The Range of Motion Machine

I said in my last post that I would tell you about the ROM machine. ROM stands for Range of Motion. This is the machine that claims to get you 30 – 45 minutes of cardio, 45 minutes of strength training and 15 minutes of stretching/calisthenics in 4 minutes. Yes, that’s right folks. FOUR MINUTES. I have to stay that I don’t know exactly how it works. But in seeing it and reading all the literature, Brian and I made the leap of faith to rent the machine for 30 days. This is not cheap… you have to really think you would want to buy it if you are going to rent it. 97% of the people who rent the machine, buy it.

We have been reluctant to tell people about it. Mostly because people think we’re crazy for believing this is possible and then to spend a lot of money on something that seems like snake oil… well, we felt that it might be best to keep it a secret. But it’s just too good to keep a secret. It’s really all about time. Brian and I are always looking for ways to buy back time. We pay to have our house cleaned. We pay to have someone clean our pool. We pay to have someone take care of our yard. Sometimes we do Dream Dinners to have someone make our meals for us. For years and years, I have spent about 1 ½ hours every weekday doing aerobics including drive time, getting dressed, doing the classed, showering and driving back. This equals about 7 ½ hours/week! The ROM machine allows me to buy back that time and to keep my exercising to 1 hour a week! I was contemplating going to a 32 hour work week which would be 1/5th of a pay cut. This extra time would be spent doing errands so I didn’t have to do them on the weekends. It’s been so nice to run errands during lunch and get things done that I normally wouldn’t get to do during the day.

The other thing about the ROM machine is that it makes the most efficient use of the time because it’s the perfect exercise. One day you do the front part of the machine and the next day you do the back half of the machine and then you alternate to give your muscles a rest. The front part of the machine exercises every muscle in your upper body including your abs. It’s like a rowing motion only the range of motion is much more exaggerated. In the process of using all the muscles and using the machine in a fluid motion, you get your cardio. The back part of the machine is like a stair stepper but again the range of motion is exaggerated. This has much more cardio benefits because you are using your biggest muscles. I have to pace the kitchen for 10 minutes afterwards to catch my breath.

So the question is: does it really work? We have had the machine for over three weeks now. If you are out of shape but not that much overweight, you are not able to judge your improvements by weight loss because of the muscle being built up in the process. I will say that my muffin top has decreased in size quite a bit although I still have a ways to go. I have more energy to play with my kids but I will say that I am very tired by 10 PM. My posture is better and my lower back hurts less. Overall I will say that I am very impressed with the machine and it allows us to put a huge priority on health for a very small time investment. My goal is to be healthy and fit for my kids for a long time and I have confidence that this machine will help me with that goal. How can you put a price on that?

Check out my later post to see how we like the ROM (it's awesome): http://kelsstinson.blogspot.com/2007/07/june-2007.html