Hey ladies, I wonder if we can start a thread to review or recommend home exercise machines, as you know whenever we buy one its always a hit or miss.

It would be good if some of you write about machines they used, difficulty level, and how often they used it, is it realistic, does it deliver results or or just infomartial BS?

I will start, I used this abs swing machine for the last few years its not this model, but the same principal : http://www.amazon.co.uk/Pro-Fitness...16247975&sr=8-4

It requires no effort at all, I have it next to the armchair in my TV room, so can do it while watching TV and not notice am doing it, if I do it daily for 15 minutes for about a week, I start noticing my abs getting defined, not 6 abs, but I can clearly see the upper two abs, and the two vertical lines, which is great, my waist gets really small after 2 or 3 weeks of doing it, so I can recommend it and give it 5 out 5 for abs

Summary
1- easy to use, no effort no pain (well the seat can be a bit hard on the butt the first time you use it, same as when you use a bike seat for the first time)
3- Quick results I notice a difference within a week.
4- can be folded and stored behind/under the sofa (but I prefer to keep it out so I remember to do it)
5- Because it requires no effort, I feel fine using it everyday, even if I had a tough day at work, I don't feel I really need to motivate or kick myself to get on it.


Now I am looking for a leg/thigh simple home toner, I know there are so many on the market, I read so many reviews.

Please post your reviews

Excellent idea, TigerLily! It can sometimes be a gamble buying equipment. I've bought things in the past that have just ended up being expensive clothes horses!!

I don't currently own any equipment apart from a few dumbells that are far too light for me but I'm looking to buy a power cage at some point in the not too distant future, which will set me back several thousand pounds so I don't want to end up with a dud there!!

Hmm, have dumbells, am not motivated to use them some how no idea why, also I am not motivated to do squats, etc. I've learnt now just to do the exercises I really do naturally without forcing or even thinking I am doing exercise

But I know a lot of people love dumbells and do weights naturally and love every moment

But hmmm a grands maybe too much, why not try it somewhere else and see if you like it first?

I use the cage at the gym already but eventually I'd like to get one at home when I have the space to do so. I imagine that the home versions aren't quite as scaffoldy as the gym versions though.

That's cool Oblong, hope someone here already have one and can give you information and tips

I have a Precor treadmill. Great piece of equipment. If I had known more, and worked out at a gym for a while, I would have bought an elyptical instead. It takes up less floor space, burns twice the calories, and is easier on the knees. For a treadmill though, Precor is the best to buy.

I also own a Golds Home Gym. Great set up. I bought it used at a sports equipment store for 400.00. It had all the optional handle bars, ropes, and chains also. At one time I had this in the middle of my living room and would not let myself watch TV unless I lifted weights on it.

I have hand weights, but never get around to using those.

I also have a gym membership to 24 Hour Sport. I got the membership (even though I have more than enoughs stuff at home) because it is a 1.5 hour commute home durring rush hour traffic. I might as well go to the gym, work out, take a shower and then drive home - saving 30 minutes on my commute.

I have a bunch of exercise videos also. The only time I get to use these is when I am unemployed....

Thanks bonechew, am not actually sure cross trainers/ellipticals do burn more calories, I know in the screen display they say they do burn more calories, but I always noticed I lose weight fastest if I did some jog/run routine, the other machines are not as effective as the treadmill.

I got a thigh glider, and I am finding it quite hard, will keep trying it and see how it goes, I will report here.

I am regretting not just going for the treadmill, was even thinking of getting the wii fit, but now I think will wait a bit and just get me a treadmill. Will check Precor, thanks for the tip

I always liked the riders, the ones where you lifted your own body weight. They are nice and quiet, too.

Werebear, do you have a link? Never heard of them.

bonechew, reviewed Precor treadmill prices, wowza.... even a refurbished one is so expensive, but I guess it would be worth it if I one commits and does a jog/run daily.

http://www.healthrider.com/riders/healthrider.html

They have been around since Covert Bailey (now retired)

http://rondagates.site.aplus.net/covert/index.html

But I always liked the quiet, the weight resistance, and the low impact. Now, my favorite was something they don't push much any more, the mountain climbing machine!

http://www.versaclimber.com/

I've got a hip problem that makes walking problematic, but it is coming around and I would like to be more active, myself. But there is NO ROOM for such a machine in my apartment.

Yea, they are pricey. I paid about 2,000 for mine. I looked at all of them, read reviews for days, and my sister has one. Hers is 20 yrs old, and still going strong. I see Precor at my gym also.

I didn't want to buy one and then have to have it repaired every 3 years.

