If there’s one thing that “As Seen On TV” products do well, its overhype and under-deliver. I mean it’s become a running joke in our generation that late night infomercials can be death to your wallet, and that’s what gets me. People still buy that shit in truck loads! So when I was asked to try Knockout Abs directly from the inventor, I was like “meh”. Also, I didn’t want to ruin his hopes and dreams since A) I’m very much into combat sports so if a product is being marketed towards fighters, it better live up to the hype or I’ll crush it with the might of my pen and B) I know how to get abs – and the secret isn’t in using ab machines.

Still, somehow he convinced me and I decided, why the hell not. Plus, pre-judging something isn’t my thing. At least, not usually. Below is the official description of Knockout Abs

Product Name: Knockout Abs
MSRP: $60
Availability: High

Straight From The Horse’s Mouth

KnockOut Abs(R) is the all new boxing ab workout machine with mma inspired moves that will rock your core and challenge every muscle in your body. Lose weight fast, sculpt your abs and obliques with this amazing as seen on tv ab machine complete with DVD.

The Backstory

[Note: If you’re just interested in the review itself, skip this section. But if you want to know how late night info marketing companies fuck shit up, read on]

I want to get into WHY I decided to give this thing a try – I mean all my friends were like “dude, an ‘As Seen On Tv’ product? You know that’s gona be shit, why bother?” And true enough, when I did a little research on Knockout Abs I laughed my ass off at it’s commercials. You have these bimbos and douchebags who clearly know nothing about boxing, hopelessly trying to punch a speedbag, but failing miserably. I’ve seen better timing in drunken bar fights.

So out of curiosity, I decided to dig a little deeper and as it turns out, the communication between the inventor (who shall not be named, for obvious reasons) and the marketing execs was non-existent.

The basic story goes like this: Man invents product over a decade ago and gets rejected for reasons that weren’t popular at the time (mma was non-existent and men in general weren’t buying shit off tv). Fair enough. Then, after a bunch of waiting, he notices the rise in combat sports and intelligently decides that ‘now is the time’ to get this product out there. He patents the thing (which is an expensive process) and get’s some sort of deal from a big-time marketing company. The detail of the deal is probably similar to something you see on Dragon’s Den but I didn’t dig too deep, so I don’t know who owned what percent of the company.

For half a year, inventor is left clueless about the product he came up with and then suddenly gets the call that they are shooting the infomercial. The investment made into shooting this infomercial was ridiculous from what he told me and from what I gathered personally, all the cash was spent in the WRONG areas. Instead of finding people who knew how to use a speedbag, they created an expensive set and hired a bunch of monkeys and hot chicks that looked good on camera – playing it safe by executing marketing 101.

Inventor realizes that he created the product for a different market (serious fighters and athletes) and that the infomercial is marketing this to every Joe Blow in America. But once so much money has been spent on shooting, a re-shoot is not possible. After the dust settles, the product (surprisingly) doesn’t do as well as intended and is stuck in a weird position. To people who train in combat sports, it looks like a fucking joke. To general North Americans, it looks like “another scam tv product”. So what to do? Inventor takes it upon himself to prove it’s the real deal and urges me to try it out.

Quite the story isn’t it? I still don’t understand why marketing guys think that throwing money on shit will instantly make it a success. All they had to do was make sure the guy who MADE the damn product was involved in the marketing process, but they didn’t. That’s like the marketing department of BMW selling the M3 (a sports car) as a comfortable, family saloon. It doesn’t matter how much money is thrown into marketing, if the message goes out to the audience, it won’t sell. Period.

So after hearing about this, I wanted to see if Knockout Abs really did get a bad rep or not. Don’t get me wrong, it’s not that I have any sympathy for the product, it’s inventor (who is a nice dude btw) or the marketing company. This is business and business is harsh, there’s no way around that. But it made for an interesting backstory. So, on with the actual review.

