Total Gym 1900

The Total Gym isn't right for everyone. If your a fitness enthusiast or already incredibly fit, you're not going to get much value out of a Total Gym. It maxes out at about 45% of your body weight and this particular model doesn't allow more weight to be added. If CrossFit sounds like a good time to you, don't buy this. You're gonna have a bad time. For nearly everyone else, however, this is a surprisingly effective way to get in or stay in shape. It's also pretty small when folded up (about the size of a folded up ironing board, just a bit thicker), so you don't have to dedicate an entire room of your house to fitness. The exercises are low impact and I feel energized rather than beaten down when I'm done. I find myself wanting to go back and do another set after my workout is done, which really is the highest praise a fat boy like me could give to a piece of exercise equipment. It says it's fully assembled, and that is not quite true. The attachment for the abs workout does require some assembly, and all of the individual accessories have to be put on and taken off when you want to use them. It's a chore to get this monster out of the box, too. It weighs about 60 pounds and things don't come out easily. There is a lot of packaging that needs to be removed. Once it's out of the box, though, you just unfold it, pull the black knob and raise the tower up, then pull the red knob to adjust your resistance and put the safety pin in and you're ready to go. You can do nearly every exercise without assembly. Only the abs workout (which is great) requires the pads to be attached to the handles. The build quality is alright. It's not fantastic. There are a few stitches on the glideboard that have come out and the bearings on the glideboard feel a little crunch (though people of normal weight might not experience the same thing). The Pilates bar, which doubles as a squat pad has some soft foam around it which I doubt will hold up. I expect I'll be replacing that before anything else wears out. That said, this company has been around since the 70's for a reason. They didn't skimp on materials and I don't feel like I'm going to break it and I'm very nearly 300lbs. It is very solid, doesn't rock or creak when I'm using it.

So I have only had this product for two days So I can’t speak on its longevity. But I will say this. I’ve been using a Smith cage for about three years. Due to certain circumstances I had to move and there is literally nowhere for me to put it in my house so I set it up in my garage but where I live it is far too cold to use. I decided on the total gym to use during the winter months inside my house. I was very skeptical of the work out it would give me. But after only using it for two days I am completely shocked!!! Personally I think being skeptical Is really a marketing flaw on total gems part. A bunch of infomercials with 50-year-old plus people sitting at a board that slides back-and-forth. But after using it I realize the infomercials are just to show that this is also great for older people. There is limitless exercises, I am sore in areas I have never been, and I work out five days a week. I expect this machine to literally build muscle and tone muscle far better than my smith machine using weight. I am 6 foot 5” and weigh 220 pounds. So far there is only one exercise where I am unable to extend the cables fully and that is the incline bench. Just a couple inches short. But the machine is extremely long and it’s really not their fault. I just have extremely long arms and I am very tall. Other than that, I expect this to last for years. I only wish I would have purchased one sooner. And regardless of what others say this is ready to use right out of the box. You just need to learn how to use the attachments. Took about 10 minutes. There’s nothing you need to put together Other than screwing in two small pads to one of the attachments. That’s it! Five stars across-the-board.

I bought the Total Gym in the hope having something right at home would enable me to exercise more often; it has certainly delivered what I hoped. Once I tried the many different exercises described in the owners manual I settled on a set that provide excellent upper body workouts one day and good leg workouts on another. One of the best things about the total gym is the ability of do all exercises at really low levels if needed to get started, and then increase gradually to quite high efforts as desired. The only drawback is that folding and storing is not nearly as easy as shown in TV ads, the unit is quite awkward to put away; however it does fold up as described.

The unit was better constructed and had more accessories than I had expected for the price, e.g. it included the ab crunch which is quite expensive if purchased separately. It has a complete Pilates set up and several harnesses and pulleys for leg exercises. It is a bit clunky to set up, doesn't roll easily and would not fit under an average queen sized bed (regardless of what the TV ads say), so it's better if you have a place to set it up permanently. The included DVDs are good, the beginning DVD was too basic for me, but had good clear explanations and is probably excellent for someone just starting. The slightly more advanced DVD with Rosalie Brown has a good all around workout, although she needs to learn to speak English, e.g. used "affective" when she meant "effective", and had she said "AWESOME" one more time I would have thrown something at the screen. The triceps attachments were included but I found them a bit narrow for my shoulders, which tended to rub them as I used the platform. You can purchase wider ones inexpensively, if you shop around. At least two more hitch pins are needed to be completely set up for the Rosalie DVD, but can be purchased from Total Gym. Overall I'm finding it fun to use and well worth the price.

I cannot overemphasize how happy I am to have this machine in my home. It does everything for you that they say it's going to do. At the end of just one workout on this thing, I could already feel the effects. While my preferred method of exercise is still swimming, I can't always get to the pool when I like, so knowing I have this at home waiting for me is an absolute godsend. I look forward to getting the most out of it. ^_^