As Seen on TV Exercise Equipment – Reviews of Gadgets That Work

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As Seen on TV Exercise Equipment: Separating Quality from Hype

Should you waste your time on items sold in those as seen on TV exercise equipment ads? Do they work or are they a pitch to separate you from your money?

You might be surprised by how good some of them are.

Separating the Good From the Bad

Not all of the as seen on TV home gym equipment is bad, in fact, many are well designed tools that do what they are intended to do.

One of the best is the Total Gym endorsed by Chuck Norris and Christie Brinkley. It’s a glideboard with a pulley system that uses your own bodyweight as the resistance. The Total Gym is well reviewed and loved by millions of owners, but nonetheless it seems to suffers from “guilt by association” with lesser quality exercise products that are advertised on TV in infomercials.

Another product is the Perfect Push Up. It looks like a gimmick yet users find it to be incredibly durable and effective in targeting the chest muscles. It has two rotating handles that you place on the floor and hold onto while you do pushups. If you do a pushup without it, you know the kind of strain that takes place in the wrists and forearms. The rotating grips twist naturally causing the larger muscles in the deltoids, triceps, pecs, and lats to do the work, not your wrists. Like the Total Gym mentioned above, the Perfect Pushup is one of the best TV products on the market today.

As Seen on TV Exercise Equipment

The Iron Gym bar is another decent buy that will work for most people. It’s a bar attachment that fits in (most) doorframes to do pull-ups, chin-ups, dips, and crunches. It’s inexpensive (about $25) but the only drawback is that it won’t fit over thick doorframes in older homes.

Lastly, the TRX Suspension Training is an excellent product used by pro athletes as well as the troops in Iraq and Afghanistan, and is currently the “hot” item among as seen on TV exercise equipment. It’s made of industrial strength soft nylon webbing tested at over 1500 pounds that easily attaches to a tree, ceiling mount, playground bar, or Abrams tank. The TRX is never ever going to break and it takes crunches, dips, chins, push-ups, and pull-ups to a whole new level. If you’re a fitness novice or a Navy Seal, the TRX — named “Best Total-Body Tool” by Men’s Health magazine — is a complete gym in a small portable bag.

As Seen on TV Home Gym Equipment

The “Don’ts” of TV Exercise Equipment

As for the rest of the as seen on TV home gym equipment, take a pass. A lot of the equipment is very simple – balls, exercise bands, hand weights – plus a workout DVD or possibly a book. Some are reasonably priced at $20 while other gadgets cost some serious money, $100 or more. Many of them are poorly made and most fall in the category of abdominal exercisers that don’t do much good, especially tools like the $79 Ab Rocker that is more hype than sweat. You can work the abs better by using bodyweight exercises, yoga, cable and home gyms, as well as with the excellent items mentioned above. If you like variety in your workouts, however, a $10 Ab Wheel won’t break the bank and does in fact target the abs with a good burn.

Recommended Buys

We strongly suggest you read the reviews by customers and stay away from gimmick gadgets that don’t offer resistance, seem to be flimsy, and are poorly designed. The good news is, there are a number of quality items in the as seen on TV exercise equipment list that you should not dismiss as junk. The TRX will kick your butt, the Total Gyms are first rate, and the Perfect Pushup is definitely not as easy as it looks.

Compact Home Gyms - Getting into Shape on a Budget

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