ROM machine

[haha]

To momentarily interrupt this charming new thread direction, I have a comment and a question about the supposed benefits of this machine. First, I reject the idea that very brief, very intense exercise will substitute for more prolonged workouts of moderate intensity. I don't mean that long moderate workouts are best for every purpose; Prof Tabata proved that if you can drive yourself hard enough for as little as 4 minutes 5 days/week, you get excellent anaerobic fitness and much enhanced VO2 also. Of course if you don't want to experience cardiac arrest you will need a little more time for warmup and warmdown. This sort of athletic fitness is basically impossible to achieve with only moderate exercise, even for a much longer duration.

But there are other dimensions to fitness, such as metabolic training, which I assume is most important to middle aged people who might have the money to buy one of these ROM machines. I have posted before about the research coming out of Duke, which seems to show that on the dimensions most important to health, you simply must put the time in.

My second point, which really is a question not just an opinion as was my first point, wouldn't the effort required to get the supposed benefits from this machine have to represent flat out, puke when you're done intensity? And wouldn't the average middle aged non-athlete be so turned off by the exertion required that s/he would not be able to put everything into it more than occasionally? At least for me, at this time in my life, it is easier to go out and walk 5,6,7 miles or to row on my C2 at a moderate pace for an hour or more than to contemplate running flat out for 4 minutes, or rowing flat out for 2000m. These very strenous exertions are aversive, and you do not really want to do it again the next day unless you are young and part of a team with a coach yelling at you and your teammates looking on to evaluate your performance, or in competition.

There is also the aspect of sudden death. I doubt many of us have lovely, lesion free arteries. To jump on this thing and go for broke might not be that great for our older and well used vessels

Ha

 

[ERD50]

There is also the aspect of sudden death. I doubt many of us have lovely, lesion free arteries. To jump on this thing and go for broke might not be that great for our older and well used vessels.

Maybe that is why they cost so much, to cover their liability insurance?

More seriously, the studies you mention are probably the basis for them making the claims they do about a 4 minute work out.

I had tried putting a few 'all out' bursts in to my exercise (semi-)routine (I'm not good at doing it regularly). Only a minute at a time for me though - 4 minutes probably would kill me. It did feel good, the variety helped make the work out more interesting, and I felt as if I got more out of it (but who knows?). But one of those bursts triggered my most recent series of back troubles, which resulted in essentially zero exercise for months. So yes, all out bursts just aren't in the cards for some of us.

-ERD50

 

[Amethyst]

I got a kick out of the advertising claims about the machine's beauty: that it was "designed by an artist," and will enhance the appearance of one's home!

Whereas, my first reaction on seeing the photo was, "Looks like a pair of bicycles that got run over by a freight train," and my second was "Looks like something hospitals might use to rehabilitate victims of terrible accidents."

I expect a certain amount of chutzpah from advertisers, but when they go as far as they did with the ROM, I start to wonder if all the other claims about it are equally funny.

Amethyst

 

[Midpack]

There is also the aspect of sudden death. I doubt many of us have lovely, lesion free arteries. To jump on this thing and go for broke might not be that great for our older and well used vessels

Ha

This is reportedly the warning label that is on the ROM...nice.

This exercise machine is extremely dangerous. Any form of exercise can cause injury or death. Before doing anything in life, including exercise, consult your lawyer first, then your doctor and after that use normal human intelligence, or for better results reverse this order. Deny access to the machine to small children and incompetent adults. Keep the machine under lock and key and use a bicycle lock to lock the flywheel whenever the machine is not in active use. Normal stepladders cause much injury and some deaths, the ROM machine is more dangerous than a stepladder.

Our Bowflex, LifeFitness Treadmill and WaterRower don't have labels like this...

 

[eytonxav]

I currently do none of these short burst high intensity type exercises, but am curious about trying to incorporate such exercises into my workouts on a consistant basis. Maybe a series of 100 yd sprints, running uphill or pushing a sled would do it. Has anyone tried any of these or been successful at incorporating into your workouts for a prolonged period of time? Also, wonder if its best to do these on off days or on the same days you normally workout?

