Friday, May 19, 2006

Cool Gym Machine: The Functional Trainer


One of the two coolest machines at our gym is a functional trainer. (The picture to the left is of the exact same model we have, though ours is not bracketed by freakishly fit people, thank goodness.) I think it's called a "functional" trainer (as opposed to some other, less functional kind) because the movements are more natural and less constrained.

There are a ton of things you can do with this machine, which has two positional adjustments. First, the arms can move up and down to change the height of the thing you pull on - like, do you pull up, down, or do you want it about level so you can move it sideways? And second, the arm apparatus rotates (like a book opening and closing) to change how far apart the arms are.

We only did bicep and tricep exercises with this last night, but there are all kinds of exercises with instructions posted on the front (as you might be able to see in the picture) including things for working the muscles for various tennis swings and stuff like that. I definitely want to play with it more.

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