Carl Lewis AWD15 Air Walker

Author's product rating:   

Durability	Satisfactory
Comfort	Satisfactory
Value for money	Satisfactory

Advantages:	Compact .  Easy to use .
Disadvantages:	Loud .  Bouncy .  Footplates seem fragile .

Recommend to potential buyers:

no

Full review

Creaking away in my back passage.

I am in the habit of going to the gym of an evening and providing the tube is running properly I can get home, make Boyf dinner (trust me, it's safer that way), get changed and scoot off down the Lloyd. Of course, several evenings of 'signal failure' annoyed me to the point that I decided to buy myself some kind of exercise gadget to use when the Underground decided to misbehave.

My criteria for this as yet not-sure-what-to-get gadget was that it must be :-
1) Compact.
2) Easy to store (who wants an assembled cross-trainer / bike in their living room all the time?).
3) Reasonably priced.

I did buy myself an exercise DVD but it's still in the wrapper, it's a Nell McAndrew one and Boyf said that he'd watch it for me to see if it was any good. I strongly suspect his motives.

After a bit of Googling I came across the Carl Lewis Glide Trainer and found that Amazon are selling it for £79.99 with free Supersaver p&p although I paid extra for next day delivery. If you pop along to the actual Carl Lewis website, you'll see the machine is being sold for £84.50. I then cashed £35 of survey reward vouchers and placed the order. Five previous purchasers had left small reviews, 2 of which were negative so I crossed my fingers and hoped for the best.

Assembly

When I finally got the machine delivered by the courier company which could be a review in itself and proves that sometimes, shouting and being downright rude to people who lie does actually work - I found much to my relief that the machine is about 95% assembled. All I had to do was screw in each arm pole and screw on the front grip pole, clip on the calorie/stride/time counter and I was off although on the first use I did have a "Mrs Doyle" windowsill moment and nearly hurtled backwards off the thing.

Included in the pack was a spanner/screwdriver combo and one of those hexagonal key things which I've kept to one side as I found various bolts and screws needed tightening as I'm sure that the machine was assembled by a gutless wimp.

Use

When I was a child my favorite thing to do was do stand between two chairs, grasp the top of each and then lift up, swinging my legs back and forth in a scissor action off the ground for as long as my puny child's arms would let me (or until my Mum came back in the room and shouted to stop damaging the furniture). Well, it's a bit like that except the nervous fluttery-tummy feeling of being caught isn't there which is a shame.

Get on the machine, foot on each footplate, hand on each foam-covered pole and way you go. Your legs work in a scissor action, smoothly moving back and forth rather than like on a stepper (up and down) or crosstrainer (an oval back and forth). You can make this easier or harder for yourself by either striding using the arm poles or striding and resting your hands on the pole in front although I often clonk my elbows on the side hand poles as these continue to move back and forth plus I've found the machine emits a loud painful honking-squeak when not using the hand poles and you will probably bounce a bit more which results in the footplates making dubious creaking cracking noises.

The machine is more stable when used on carpeted areas, it tends to walk itself backwards when using it on tiled floors and feels more springy which is fine if you like your workout to contain an element of danger.

Storage

Once your workout is complete you fold up the machine by lifting it towards you and the front frame will close in - it's a bit like how you'd fold up an A-frame stepladder - you just have to upclip the footplates first to get it totally flat and mind fingers and your shins. The machine is quite heavy to move about from room to room so I end up up-ending it so I can slide it along on one of its curved corners to its current home in my back hallway.

Worth it?

There is no way that this machine offers me a workout anywhere close to that of the crosstrainer at my gym - it doesn't have a tension dial so your workout is at the same constant level, the only way you can burn more calories is to simply go faster but when you do this, the machine develops a constant irritating squeak-honk rhythm, a bit like the noise an asthmatic donkey would make if it were repeatedly punched. Speaking of calories I'm pretty certain the calorie counter for my machine is a dud one. In 60 minutes of intense honking, it tells me I've burnt 70 calories yet at the gym the same time on the crosstrainer racks up 750 calories and that's when I'm having a slow day. In one review of this machine I read that it took someone a 'little while' to burn 300 calories - if I tried that using my counter I'd be on there nearly 5 hours.

This machine would be good for those sickening types who only need the occasional light workout to stay trim. I wouldn't recommend it for the elderly and keep it away from small children too as when you first step on the machine it is incredibly easy to lose your balance and go ricocheting backwards, something I rectified by tightening all the nuts and bolts.

Recommended?

No, not if you are like me and like to actually feel as if you've done a proper workout but I suppose it is better than just sitting on your backside for the evening.

Yes if you are blessed with a speedy metabolism and burn fat and tone up just by looking at a treadmill - in which case can I just say I hate you.

3 stars rating.

Max weight of user - 120kg.
Dimensions of unit - 43cm wide. 23cm length. 41cm high.
www.carllewisfitness.com - £84.50
www.amazon.co.uk - £79.99