EZ Gym - Suzzane Somers

I was up late one night recently doing some channel surfing when for some reason I stopped on HSN (Home Shopping Channel) and got sucked into watching the entire presentation for the EZ Gym by Suzzanne Somers.

(Me thinking to myself while I'm watching the new EZ Gym commercial) "Suzzane has a new home gym she's selling? What happened to the Thigh Master? Isn't she writing books on health and diet now? Oh well, I like Suzanne Somers (probably because of Three's Company when I was a kid) and I've got nothing better going on right now - I'm gonna watch this."

Besides the fact that watching the EZ Gym infomercial sounded entertaining, I thought it might be a viable option to my Bodylastics Gym I've been using for the past two years so I decided to settle in for the next 30 minutes to see if I could be swayed to whip out my credit card and order one.

EZ Gym Overview

The EZ Gym is, in it's simplest form, a resistance band gym with a clean simple design. The core of the gym is composed of (4) resistance bands with a high and low pulley point that affixes to a standard height door in your home, office or hotel room.

The design of the gym is clever. It's compact, easy to set up and takes no floor space (you will need open floor space in front of the gym to exercise though) and comes complete with the following pieces:

    * EZ Gym pulley system
    * Cardio belt
    * 2 ankle straps
    * 2 plastic handles
    * Wall poster with 70 exercises
    * 30-minute instructional DVD
    * Drawstring carry case with shoulder strap

That's a pretty complete package for the advertised price of $79.95. In fact, it sounds like the bargain of the century considering you can do over 70 exercises on this thing. They also said it's good for cardio, circuit training, weight loss, flexibility and muscle building.

"I need to get one of these", I think to myself as I search my pocket for my credit card and try to find the cordless phone. Before I can dial the phone I calm myself back down and decide to get out a piece of paper and pen to make a list of pros and cons before placing an order.

My EZ Gym Pros and Cons List…

Pros

• portable, good for travel and office
• small doesn’t take up floor space
• convenient to use
• low price compared to other home gyms
• comes complete with everything you need

Cons

• where do you get parts when bands wear out?
• twice as expensive as bodylastics
• 8 levels of limited resistance (only a red and blue resistance band)
• static height of pulleys limits ergonomics and function of exercises
• hard to do leg exercises on it because of low pulley height
• won't fit over taller doors
• must use on door, can't remove tubes and use for more exercises

When I was done writing my pros and cons list it became apparent that I was wise to keep my credit card in my pocket and not rush to purchase.

Like I said earlier, I already have the best compact and portable home gym for under $100 with the Bodylastics. It's half the price of the EZ Gym, it can attach to any door or be used anywhere else you choose, it has adjustable resistance levels up to 127 pounds per side and comes with a complete with every accessory you need, an instruction manual, DVD training video and free 1 year membership to Strengthband University.