Total Gym 1000 > Reviews > Best Fitness Item I've bought via an Infomercial

Author's product rating:   

Durability	Excellent
Comfort	Excellent
Value for money	Excellent

Advantages:	Can be as good as a Weights - Gym/Multi - Gym for building/training Upper Body and Mid - Section
Disadvantages:	Not as effective for Lower Body as it is for Upper Body, Not that easy to 'Fold - Away' every time you use it

Recommend to potential buyers:

yes

Full review

BACKGROUND
I am 37 years of age. 5 years back I used to be Super-Fit .... and I mean SUPER-FIT!!! I went to the gym and used free-weights, machines + cardio around 4 to 5 times a week (sometimes more than that!). I weighed a whisker under 13 Stone at 6'0 Feet tall and had only about 8% Bodyfat. What does that mean to the lay-person? Well I guess it means .... six-pack, taut, toned, and all over body wicked muscle definition ... etc. etc. Dammit! I looked good (if I may say so myself!) ... and I damn well knew it!

So what happened afterwards (i.e. in the past 5 years) ??? Well, I got married, had kids, worked crazy hours till "silly O'Clock" and basically just let myself go.....ever so slightly .... I'm sure you've heard of this happening before - and it may have happened to you yourself! Having other responsibilities I just couldn't afford to be so 'selfish' as seemed necessary when I was on my personal quest to build the 'body-beautiful' for myself. Besides there were/are other rewards to be had in life - and I don't regret for a moment giving up my hard fitness/bodybuilding regime in order to have the wonderfully fulfilled life that I now have with my lovely wife and kids. It simply meant making sacrifices and giving up certain things for the things in life that I feel really mattered!

SO ..... ALONG COMES THE TOTAL GYM 1000 ...
In 2001 I was working many many hours to build a future for my wife and family and having realised a while before that I just didn't have the time to go to the gym after working a 12 hour day - I figured that I would need something effective enough to keep me in reasonable shape (even if not quite what I used to be!). At that time I must say that being in shape/keeping in shape was still not my primal objective. Bringing home 'the bacon' however was!!!

I saw the infomercial on TV and thought that it seemed like a well-presented and logically/obviously effective apparatus for training certain muscle groups - and given my gym background - watching Chuck Norris going through some very similar exercises to those I had done at the gym .... figured I could do a lot worse than invest in such an apparatus. So I parted with about £160 and approx £10 for carriage and reasoned that since I no longer was paying £40 a month for gym membership it might even pay for itself, given time!!!

WHAT THEN HAPPENED ...
Well, with work being as tough as it was up until the first quarter of 2004, I didn't use it that much so I cannot really give any testament at that point. But in mid-2004, as things financially/workwise had improved considerably, I decided to put some time aside to start working out again .... and this is where the story I guess really begins!!!

By this time I was 15 and a half stone, and while at least I 'carried it' well, I knew I had let myself go. My previously 33 inch waist was now more like 39 inches and I knew it was time to 'take care of business' in this part of my life.

So I decided to re-embark upon an exercise program. And the Total Gym 1000 was the equipment I had at my disposal to use!

HOW IT WORKS
The Total Gym 1000 is effectively gliding board that you either sit or lie on which can be attached to cables with pulleys and grip-handles that you pull to move your body up and down glide rails that the board slides upon. You are able to adjust the pitch of the angle that the board glides up and down at so that you can use anywhere from 4% of your bodyweight up to 50% of bodyweight. There is also a bar attachment at the other end (the lower end) of the rails that you can also use for pushing/pressing from.

THE UPPER BODY & MID-SECTION EXCERCISES I CAN DO ON IT
Behind the Neck Shoulder press
Military-Style Shoulder Press
'Upright-Rowing' Front Shoulder Exercise
Shoulder Lateral Flyes
Rear Shoulder Flyes
Chest Press
Chest Pullovers
Upwards Chest 'Crossover'
Biceps Curls
"Concentration" Single Biceps Curls
Triceps Pushdowns
Triceps Pulldowns
Iron-Cross Excercise (Like "Rings" excercises the gymnasts can do)
Pullups for Back/'Lats' Muscle Group
Back/Lats "Rowing" Excercise
Sit-Ups
Abdominal Raises

Infact there are a glut of other exercises that one can possibly also do with this machine - but the above exercises, I trust, give a good idea of just how versatile this machine can be!!