First Impressions

In the box you get the Knockout Abs system and a DVD. Now I was told by the inventor that the DVD was made by the marketing douches we talked about earlier and as such, he said he did not back the workouts listed. Therefore, I’ve decided to leave the DVD out of the review. I mean, it’s nice that it’s there but he’s working on making a new one. So on to the hardware itself.

My overall impression is that the construction is pretty sturdy. It’s mostly metal and rubber with very few plastics (thank god). It’s a bit on the hefty side but folds down nicely and can be tucked away under the bed or table. With the system, you get these two resistance bands which attach to the bottom of the seat. Oh and the seat itself is extremely comfortable and has a decent finish.

The anchor points are height adjustable and the speedbag is, I’m glad to say, a high quality piece of equipment. It can be detached so you can do similar drills that fighters use when swinging a medicine ball against a wall (See pics below).

Real World Results

The obvious question is, does it work? Well duh. And it works because it’s simple and builds upon a concept that is tried and true – bringing a general sit-up/crunch seat to your home. Gyms have had them for years and the only difference is that they anchor your ankles instead of your knees. And as I said earlier, the seat is very comfortable so as a general ab bench, it gets and A+ from me.

But this is not just an ab bench, so let’s get into some of faults… or should I say “fault” as there really is only one. The resistance bands. Not only is their placement completely ridiculous for punching, but it can probably teach you bad technique. The problem lies in the angle. The angle of the resistance pushes your punches DOWN instead of back. If you read my review of the MASS SUIT, it had the exact same problem.

The solution to this would be dead simple – place the anchor points at the back of the seat, so the bands come around over your traps. And it would be nice if you could order this thing with a choice of resistance as the bands that I got had the tension of overcooked spaghetti strings. Hardly useful.

Still, the good news is that the speedbag is awesome. You can’t time your punches as fast as you can on a regular speed bag since this is spring based, but you can still get one helluva workout. You can also elbow the shit out of it and my personal favorite – practice slipping. I’m not sure if this was a design flaw or intentional but if you punch this thing hard while sitting upright, it can come back and smack you in the chin, which makes it perfect for punching and slipping (known as dodging, for those that don’t know boxing terminology). My favorite combo would be to punch hard, slip, sit-up and elbow. Then do the other side and repeat till I felt like puking. Excellent.

I even asked a buddy of mine, who actually trains with world class boxers to try it out. To my surprise, he had good things to say about it as well. Praise doesn’t come any higher than that.

Conclusion

So while the resistance bands aren’t exactly useful, Knockout Abs does what the inventor intended – gives you a decent ab workout while also providing a nice speedbag for home use. And it tucks away nicely under your bed to boot. So, should you buy one? Well that’s when the price comes into play. For $60, it’s a product that sits on the fence. If you have no equipment and no gym membership then there’s no point. This will not give you a full body workout. I mean it can, but you can only do so much with a specialized piece of equipment.

On the other hand, if you’re into combat sports and already have a training program in place and want to either take things to the next level or just want to challenge yourself differently, then I say go ahead. You won’t be disappointed with the product quality, I can say that much with confidence. I put this thing through hell and besides some odd scuffs and scratches, it’s performing just fine. I give it 3.9 stars outta 5 in it’s current state. However, if the price ever drops to $40, and you can get better bands, I’d easily give it a 4.5 and there would be no reason why every home gym shouldn’t have one for comfortable, weighted crunches.

Update: The inventor told me that he’s planning on ditching the bands as their inclusion wasn’t his call. The marketing exces threw it in there because they felt like it. Go figure. 

Pics

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© 2012, By FitJerk. FitJerk.com is a division of Flawless Fitness Media – All Rights Reserved – No part of this post is to be republished without author consent under any forms of media (including print, internet, video or audio transcription). Doing so is a violation against copyright law and should be punishable by a punch to the face. All images are copyright of their respective owners.

Only LOSERS have nothing to say or discuss. Put your thoughts, comments or general rants in the comment section below. FJ does not use censorship but obvious racial slurs and over-the-top stupidity will be deleted.

