bench press 200 pounds, make sure the bench can handle it. You'll also want to make sure its crutches, the two supports that hold the weight bar, can fit your bar. In general, wider crutches can handle more weight.

• Standard: 28" crutches handle five to six-foot bars.
• Midsize: 40" crutches handle six to seven-foot bars.
• Olympic size: 48" crutches handle seven-foot bars.

Some benches have the ability to adjust to create an incline or decline. If you want to do abdominal exercises on your bench, make sure it has these adjustment options. If you want to work on your arms and legs, look into a bench with built-in arm and leg attachments or comparable add-ons.

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How to Find Fitness Equipment on eBay

Now that you know what to buy, narrowing down item listings to the equipment you want shouldn't take much time. Go the Sporting Goods portal and choose Exercise & Fitness.

Categories
If you know what type of equipment you want to buy, select it from the Categories list on the left side of the page.

• Cardiovascular: Get your heart rate up with elliptical machines, exercise bikes, gliders, rowers, ski machines, stair machines, trampolines, treadmills, and more.
• Conditioning & Low Impact: Create long, lean muscles with inversion machines, pilates programs, and yoga.
• Strength Training: Build muscle with free weights, home gym stations, and your favorite TV exercise machines including the Total Gym, Bowflex, and Soloflex.

Keywords
Let eBay find items for you by entering the keywords you want to find into the search box. For example, if you want a treadmill with a heart rate monitor, type "treadmill heart" (without quotation marks) in the search box. If you know the make and model of the equipment you want to buy, search for it. Check "Search title and description" to expand your search. If you have a specific brand and model in mind, type it into the search box. Visit eBay's Search Tips page for more advice about searching with keywords.

Let Sellers Help
A good item listing should include equipment specs, the name of the manufacturer, and a clear picture. If you want to know about information not included in a listing, email your question by clicking "Ask seller a question" under the seller's profile.

If you can't seem to find exactly what you want, try shopping eBay Stores, telling the eBay community what you want by creating a post on Want It Now, or saving your search and eBay will email you when a match becomes available.

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Buy With Confidence

Take a couple of seconds to review the item you want to buy and research your seller so you feel positive and secure about every transaction.

Know Your Purchase

• Figure delivery costs into your final price. If you spend a lot of money, make sure the seller will insure the item when it ships.
• Is the item you want still under warranty? If so, what are the terms? If you want more warranty information from a seller, ask by clicking the seller's "Ask seller a question" link under a seller's profile.

Know Your Seller

• What is the seller's Feedback rating? How many transactions have they completed? What percentage of positive responses do they have?
• What do buyers say in their Feedback? Did the seller receive praise?
• Does the seller have a return policy? Most top eBay sellers operate like retail stores and have return policies. Do they offer a money back guarantee? What are the terms and conditions?

Buyer Protection

• PayPal Buyer Protection: In the unlikely event that something goes wrong, PayPal is there for you. Learn about PayPal Buyer Protection and how your purchases can be covered up to $1,000.
• eBay Security & Resolution Center: If a problem arises in your transaction, eBay can help you solve it quickly and efficiently. Visit the Security & Resolution Center to learn more about eBay's resolution tools.

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