WHERE IT MIGHT NOT WORK QUITE SO WELL
For those who want to build muscle rather than just stay trim - you might find that the leg excercises are not quite so effective on this machine. For instance if my bodyweight was 13 Stone and I am only able to lift 50% of it doing a "Squat" Exercise for legs then 40KG resistance is not really going to give me a hard enough workout - especially given the fact that I used to train in the old days at the gym with 100KG (IN ADDITION TO MY 13 STONE BODYWEIGHT!!!). Same goes for the calf raise exercise.

The thing is that the legs tend to be a much stronger muscle group, compared to the upper body, and need much more weight resistance to stimulate muscle development. Think about it: an able bodied person uses the legs pretty much every day whether it's walking, running, climbing stairs etc. etc. Whereas unless you are doing hard physical manual labour with your upper body - you just are not going to be able to 'hit' the lower muscles quite so effectively with the same amount of bodyweight as you are with the upper body which probably does not get so much daily action as your lower body.

So it, at least for me, could not give me the lower body workout that I used to get in the gym.

If on the other hand you were looking at doing low-resistance 'keep-fit' exercise (rather than wanting to 'blast' your Quads, Hams and Calves!) then you may still find it gives you the lower body workout you might be looking for ... different strokes for different folks!

I must also add that, in my opinion, it is not as easy to just fold up, pick up, and put away in the cupboard, or under the bed, as the infomercial that I watched before I bought it might have appeared to suggest. I am fairly strong even without training and I myself found it somewhat cumbersome to fold up and pack away after use. For me, fortunately, I have just about enough space in my house to leave it free standing all the time - but I figure that some people may not have enough space around the house to allow for this like I do. Nevertheless It still takes up, in my mind, perhaps less space than if one had a full set of weights and bars etc (probably much heavier and more awkward and cumbersome to pack away every time a workout has finished) and of course a weights bench etc.

WHAT IT HAS DONE FOR ME SO FAR
Whilst I still have a way to go: a great deal of the shape, tone and muscle that I used to have has come back; and I'm able to get the same nice aches that I used to get after a good gym workout! I feel good. I look much better than I used to over the past 5 years. Everybody who has not seen me for 6 to 12 months has said "You look great", "You've got fitter again!" or "You're getting back in shape aren't you!?!!" So ... It works .... well certainly to that extent!!

VERDICT
I don't have to leave the house to go to the gym and I can get in shape once again - although I still have a few good months ahead of me before I get to 13 Stone - but at 14 Stone now I'm half way there!! The Total Gym 1000 allows me to work the muscles of my upper body and mid-section as hard as I want to work them - whilst being able to stay home and train (which, as a father, is vital for me!). Okay so it doesn't enable me to work my lower body as hard as I can work the upper body with it..... but that's why I now have a mountain bike, and ... given the hills around my house .... I get plenty of lower body exercise when I choose to not take the car - oh, and of course there's always the fact that cycling saves petrol and is an excellent opportunity to burn calories!

I have bought at least 3 other Fitness products from infomercials but the Total Gym is the one product that can actually do pretty much most of what I bought it for the purpose of serving - whereas the other products I have bought are either collecting dust, waiting for me to sell them or to give them away ... because I have had no real benefit from using them and they just didn't 'hit the spot' as effectively as the Total Gym 1000 both purported to and also actually managed to achieve for me in reality!

It has definitely paid for itself (and then some!) by now, given the gym fees I used to pay... and I consider it, at the very least, as a seriously good bit of upper body and mid-section training home gym apparatus for an able-bodied person!