In the pursuit to become strong, fast and athletic, we humans have come up with some pretty radical solutions to add resistance and make training increasingly challenging. The king of all resistance forces is and always will be gravity, or should I say, working against gravity. It’s in our DNA. It’s what has influenced the structure of our bodies and the way you look. If you’re butt-ugly, now is your chance to blame this universal force… along with your parents for good measure.

However, there is one big limitation to gravity – it works in only one direction. What a bitch, huh? This is where MASS SUIT comes into play. It attaches to your body and using resistance bands, provides resistance in almost every imaginable direction. When you put it on, you feel like you’re part of a physiological experiment… which is pretty cool. Let’s see what the company as the say.

Product Name: Mass Suit
Company: Juke Performance Inc.
MSRP: $299.95
Availability: Low (From company only as far as I can tell)

Official Description

The MASS suit is a unique patented design used by many professionals to provide resistance training to your entire body by using rubber resistance bands. The resistance starts as soon as you clip the bands while just standing before doing any type of athletic movement. The MASS Suit increases the resistance to your shoulders, arms, back, core, hip flex, quads, and hamstrings by attaching the MASS sleeves, straps and rubber cords to your body, elbows, hands, knees, and feet. This will create more speed, strength, power, stamina, fast twitch muscles and a more grounded stable balance while cutting calories and losing weight. By intensifying your training you will increase the levels of your red blood cells which will amplify your endurance and muscle speed.

Your breathing will also increase and that will create more oxygen intake and that too will help multiply red blood cells for increased stamina and power. The unique design of the MASS Suit is ideal for every type of athlete in every sport to intensify their training routine. The MASS Suit is adjustable which will able you to increase or decrease in resistance depending on how strong or fatigued you are. As your body adapts to your workouts and you need to pick up and push your conditioning, the MASS Suit will intensify your training up to 75% by adding more resistance to your punches, elbows, kicks, knees and core.

First Impressions

I usually get a lot of emails from companies asking me to test out their “revolutionary” new product. Well here’s a surprise – most of them aren’t. This though, had me more excited than a fat kid who discovered a stale oreo under his couch. I saw that champs such as Anderson Silva were using it to improve their game so surely, it must be something special because let’s face it, whether you’re a fight fan or not, The Spider Silva is the shit!

But it’s not just the MMA application which put a huge grin on my face. I saw that it could be used with other sports such as swimming, football, basketball etc. It’s customization options were practically limitless. Awesome.

Once it arrived, I was glad to see it came in a handy little gym bag. it’s a perfect fit and doesn’t look cheesy as hell unlike other branded products you might have to carry around. Inside you get a brochure, manual and some instructions – which you’ll need because putting this on for the first time is a pain in the ass. Partially because there are a few different variations of the suit and the instructions you get inside the box aren’t exactly the same as the product you receive. Either way, help was just an email away but I would like to see consistency across the board.

Once you manage to get on the basics such as the chest vest, elbow wrap, ankle boots and knee wraps, it’s time to attach the bands. Again, if it’s your first time then I would highly recommend some third party assistance since once you start piling on the resistance, you’ll move like you walked out of the special needs gym class.

It feels… different. Almost every action you take requires wayyy more effort than you would regularly want to put in. This includes, walking, sitting, grabbing, reaching etc. The website claims you can easily conceal this under clothing and burn extra calories doing normal daily activities. Uh, bullshit. The only way you’re going to conceal this is if the clothes you buy are twice your normal size and more baggy than a thugged out wankster.

Real World Results

I’m going to start off with disappointments and possible suggestions to anyone listening from the company since that’s how I like to roll. First up, this “once size fits all” thing is stupid. I realized that anyone at 140lbs or less (which is me during summer time) is in for a watered down experience. When you “suit up”, the straps are all maxed out and sticking out, which makes you look like you’re peeling black Velcro skin from every angle. Then there’s the problem of resistance. See, Mass Suit relies on bands which provide a challenge when stretched. So the resistance my training partner felt (who is taller and weighs about 30lbs more) was much higher than the resistance I felt.