 

[TromboneAl]

I currently do none of these short burst high intensity type exercises, but am curious about trying to incorporate such exercises into my workouts on a consistant basis. Maybe a series of 100 yd sprints, running uphill or pushing a sled would do it. Has anyone tried any of these or been successful at incorporating into your workouts for a prolonged period of time? Also, wonder if its best to do these on off days or on the same days you normally workout?

The way I do it is simple. On the bike, I'll say, "OK I'm going to do an all-out sprint until that sign" or "to the top of that hill." I try to do that a few times on a ride. Same thing with running. So, on a 40 mile ride, I might do 4-5 of these. As others mentioned, I don't want to do them, but I feel really good afterwards.

 

[haha]

The way I do it is simple. On the bike, I'll say, "OK I'm going to do an all-out sprint until that sign" or "to the top of that hill." I try to do that a few times on a ride. Same thing with running. So, on a 40 mile ride, I might do 4-5 of these. As others mentioned, I don't want to do them, but I feel really good afterwards.

I do too- on a modest basis that is what walking around in my hilly surroundings is. Walking up steep hills is much more taxing than flatland cruising, and i am almost always sweating even in mid-winter coming up a good sized hill. In a more orgnized and intense way in my rowing I make use of the crew training tactic called power 10. Depending on how hard I want to be on myself, I might do one, then count 10 recovery strokes, then do another, etc. But it turns me into a pool of sweat so I am not likely to go on for the 10K that I like to do to get my daily calories spent.

Incidentally, I was telling my new doctor about this and my record keeping yesterday and she said, "You know Mr. Ha, you may have a touch of OCD".

I keep more records all the time-Excel is my life mentor. I read that if you can keep a (good) habit going for 30 days. you likely can keep it afterward without much back-sliding. I looked at some of the evidence, and it looks good to me. I have previously been kind of helter-skelter, but over a few years I have added a number of really helpful habits to the things that I just don't feel very good if I miss- so I really try not to miss them.

It's just like saving money, regularity counts, and after a while you have inertia (momentum) pushing you to keep up. I remember maybe four months ago posting that I had been spending ca 414 kc per, day, 7days a week. Then during negotiationing for and moving into my new place, I fell off to around 400kc. I am trying to get back at least to 414, but the big and steadily increasing divisor is a weight to push around. So I also made 2 other averages to help me, this time 7 day and 30 day moving averages. I figure if I always keep the 7 day above the 30, and the 30 above my overall average, I will over time pull up the grand average. It is starting to work.

It is in some ways similar to life and aging. As time goes on and you accumulate more and more history, that history more and more determines you present possibilities.

Ha

 

[eytonxav]

The way I do it is simple. On the bike, I'll say, "OK I'm going to do an all-out sprint until that sign" or "to the top of that hill." I try to do that a few times on a ride. Same thing with running. So, on a 40 mile ride, I might do 4-5 of these. As others mentioned, I don't want to do them, but I feel really good afterwards.

My weight lifting is 3X/week and I was contemplating adding 3 mi walks on the off days to help get rid of a few lbs. I can probably add some sprints to the walks as well, but this may make me look like a real loony bird if people see a 60 something bursting into a sprint, although at my age I shouldn't care what others think

I do too- on a modest basis that is what walking around in my hilly surroundings is. Walking up steep hills is much more taxing than flatland cruising, and i am almost always sweating even in mid-winter coming up a good sized hill.

Incidentally, I was telling my new doctor about this and my record keeping yesterday and she said, "You know Mr. Ha, you may have a touch of OCD".

I keep more records all the time-Excel is my life mentor. I read that if you can keep a (good) habit going for 30 days. you likely can keep it afterward without much back-sliding.
Ha

In my locale we only have sloops, no real hills, but I can see where that could be very effective out in Seattle.

Ha, that 30 day habit makes sense to me, as does the record keeping. I don't see that as OCD at all.

 

[ripper1]

The way I do it is simple. On the bike, I'll say, "OK I'm going to do an all-out sprint until that sign" or "to the top of that hill." I try to do that a few times on a ride. Same thing with running. So, on a 40 mile ride, I might do 4-5 of these. As others mentioned, I don't want to do them, but I feel really good afterwards.

