Gifts for Active People

How much money have I spent trying to find the perfect headphones for exercise? Actually, I don't want to know the answer to that question. If you have a friend or loved one who also has a drawer full of abandoned headphones, you'll make their day by giving them the gift of wireless headphones. iMuffs wireless headphones offer superior sound quality, a lightweight fit and, best of all, no cords to get tangled up in. They work with most iPods and the iPhone and make a great holiday gift for music-loving exercisers.

You know when an instruction manual comes with your jacket, you have a serious garment. The Refugium is serious - seriously warm. This innovative jacket is sleek and stylish while protecting you from the elements with its weather-resistant shell. A pouch inside holds a rechargeable battery which powers heat panels in the jacket for up to eight hours. There's even an optional USB connector that charges your cell phone or MP3 player. This is the perfect gift for anyone who is always cold (like me) or enjoys cold-weather sports like skiing or snowboarding. I wore it on cold, windy days in Chicago and was surprised by how light and toasty it was. It's pricey (around $230), but not much more than other quality outwear and well worth the price.

For cold weather, these have become my favorite gloves for providing protection while allowing me to fiddle around with my iPhone. These are light gloves, so I wouldn't use them for very cold weather, but they're water and wind resistant - perfect for chilly days. The Tec Touch 2.0 fabric pods on the index fingers are what allow you to operate touch screens while keeping your gloves on and they work amazingly well.

One of the best gifts I ever got was a heart rate monitor. Okay, I should clarify that - it was one of the best exercise-related gifts I ever got. Maybe you have to be into exercise to understand the thrill of monitoring your own heart rate, but having a quality HRM can make workouts more effective and fun. The Polar F6 is one of my favorites because it has a number of features, such as a continuous heart rate reading, information about workout intensity, calories burned during your workout and time spent in your target heart rate zone. It's also easy to use and comes in different sizes and colors, making it a great gift for a man or a woman.

If your friends or family have a Wii, this is the perfect opportunity to give them something fun and healthy. Wii Fit Plus (which is the sequel to Wii Fit) offers a variety of fun and challenging balance, strength and yoga exercises that the whole family can do together. They'll need a Balance Board (sold separately) to take full advantage of the exercises, but they'll love juggling while balancing on a ball or getting into a virtual snowball fight.

Another Wii exergame, EA Sports Active is much more of an exercise program than Wii Fit. Exercisers use a leg strap and a resistance band to go through more than 23 exercises that include cardio, strength training and fitness drills. There are preset workouts and a 30 day challenge family members can follow, tracking their workouts and other stats. There's not as much of a fun factor with this game, but the interaction is amazing and the workouts can be challenging and motivating.

This sequel to EA Sports Active offers the same type of workouts as the previous game, but with all new exercises and workouts. With this version, there's a 6 week challenge family members can follow and the fun factor kicks up several notches with the addition of water skiing, paddling, cardio boxing and a fun obstacle course.

My husband is used to me dragging in new fitness gear on a regular basis, but the Ballast Ball made him roll his eyes and say, "Not another ball!" No, the Ballast Ball isn't just another exercise ball. It's actually a weight-filled ball that is more stable than a regular ball, but also more challenging when you move it and shift it in different ways. If there's a home exerciser in your life, the BOSU Ballast Ball makes a great gift idea. They can use it the same way as a regular ball, but they'll also have a variety of new exercises to try to keep them happy and fit.

Taking two rubber balls and rolling around on them with various parts of the body may seem like an odd thing to do, but you only have to do it once before you experience instant relaxation of tight, tense muscles. The FitBALL Pressure Points package is a great gift idea for the stressed-out person in your life. The included DVD and poster show all the pressure points in your body and how to use the rubber balls on each pressure point to reduce stress and pain. I regularly give these as gifts to my personal training clients and they love it!

My mom got me one of these as a gift and, every day, I spend 10 minutes getting a mini-massage...perfect for those days when sitting is the most exciting thing I do. I've tried a few vibrating back massagers, but the Shiatsu offers the next best thing to a real massage. It has rollers that pinpoint your lower back, upper back or both and it feels great after a workout or a long day of sitting. It fits in most office chairs and is one of those gifts the whole family will fight over.

If your kids want a Wii or a PlayStation game, I wouldn't get them this game instead...they might be disappointed. However, The Fitness Challenge Game is a great gift idea for the family who wants to be more active, but needs a push in the right direction. The 8-week program works on the buddy system, allowing partners to set goals, post progress reports and get rewards for completing workouts. This is a fun way for families to get in shape together and keep each other on track with exercise.