Fuzzy Description And Rationale of $14K Machine

[David Sklansky]

There is an upper body and a leg section. Similar concepts but the upper body is more interesting and unique so I will describe only that. Except to say that you are supposed to do each part alternate days. Four minutes a day.

The supposed reason why four minutes is more than enough is both because it is continuous and because it taxes you, almost to the max during those whole four minutes. Contrast that to a half hour weight workout where the actual time spent lifting is also about four minutes. And many of those reps are fairly easy. Or contrast it to a two mile run where again the exertion is hard only the last few minutes.

They also repeat the well known claim that a muscular body in itself raises your metabolism and calorie use so the fact that the exercise itself doesn't use a lot of calories is irrelevant.

The engineering behind the machine results in a gizmo that supposedly pushes (or pulls) back with just about as much force as you are exerting. Regardless of your strength level. If you try to move significantly faster when you are pushing or pulling hard, you just can't do it. That was my experience. I don't know if the same would be true for much weaker or stronger people.

If the above is true, and you are exerting yourself, the net result should be gradually decreasing resistence for each repetition but an all out exertion for you. I don't know whether four full minutes of such type of exertion is indeed anywhere near as beneficial as they claim. That is why I posted the question about two spotters forcing you to eke out more and more reps while removing plates. I got no good answers. Mainly nitwits telling me to read more.

As to what the exercise actually is, suffice it to say that it is like a glorified Schwinn Airdyne Bike. But only the handles. When they are far back you are essentially doing a bench press. As they move forward and closer together its a ticeps extension. As you continue forward with your body it is sort of an abdominal machine. At that point you reverse direction. So it starts out as a lower back machine and turns into a rowing machine. With plams up there would be more of a curling aspect to it. Then you go forward again. Perhaps 40 or 50 repetitions of max exertion with no rest.

That's it. My guess would be that using such a machine is at least as good as doing one set of bench presses, squats, situps and bent over rows every day and running a mile the alternate day. Enough to put youself in better shape than 97% of the population. But what do I know.

[shemp]

Thanks for the description.

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That is why I posted the question about two spotters forcing you to eke out more and more reps while removing plates. I got no good answers. Mainly nitwits telling me to read more.

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You asked if such a method was better and I responded with the question: Better for what? It does matter. Because what you describe isn't done for strength. I'm not sure how that isn't a good answer. I suppose if I told you why it would be more complete...

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My guess would be that using such a machine is at least as good as doing one set of bench presses, squats, situps and bent over rows every day and running a mile the alternate day. Enough to put youself in better shape than 97% of the population. But what do I know.

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I don't know either. I suspect that is a pretty good guess. The decision to exercise pretty well dominates over the particular program one chooses.

[David Sklansky]

You weren't one of the nitwits.

[ALawPoker]

Gettin' buff, David?