My 20 minute treadmill exercise consists of four 5 minute circuits done together. Starting at 5 mph for 2 minutes. For example.....5,5,6,7,8 x 4. Really gets the heart rate up there at 8 but brings it back down again at 5.

 

[TromboneAl]

Incidentally, I was telling my new doctor about this and my record keeping yesterday and she said, "You know Mr. Ha, you may have a touch of OCD".

Yes, if you are careful about measuring things, and you do it right, people will think you are loopy.

 

[Amethyst]

Did you ask the doctor if that was a good or bad thing?

Sure, you could be a little obsessive, but it seems to be helping you survive and thrive, not making you and everyone around you unhappy (like "real" OCD would do).

I have a friend who was diagnosed with adult ADD, and she makes me wish I had a little of her "disorder." Yes, she is easily distracted, but she is also the best darn "multitasker" I've ever met.

Incidentally, I have been keeping more and more records lately, too.

Amethyst

I
Incidentally, I was telling my new doctor about this and my record keeping yesterday and she said, "You know Mr. Ha, you may have a touch of OCD".

 

[haha]

Did you ask the doctor if that was a good or bad thing?

No, I just said -you should meet some of my online friends! The funny thing is that for much of my life I kept track of almost nothing. I'm the kid who called his 5th grade pal at 8pm and said, "What's the homework for tomorrow?" In the early 80s I had investments in a post bankruptcy re-org workout. I so lost track of the payments that the first I knew that I was owed money was when some guy who wanted a cut called me and said you have money that had been turned over to a state. I told him I'd think about his deal, but within one day (remember, this is before I knew anything about the internet) I had found my money, and also the very pleasant information that it was $29,000! This started my investment record keeping, then maybe a few years later I was tired of having no clue where all our household money went (IOW, why do we never have any household money when we really don't spend much?...Boy, was that idea wrong!) This pushed me to start keeping careful spending records

This helped my life tremendously. And in the mid-90s I started keeping exercise records.

I guy who knows a good deal about records is Roy Baumeister, a social psychologist at University of Florida. He says that if you want to lose bad habits, and start more good ones, you need to track what you are doing and how you are doing it and how well it is working. And the 30 day idea- make one change at a time, track it, and hang on for 30 days and you will be well on your way to having a new (good) habit. I really cannot overemphasize how de-stressing this has been for me.

But in these things, I fully bow to Al, one of the best trackers I have run accross.

 

[TromboneAl]

No, I just said -you should meet some of my online friends!

LOL here. Glad to help by allowing you say "I'm not so bad, look at that guy."

Someone here (w2r?) enabled me when she said "what you measure, you treasure."

 

[Amethyst]

At work we say "What gets examined, gets done."

Part of my job entails running weekly program status reviews. The program leads always start out by moaning and groaning about how they have far too much work to do, let alone have to put together a presentation about it. Then they discover that the status review allows them to brag about what's going well, and explain/get help with the issues that are keeping them from hitting their milestones. Next thing you know, they are asking when their next status review is scheduled so they can get ready for it.

Amethyst

Someone here (w2r?) enabled me when she said "what you measure, you treasure."

 

[Nords]

Yes, if you are careful about measuring things, and you do it right, people will think you are loopy.

Someone here (w2r?) enabled me when she said "what you measure, you treasure."

At work we say "What gets examined, gets done."

When my father ended up in the hospital a year ago, I went through his two file drawers looking for the records we'd need to run his finances.

I'd say that for every page of useful data I found ~50 pages of spreadsheets tracking his investments back to the 1980s. His "progress" over that 30-year period was so-so for individual stocks (much like my experience) and his mutual funds had generally moved from the 1980s 2-3% expense ratios to today's funds of 0.8-1.1%.

In other words I found a lot of analysis, but not so much results or conclusions.

I guess my personal conclusion is that if you're gonna spreadsheet, then just print out the latest one and trash the old ones. That way you'll maximize your personal benefit (whatever that may be) without leaving behind a treasure hunt.

 

[RetireBy90]

It's a great piece of gear. You can hang up to a dozen sweaters over its various rails and bars, more than any other exercise machine. Compare that with the three or four sweater capacity of a typical stationary bike.

Yea, but how many cup holders