The Weider Total Body Works 5000 is marketed by Icon Health and Fitness, Inc. as a multipurpose gym that uses your own body weight to create the resistance for the exercises. The compact design and relative simplicity of the Total Body Works 5000 may make this machine capable of delivering a workout comparable to exercising with free weights.
Features
The Total Body Works 5000 has a workout footprint 26 1/2 inches wide by 49 1/2 inches tall by 71 inches long, and uses a gliding seat on rails as the driving force behind the more than 50 exercises you can accomplish. The incline of the gliding seat can be adjusted to add more resistance to your workout, and the entire machine folds up for easy storage. A similar workout with free weights would require you to purchase a bench press, squat rack, dumbbells, barbells and weight plates, which would take up significantly more room.
Exercising
When using the Total Body Works 5000 gym, you lie or sit on the gliding seat and pull on one of the exercise attachments to lift yourself up the rails, thus using your own body weight for resistance. Free weights can be used in many different ways with less limitation on your range of motion. Free weights provide more strength training benefits because this freedom of motion requires you to use the stabilizing muscles around the area you are working to keep proper form throughout the exercise.
Function
Weight machines and free weights can both be effective tools in helping you achieve your fitness goals, notes MayoClinic.com. While free weights simulate real-life lifting situations and can promote large muscle growth, a machine like the Total Body Works 5000 is geared toward helping you tone muscle and lose weight.
Considerations
The Weider Total Body Works 5000 is a smart choice for you if you want a multi-functional home gym at a low price, advises the Home Gym Adviser website. It is considered reliable, compact and capable of delivering a full-body workout. The site does note, however, that the Total Body gym workout is predominately designed for your upper body. If you want to improve your leg size and strength, free weights may be a better choice for you.
Expert Insight
The fitness center at Rice University states that free weights are the optimal choice for strength conditioning because you can simulate natural movements that target the muscles you want to work. Weight machines allow you less freedom, which in turn creates less of a chance for injury. This makes weight machines a good choice if you have not lifted weights before or at a risk for an injury.
Member Comments