If the weather is too hot to walk, jog or exercise outdoors, investing in affordable fitness gadgets that one can use at home is another option.

This is a great way to maintain a fitness routine without leaving the house. Some of the basic tools recommended by experts include the good old skipping rope for fat burning, and some hand weights, resistance bands and a stability ball for strength training. All these are just one-off investments and cost a lot less than a gym membership.

Basics

"If you only want to lose weight, there are basic things you can have at home. There are things like a skipping rope, which is so cheap and so great. If you don't want to run, that's something you can do. You can also get some hand weights," advises Nassreh Ameri, personal training manager of Ignite Fitness and Wellness.

"Remember that if you want to lose weight, you have to do your cardio exercises and weight lifting. It's a combined thing because you need to build up muscle mass. You can't just do cardio alone because you won't have any muscle tone.

Ultimately, you start a programme that has a very light weight, if you've never exercised before. The stability ball is great because you can use it for a lot of exercises. You can use it as a bench, for one. And it costs a lot less, around Dh500," adds Ameri.

Buying a pair of shoes that uses toning or weight-loss technology is also another option.

The UAE market is packed with various footwear products that promise to offer the same positive benefits that one can get from aerobics, treadmill or gym exercises, for more than half the cost.

One of the products being advertised is called RYN, a functional footwear that claims to help burn more calories while walking.

A pair of the South Korean toning shoe costs about Dh700 to Dh800.

"Walking is the closest thing to perfect exercise, the most sustainable and sociable mode of transport and it's free. The recommended daily amount of physical activity for adults is 30 minutes on five or more days of the week. For children, it's one hour a day. In 30 minutes of walking in seven days [with this type of shoes] will give you a workout equal to 3.5 hours in a gym," says Sheila Delgado, who manages the product for Al Fajer Establishment in Dubai.

Rebound exercise

Iryna Sivash, a fitness trainer, says there's also another product in the market that's worth checking out. "It's called Kangoo Jumps. They're like boots that work as a mobile rebounder and provide all the benefits of rebound exercise.

For only Dh995 for adults, the boots can help one stay fit without going to the gym.

Fifteen minutes of use of Kangoo Jumps boots is equivalent to one hour of workout in the gym," Sivash tells Gulf News.