Weider Total Body Works 5000 Review

I have heard of the TotalGym before, but something that costs $400 and up was not something I was interested in at all.  What if you paid all that and didn't like it?  However when I got a gift certificate to Brookstone, I came across the Weider Total Body Works 5000* at a price of only $180, I had to try it out.  Various people told me that Weider was a trustworthy brand name so I didn't hesitate to purchase.

How it Works
The purpose of the Weider Total Body Works is to use your own weight as resistance to build your own muscles.  As you can see in the picture, the machine is on a slight incline with a padded area to lay on.  You then grab on to the pulley handles, or use the foot plate, or the padded handles at the top, and you can do over 100 exercises!  In addition, once you start to get stronger, you can increase the incline to allow gravity to play a part.  Finally, this machine comes with 4 easy to use cables that you can snap into place to add up to 50 lbs of extra resistance.

The Good
This machine is great!  Within 10-15 minutes of doing some of these exercises, my muscles feel the burn and I'm even sweating.  The good news is, I'm not breathing hard or anything like that!  It almost feels like I'm sleeping my way through these exercises and yet getting a good workout.

I love the variety of workouts as well.  Without even looking out any workout guides, I was thinking of a bunch of ideas by basically taking something I normally do standing up and seeing if I can do it on the machine.  For example: Pliés, Sit ups, etc.  Once I really examined all the workouts that can be done on this machine, I realized I could have figured a lot of them out on my own eventually.  It's still nice to have a workout guide, however, as there are many exercises I would have never thought of.

The machine is large enough to accommodate different heights.  I'm 5'4", my husband is 6'2", yet we both fit well on the machine.  I just have to sit on different spots of the seat than he does.  It also works well for various weights because the weight you are lifting when using this machine is obviously directly related to how much you weigh.  This is better than a machine that only offers certain weight choices because each person will be getting the ultimate workout using their own weight.

You will probably never grow out of this machine due to the variety of workouts you can do.  Plus, if it starts to get easy for you, you can add resistance or increase the incline more and more to continue to build your muscles.

The Semi-Bad
You do have to put it together yourself, which wasn't hard for my husband, but did take some time and could be hard for those who aren't great at it.  The instructions are more just big pictures showing you what to do, so make sure you have someone knowledgeable around.

The machine's box claims "over 100 exercises" but they only provided a pamphlet that had about 25 exercises on it.  I solved this problem by looking up the TotalGym and finding their workout guide.  Their machine is almost exactly the same as the Weider, so all 122 exercises I found can also be done on my machine.  If you want a printable workout guide, see the link in the comments below.  I went ahead and put it together so it will print nicely and can be kept by the machine.

The final thing that may be considered bad is that it does take some learning to do these exercises.  It's different then just lifting weights or doing squats on the floor.  Just take it slow with each new workout that you try and you will learn.  Once you learn them, it becomes so intuitive that you don't even need to look at the guide much anymore.

The End
The bad things aren't even that bad making this a great purchase.  I'm already feeling stronger after only a short time of use.  The machine seems very durable and I'm finding it easy to go use it for just 10-15 minutes a day.  Forget the TotalGym, and forget going to the Gym, just buy this and get your full workout at home!  Enjoy!!

*It's actually called Weider Ultimate Workout on the Brookstone site but comes with the name of Total Body Works 5000