So I almost felt cheated since I would be paying to make my training more challenging, but I’d end up feeling 2/3 of the resistance a man slightly taller than me would feel. Uncool. I suggest that the Mass Suit come in two sizes, small and large. No need for medium since the straps are adjustable and should easily cover that range of people.

Next is the issue of comfort. If you’re planning on suiting up with just a light T-shirt and shorts, I’d think twice because after just a 15 minute kickboxing session, my training partner had marks left over from the plastic part of the straps (see pic below). This isn’t a huge deal at first, but if you’re planning on using this suit 3 or even 4 times a week, expect to get rashes. Of course, this can all be mitigated by wearing long sleeves and pants. I found that the Under Armour type of material is an excellent option to use with Mass Suit. It also makes you look incredibly sexy.

Other than those two shortcomings, it’s pretty much uphill from there. You can ditch the elbow and the handles for resistance for sports that just need your lower body such as soccer, basketball etc. Or you can attach everything and go full out. The only thing I would say is that when doing kickboxing (which is a huge push for this product) the angle of resistance that you get from the handles isn’t optimal. It attaches to your hips, which means it pulls your hands DOWN. The force vector of a punch is pretty much perpendicular to the body, therefore the resistance should be in the complete opposite direction (attached to the shoulders). For this reason, I don’t recommend you train punches with the handles, just leave the elbow bands attach and that’s good enough.

When it comes to KICKS however, it’s all aces. Everything is in the right spot to provide some serious challenge to your front, round and side kicks. I’ve thrown together a video below where I’m helping my trainer partner perfect the explosiveness of his kicks. As you’ll probably notice, he looks a little awkward doing them since it was his first time with the Mass Suit. After some practice though, he was kicking almost as fast as he used to, and when the suit came off, we found some untapped power coming from his legs. His hands did pretty well too.

Besides combat sports, I tried this with soccer and gymnastics. For soccer you can just leave the upper body bands to the side and get a serious workout running around with the knee and ankle bands. Since my bike had a flat ass tire, I couldn’t really test it thoroughly but I can definitely see it as a useful tool for the tools that love biking in their tight pieces of clothing. Couple that up with some uphill pedaling and you’ve got yourself a challenge, my friend.

Then there is gymnastics. When it comes to tumbling and floor skills, it’s only useful some of the time because there are certain tricks that involve your body to contract instead of expand making the bands useless.  But for events such as rings, parallel bars and vault I can see it come in handy since you need to hit the handstand position quite often, and the Mass Suit is fucking awesome for handstands. I was going to throw it on some of the high level male gymnasts that train at my gym but these guys just weren’t big enough for it to be of any use. Oh well.

And obviously, besides using the suit for sport-specific training, you can use the Mass Suit during your normal gym session as well. It’ll add some extra pain to your squats, deadlifts, bench presses, overhead presses etc. One of my favourites with the Mass Suit was the seated dumbbell clean and press. Shit was tough as hell and the bands helped me get past my plateau and add 10lbs to each side in a few weeks. I was more explosive too… can’t complain with those results.

Conclusion

So the Mass Suit is pretty effective most of the time, but is for you? Well if you’re a smaller person, do recreational sports and have no money then no, it ain’t. You’re better off spending the 300 bones on a year’s worth of gym membership fees and training hard against gravity. However, for the serious athlete that has done everything under the sun and needs the extra edge to get ahead, I would say it’s a pretty hefty but worthwhile investment. I’m talking college/NFL level football players, college/NBA level basketball players, professional fighters, national/international level soccer players, competitive Olympic weightlifters etc.

