Do You Really Need Exercise Mats?

You remember exercise mats, those heavy, vinyl-coated lumps of foam a whistle-toting gym coach made you lug all over the gym while you did calisthenics in high school gym class. They weighed a ton, smelled like feet and never really seemed to cushion your falls quite enough. If they did have enough padding, they were so squishy that walking across them could spark nightmares about quicksand.

Well, forget about all that. With in-home exercise becoming more and more popular, the exercise mat market has exploded, with a range of colors, styles and thickness that's incredible.

When you're looking for exercising mats, you'll have several types to choose from, including:

• Dense foam mats: These are pretty much the basic cushioned floor covering. They usually come in the form of interlocking panels, although they also can be found in rollup form. They're better than bare floor, but I wouldn't recommend doing high-impact exercise on them, especially if you are overweight.
• Interlocking rubber: Nearly indestructible, but they have the same cushioning ability as the dense foam mats and may leave marks on wood or tiled floors. The same material is also frequently sold in rolls, which are convenient but, if they are not used frequently, can be difficult to roll out flat. They will tend to curl up.
• Raised "flex" tile: This is the Cadillac of exercise surfaces as far as appearance. It's essentially a wood-look (or even real wood) tile on either a cushion or a shallow spring. It is designed to be a permanent or semi-permanent installation, so if you're going to use it you should have a dedicated exercise area. It is usually the most expensive option, but will take lots of punishment and provide excellent impact resistance without the "mush" of a foam exercisemats.
• Cushion mats: Also sold as "thick dense foam mats," these are the cushiest mats around, primarily used in environments like wrestling gyms and martial arts dojos where the likelihood of impact from a flying body is high.

Whatever you choose, these options are only as good as their installation and use. If you're using foam mats on tile, be sure they have non-slip coating on back, or buy some and install it yourself. Be sure you use the right product for your purposes.

If nothing else, investing in this exercise mat will give you that much more impetus to work out. Who wants to waste this kind of money.

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