Fitness Christmas Gift Guide 2016
Fitness Christmas Gift Guide 2016
I write a fitness Christmas gift guide every year. It’s a collection of some of the kit I’ve bought and used over the year that I think you guys (or the fitness fan in your life) would enjoy. If I liked it, I put it in the list.
For ease and clarity, I’ve separated the fitness Christmas gift guide into three sections based on price – higher range fitness Christmas gifts (items costing £80-120), mid range fitness Christmas gifts (items costing £30-£50) and stocking filling fitness Christmas gifts with a value up to £20.
All of the products in the fitness Christmas gift guide have been personally used and are owned by me, so I am giving recommendations based on personal experience.
Higher Range Fitness Christmas Gifts : £80-£120
Skins A400 Comepression Tights
I own a pair of Skins A400 Compression Tights. I wear them for all kinds of uses – I train in them, I wear them under my trousers when coaching outside or watching my son play football and I wear them if I’m going on a long walk.
They are comfortable, provide excellent insulation and muscle compression and are so versatile that I use them every week.
I wear them in my training (see video below for proof) and really rate them. In fact, I reviewed them in more depth here.
Expect to pay around £100 for them, but keep checking Skins.net for sales.
I bought my Polar M400 recently (after a lot of research – read my thoughts on it here) and I love it. I use it every day, it has great features and is really simple to use. It has great build quality, a good watch and gives me all of the heart rate data I need.
Pair it with the free Polar Flow app and you’ll have a combo that will keep the fitness geek in your life pretty happy for a long time!
Word of warning – make sure you buy the watch and heart rate monitor as a pair. You can get this for around £120. If you buy the watch and monitor separately, it’ll end up costing you around £150.
Adidas Power Perfect 2 Weight Lifting Shoes
Anyone who has read my blog for even a short amount of time will know what a fan of these shoes I am. I’ve used my pair weekly for a year and they’ve never let me down – they barely have a mark on them (apart from the blood splat when I hit my shins with the barbell on a snatch).
You can pay over twice what you pay for the Power Perfect 2’s and not even get the same level of quality. A gym friend of mine bought Nike weight lifting shoes that started to split after 6 months, whereas the Power Perfect 2’s are still going strong.
It’s says a lot about their quality when they were used by dozens of weight lifters at both the 2012 and 2016 Olympic Games…
Expect to pay £70-£100 for them. Broken down to cost per wear, you’re talking pennies.
Mid Range Fitness Christmas Gifts: £30-£50
These gifts are that are great products that won’t break the bank. Again, all of them are owned and used by me, so each recommendation is 100% genuine.
I’ve tried so many protein and amino products over the years that I’ve lost count. Most of them are crap. There are exceptions though, and one of them is this one. The R5 Aminos from Aminoman are a recovery and muscle-bulging protein product designed and manufactured by Matt Lovell, the nutritionist for England Rugby, UK Athletics, Man City FC, Tottenham Hotspurs FC etc. (Read the interviews I did with Matt here and here).
It’s made to pharmaceutical grade rather than food grade, meaning it’s squeaky clean and has been lab tested to prove so.
Expect to pay around £40 per tub. Each tub will last you around 2-3 months, depending on use.
In terms of versatility, a quality kettlebell is hard to beat. There are millions of exercises you can do with a kettlebell, they take up almost no room, they’re easy to store and used correctly, help to prevent back pain better than pretty much anything.
I own a couple of kettlebells and I have a personal training client who owns 5! I use them for working out at home and really think they are a great bit of home workout kit.
Expect to pay £30-£50 depending on the weight you buy, but always buy cast iron. The plastic kettlebells are (in my experience) crap.
Stocking Filler Fitness Christmas Gifts: Up to £20
If the fitness fan in your life uses protein supplements, chances are at some point they’ve either broken a shaker, or worse still left it in their gym bag for a couple of days without washing it. Anyone who has left a shaker without washing it for a day or two will know there isn’t a smell on earth quite like it. It’s foul.
The King Shaker is made of metal, making breaking it pretty tough. Furthermore, it won’t matter particularly if it’s not washed for a couple of days – it doesn’t stink. I know this to be true because I’ve tested it. Three times!
Expect to pay around £10 for the King Shaker. Mine is a year old now and is still in perfect condition, despite being used and put through the dishwasher multiple times per week.
One of the most common exercises people struggle with is pull ups/chin ups. With the Iron Gym Extreme you can make a doorway in your house your gym. It simply hooks around your door frame and is self-supporting, meaning you don’t have to drill any holes or destroy your house.
The Iron Gym extreme doesn’t damage the doorway, is really flat (for easy storage) and can be put up and taken down in a second, it’s that simple a bit of kit.
It’s a great way to have a place to practice pull ups, or break up the sedentary nature of home life every now and then.
Expect to pay around £10-£15 for the Iron Gym Extreme..
So there you have a few fitness Christmas gift suggestions for your family, or a few things you could ask your loved ones for! It’s better than a pair of old socks for Christmas, plus it helps you keep fit and healthy!
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