Overall I was quite impressed with the Mass Suit and will give it 4/5 stars. It works great and I love the innovation but it’s got some kinks to work out such as comfort, proper sizing and that price could use a drop as well. I’m going to give it my…

…I haven’t given these out in a while but I figured the Mass Suit is pretty deserving. If you’re a serious athlete, I’d give this piece of equipment a try. It’ll take a few tries to get used to but once you do, it’ll serve you well.

- FitJerk

Pictures

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© 2011 – 2012, By FitJerk. FitJerk.com is a division of Flawless Fitness Media – All Rights Reserved – No part of this post is to be republished without author consent under any forms of media (including print, internet, video or audio transcription). Doing so is a violation against copyright law and should be punishable by a punch to the face. All images are copyright of their respective owners.

Only LOSERS have nothing to say or discuss. Put your thoughts, comments or general rants in the comment section below. FJ does not use censorship but obvious racial slurs and over-the-top stupidity will be deleted.

Product Name: Core Trainer
Company: Dynamax Pro
MSRP: $299.99
Availability: Medium (Website & Some retailers)

Fitness gadgets will come and go, but their insanity will only increase as time passes (and as people get fatter). The ShakeWeight™ currently holds the crown for the most absurdly popular fitness device ever created. So when I was offered the opportunity to review the Core Trainer, I (understandably) had mixed feelings about it. But the company had produced a decent product that I reviewed a in the past – the PowerBall so I was like “why the hell not?”

Official Description

At Dynaflex International, we understand that you demand the very best in cutting-edge fitness equipment. That’s why the DynaMax Core Trainer 2 is guaranteed to exceed your expectations by miles! Nearly a decade in the making, the DynaMax Core Trainer 2 is the ultimate in hand-held exercise gyroscopic fitness technology! The DynaMax Core Trainer 2 is designed to deliver an intense upper body, fat burning, and core training workout in just minutes a day!

Powered by a high speed, 2-axis gyroscopic rotor, this lightweight exercise breakthrough produces up to 200 lbs. of dynamic resistance. A quick pull of the instant starter cord… and you’re in for the most amazing core-training workout of your life! But don’t take our word for it… it’s one of those experiences that must be experienced to be believed!

The DynaMax Core Trainer 2 features built-in LED lights, allowing you to visually see how fast the gyro is spinning. The faster yourDynaMax Core Trainer 2 spins, the more magnificent the light show.

Originally designed for the US Military Special Forces, the DynaMax Core Trainer 2 is now available to you! But be forewarned… once you try the DynaMax Core Trainer 2 — you won’t want to put it down! It’s the “hard core”, patented, hand-held fitness machine that’s been missing from your workout program!

First Impressions

The description sounds quite promising and I know the oddly effective nature of gyros first hand. To this day, I still use my Powerball at least a couples times per week since it sits on my desk. Either as a stress reliever or a show off toy to the friends that drop by.

The packaging works – it shows off the product nicely while smothering eager prospects in attractive promises such as “The Ultimate 5 Minute Workout”. Hmm, not too sure about that, but whatever. In the box you get a wall chart, a DVD (featuring the oddly creepy Mr.Bicep) and the Core Trainer itself.

The exercises on the wall chart look ok and the ones included in the video sometimes look questionable, but do end up giving you a nice burn. I just wouldn’t be caught dead performing them in public. That’s one of the perks of owning a Core Trainer, you have an excuse to seclude yourself in a dark corner and create your own club scene. See my little video montage below to see what I mean…

When I first got my hands on this thing, I had no clue how to start it up. The documentation on the box (and the video) talk about a mysterious power button which jump starts the gyro for you, VIA battery power. But this button was no where to be found. It was after a few minutes that I realized I had a different model. One which featured a starter cord – just like those old ass toys from the 70’s. Or was it 80’s? Can’t remember.

The device itself has really comfortable padding on the handles which provide ample grip, should palm perspiration be a huge problem for you. Maybe a little too much grip. One early mistake I made was gripping this beast as if it’s about to jump out of my hands at any moment, like the Powerball tried to do. Not necessary.