I bought mine new, which I will never do again. There is so much equipment out there for sale. I almost bought a BowFlex for pennies on the dollar for what they sell for brand new. I bet you could find a Precor used for pretty cheap.

Yes Bone, I think I really would make a lot of use of a treadmill, I will wait for a bit before I spend this amount. Thing is gym membership would be so much cheaper, the problem is I am not motivated to go to the gym at awkward times, or when am feeling blah (i.e. don't want to make the effort to make myself look presentable lol) and not wanting others to see me, I wouldn't want to go out.

Anyway, I will keep an eye, I think you are right, getting a good machine would make all the difference.

Thanks for bringing that up - it jogged my memory. The biggest reason I bought the Precor was the feel of it as I walked/ran on it. It was really smooth and quite. I hate it when a machine struggles and is loud when I'm on it. It kills a great work out for me.

If a machine at the gym gets a funny sound/feel to it, I won't use it.

We had a Horizon treadmill that my husband used quite a bit. But every time I'd try to use the thing, I'd have to hold on to the handrails because I felt like I was going to fall off. And every second seemed to last minutes. My feet hurt and my hips were in agony. Needless to say, I didn't use it much; probably less than 3 hours total in the years we had it, and that's a generous estimate.

I had looked at ellipticals when we were thinking about getting the treadmill, but my husband preferred the treadmill, so we got that instead. This was about 5 years ago.

Last year, when I finally got serious and lost 60-odd pounds through dieting, I started looking at ellipticals again. This time my husband was more receptive of the idea. We gave the treadmill to charity and got a Life Fitness X5. We chose that model rather than the X1 or X3 because it has adjustable stride length. I've got long legs & a short-ish torso, so even a 20" stride feels uncomfortably short to me. He prefers a shorter stride as he usually works out at a higher speed than I do.

I can't praise this machine enough. It is solid, heavy, and extremely well-built. I love the smooth motion, and I have never felt off-balance. Whereas doing even 10 minutes on the treadmill was agony and a fight for every second, I've comfortably spent over an hour on the elliptical several times. Once I did 2+ hours (albeit at the low end of my target heartrate, but I was constantly moving) during a particularly gossipy phone call with my sister. My ear and arm got tired. The rest of me was fine.

I usually try for about a 30-45 minute workout at around 85% target hear rate. I've noticed a huge difference in muscle tone (and weight) since we got it in June 2011.

One downside has been what I understand to be a common complaint with ellipticals, which is toe numbness (lots on Google about it). It's definitely not specific to this machine. It was worst when we first began using the machine, with improvement after a couple of weeks of use. I still have occasional numbness, but only in one foot, which has some long-term arch and metatarsal problems going on anyway, so I don't think it's the machine. My cousin has a different machine (Yowza Elliptical) with articulating footpads, and she mentioned some initial numbness as well. (FWIW, if we could have gotten the Yowzas in the UK, we'd probably have gone with it instead, but we'd already got the X5 before she told me about hers.)

I do have one minor complaint specific to the X5: the Advanced Console. We paid an extra £200 for it so we could each store our profile and have heart rate monitoring. It does the job and I like the heart rate monitor support, but for the money, I would have expected it to have a much better user interface. Most annoying thing about it is when you're adjusting numbers up or down, say for calorie targets. It's done by keypress, and you have a choice of pressing the key once to increment the calorie count by one, or holding it down to do a rapid count. But the fast count is far too fast, and it's very difficult to stop the counter where you want it. Say I want to do 500 calories as a target. If I hold down the key for a split-second too long, the target goes up to 1400 or 1500. It's such a pain to get the count down to where it should be that sometimes I leave it at 1500 or 1900 or wherever it stopped and just do mental subtraction after the workout. Not ideal for that kind of money. But the Advanced Console is optional. The machine comes with a Basic Console at no extra charge. I don't think it has the heart rate monitor support, though, and it doesn't have profile storage.

Having said all the above, I want to make it clear that I *love* this machine. I think I'd be about 20 pounds heavier without it, and I've lost a LOT of inches with it. I can wear my "test" jeans; the ones that had the tags still on them for 5 years because they were too small when I got them in the first place! Tried 'em on just before I started using the elliptical and there was about a 4-inch gap between the button and the button-hole at the waist. Now they're too big in the butt and loose around the thighs.

But the biggest difference I've noticed has been that other people have noticed. Even though I'd lost 60ish pounds before we got the machine, no one had really seemed to notice, or at least I hadn't received that many comments. Within a month of getting the machine, though, I started hearing lots of "you've lost a lot of weight, haven't you??" comments. That's a good feeling!