Who Dares Wins

Have you heard of a ROM machine? Probably not.

They have being manufactured in good old California since 1990 and boast that all you need to do is a 4 minute program every other day. In fact it is really 8 minutes… 4 minutes for the upper body and 4 minutes for the lower body. For the whole 4 minute duration one engages up to 72% of ones muscle tissue thereby burning off an incredible number of calories, approximately 300. To put it in comparison, when I run I can burn off anything from 500 to 1000 dependent on the duration 30-60 minutes and heart rate.

I was so intrigued by these devices that I decided to sign up for a 3 month program at 75E per month at FastFit in Amsterdam. The first two weeks are free and if I don’t like it I can bail out of the program. Let’s find out.

Whilst these machines may seem very expensive at $14,000 the main attraction of course is the amount of time spent exercising compared to traditional methods. In other words one would be more inclined to actually do the 2×4 minutes than a 1 to 2 hour gym session.

Anyway, I will update this post when I have some results after 3 months. BTW – this will compliment my other fitness programs of Yoga at Unlimited Health, gym sessions at Fit4Less, occasional outdoor swimming when the weather is good and an almost daily run around the marina’s and habours of Amsterdam.

UPDATE.

After 2 weeks I have decided to not continue with the ROM for the following reasons:

1. The benefits of the 8 minute (2×4) workout are outweighed by the time it takes to travel to and from FastFit compared to visiting my local gym.
2. Having visited every other day I have only seen minor benefits mainly around muscles in my shoulders and pecks.
3. Whilst the ROM boasts that it uses 70% of your muscle tissue I find some muscle groups not exercised especially around the stomach areas. This could be due to learning the technique but I have done my best to follow the advice of the instructors.
4. No pain no gain. Yes, I have felt absolutely no pain either during or after exercising with this machine. Maybe it is just my expectation that if one doesn’t feel anything then it can’t be doing much.
5. FastFit offers InfraRed sauna’s and Shiatsu massage seats. Whilst these are nice to use, I found the massage seat a gimmick more than the real thing. It did relax me. I found the pressure points a little muffled compared to having someone give you an actual massage.
6. With an increase in weight my BMI has gone up not down.
7. I have being using the ROM as a supplement rather than the only form of exercise. Although the marketing would have you believe that with a massage, infra red sauna and ROM workout one can loose up to 800Kcalories I can’t really believe. Going running for 45 minutes to hour will easily burn this off in the fresh air.

So my conclusion is that while a 2x 4 minute workout will be good for some people that do generally no exercise, for me I prefer a longer and more rigorous workout. Further, I still find the price, $14,000 to buy such a machine outrageous compared to buying a combination of treadmill, stepper, free weights and still having a lot of change to do other things.