Real World Results

I spent an entire day going through all the exercises and came away with mixed feelings. The massive gyro itself is an awesome feat of design and engineering, I’ll give them that. It provides good resistance, runs smoothly and the pretty red lights make me want to keep this thing spinnin’ and spinnin’. Needless to say this gadget is the real deal, especially in comparison to all the hoopla that’s out on the market right now.

However, one thing I realized is that the name “Core Trainer” is completely off. Since you’re holding this thing in your hands for everything, you end up working your arms harder than you’ll ever work your core – even if you’re on a Bosu ball in a planked up position. Not that I’m a fan of Bosu Balls in the first place. It didn’t matter which exercise I tried, (I even started inventing my own insane movements) my arms were always exhausted well before my abs. There’s just no way around it.

And while you do feel the resistance, it’s mainly only for the upper body. If you want to throw in leg training, you’re limited to your body weight – which is not enough for intermediate and advanced trainees. I mean, I can do bodyweight lunges and squats for FREE. This barely provides any additional value to those exercises.

So at this point you’re probably itching to know the final verdict: “Can you get a good workout with the Core Trainer?”

I’ll hesitantly say “yes”. But only for the upper body. Most people won’t be able to keep the gyro going at a decent pace for more than 10 continuous minutes without needing to take a break due to their arms being exhausted. In 30 minutes you can manage to get some pretty solid bro pumps in your arms. I had veins popping out of my biceps as if I spent an entire hour doing curls at the gym. Not bad. But then that’s just it, we come full-circle to this device’s inability to work anything other than arms/shoulders/triceps. This is a Gyro “Arm Trainer” first, and “Core Trainer” second.

For 300 bucks, I also would’ve liked to see a rev counter on this thing. I mean their high end PowerBalls come with it, and they cost a helluva lot less. So why not include it on such a flagship product? Progressive overload is one of the most important aspects of weight training, and yet there is no way to know how much “load” you’re generating on this piece of equipment. So besides increasing reps, there’s really no way to measure progress. A shame.

Conclusion

The bottom line is that the Core Trainer is a very specialized piece of equipment but it seems that Dynaflex has tried to market it to everyone and their fat uncle. Companies need to make a profit, understandable. But I just don’t see how any normal person could justify spending a year’s worth of gym membership fees on one piece of equipment that can’t do everything. I mean it tries to, but not well.

I can see this finding a home in physio clinics, specialized sports training facilities, disability centers or maybe mental institutions. But I just don’t see it in every home across North America. The Core Trainer needs to go through a price drop and an identity change… then it’ll make perfect sense. But right now, it seems a bit confused. As such I’m going to give this gyro a satisfactory 3/5 stars.

Pics

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© 2011, By FitJerk. FitJerk.com is a division of Flawless Fitness Media – All Rights Reserved – No part of this post is to be republished without author consent under any forms of media (including print, internet, video or audio transcription). Doing so is a violation against copyright law and should be punishable by a punch to the face. All images are copyright of their respective owners.

Only LOSERS have nothing to say or discuss. Put your thoughts, comments or general rants in the comment section below. FJ does not use censorship but obvious racial slurs and over-the-top stupidity will be deleted.

When it comes to entertainment, I want you to think really hard for a second and guess which medium has made the biggest leap in terms technology, value, fun, stick ratio, growth and profitability. If you guessed music, you’re a tool. If you guessed movies, you’re an idiot. However, if you guessed video games, then spank yourself on the ass for being the smart individual that you are. When done right, video games are much, much more profitable than music and movies and their replay value is something that just cannot be matched.

And it makes sense, humans love to play. What do children want to do all the fucking time? Sit and listen to shit? Watch movies all day? No they want to play. Adults want to play too, sometimes it’s with themselves, sometimes it’s with others… it doesn’t matter. Bottom line is that play is in demand. Now, what do humans not want to do? Anything that involves work, discipline, and effort. Unfortunately, if you’ve let yourself go into the land of fat asses then hard work, discipline and effort is exactly what you need to turn your body around… or is it?

