If there’s one thing this world definitely doesn’t have a shortage of, it’s exercise equipment. So when we heard that there was a new home gym on the market, the Total Gym XLS, we were very skeptical. Is this home gym going to be like every other gym that’s sold at three in the morning on infomercials that does little more than gather dust in the corner of your bedroom? We were bound to find out. So we bought an XLS and we decided to give it a try. Here is what we discovered.

Toning of the Body

The Total XLS Gym promises to tone your body without needing a machine that takes up an entire room. And, in fact, the XLS is quite small as far as home gyms go. It’s only 90X19X43 inches and only weighs 83 pounds. But can the XLS live up to its promise that it can strengthen the major muscle groups in your body? How can something so small do all that? We jumped on the XLS to find out.

How it Works

When you lay down on the XLS, you are using your own bodyweight as resistance. This works by laying your body on a single glide board. Then, with a few attachments, you will be lifting a certain percentage of body weight against gravity. This is intended to create smooth and fluid resistance, which is unlike most fitness machines out there.

When we actually got on the XLS, we found that many of the exercises were surprisingly hard to do. Even exercises that we were sure were going to be easy turned out to be quite challenging. We found that the XLS doesn’t just work the upper body, but it works the lower body also. We even felt our abs working, and when we were done we had definitely worked up a sweat.

Supposedly, the XLS offers upgrades that previous models didn’t have. These include a new pulley, a cable system, squat stand and comfortable padding. The glide board can also support up to 400 lbs. so it can pretty much be used by anyone.

What We Discovered

When we first tried out the XLS, we were under the impression that we were not going to be convinced that this machine could provide better results that the other machines out there that are similar in nature. However, we found that many of the exercises were indeed hard to do. So, does it really work? Well, we would have to use the XLS for an extended period of time to really know for sure but we were impressed.

There are a ton of home gyms on the market and a lot of them aren’t worth your time or money. However, it does appear that XLS Total Gym is different than the others.

Tags: exercise, Home Gym, muscle building, total gym
Filed under: Fat Loss Products