The newly funded start up called Keas doesn’t think so. Their philosophy is based around the fact that “you cannot change human behaviour by nagging and lecturing.” And I agree to an extent. Positive reinforcement is usually superior to negative reinforcement and so they’ve turned getting “healthy” into a game that rewards you with points, levels and even cash ($50 is what I heard when the CTO gave an interview on TechCrunch.)

That sounds all well and good on paper, but how does it actually fair when you take it for a spin?

The Test Drive

As per usual tradition, I’m going to start off with shit that really annoys me about this “game.” The first thing you need to (unfortunately) accept is that Keas is aimed at teams over individuals. It’s meant for companies with employees which have to team up with at least 6 people to be competitive when it comes to points and getting rewarded. I think this is lame sauce. Take a look at the screenshot below, it says “If you have less than 6 people, it’ll be tough to get those 1,000 points – or reach your health goals. Choose teammates that will work hard and support each other”

Can you see what’s wrong with this picture? The amount of maximum points you earn, as well as achieving your health goals is dependant upon 5 others. While having accountability is good, basing each individual’s success on a team of six people is retarded. Basic group theory states that a team is only as strong as it’s weakest link, so if you have inactive and/or sick people on your team, you cannot earn the maximum potential points. That’s absurd. It would be nice if things were a little more interdependent than dependant. Give me the opportunity to reach the same number of points and goals as a full team but have me do more work – I’m ok with that. But don’t handicap my ass because I don’t feel like mingling in a team. I’m a lone wolf and I like it that way. But that’s just me. For others, I can see this whole team accountability thing work out rather well.

You Call Those Goals?

There are a couple of ways you can earn points on Keas, one of these ways is by completing goals you’ve selected. Again, in theory that’s great, but the execution of it is an insult to my intelligence and unique human potential. First of all, it seems that pretty much everyone starts off with similar basic goals such as “walk 20minutes 3x this week” and every time you walk, you check it off. Once you check this off 3 times, you’ve completed your goal and can do others. This might be ok for a 300lbs individual that thinks walking for 20 minutes is almost as challenging as climbing Mt.Everest, but for someone who’s active, it’s a damn laugh.

Why not instead ask me questions and collect data about what I already do, assess my current fitness level, then recommend goals that are ACTUALLY challenging. If I was on a team (I did join one later, called Team Wonder Women) I’d be raping the point system to it’s absolute potential in about a day.

Then there are the frequency of goals. You can only work on 3 goals a week, and once you complete them you have to wait till the next week to select more, which brings me to my next point. Any activity you do OUTSIDE of the three goals selected on Keas cannot count towards points. Uhm, I’m sorry but I thought the whole fucking point was to encourage healthy behaviour, so why is individual initiative not being rewarded?

The answer, it seems, is because they don’t want people to “game” the system and move far ahead, out of reach of other teams… or whatever. Below is the thread I started on Keas and got responses from someone official, I think.

My last comment got cut off so here’s what I said. “…I’m not saying have unlimited goals, but allow me to add up to 3 additional activities so I can earn points. Most people who LIFT, do it 3-4x a week.” It seems they are so caught up in the game and not being scammed element of Keas that you end up with a watered down list of things to do which most people can easily accomplish. While Keas is starting your off (extremely) slow to help build a habit, it also shoots itself in it’s own foot by not rewarding those that take initiative. As I recall, they philosophy is positive reinforcement… well where the hell is it? It’s a shame, really.

The Front End Experience

So that’s the core of how Keas works, now let’s talk about the little things. First, you should know there are a few other ways that you can earn points – answering quizzes and inviting friends. That’s cool, I see nothing wrong with rewarding a little word of mouth (or even, mouth to mouth *wink*) However, I think they should add a few more ways to encourage interaction and then reward users for it. Actions such as, throwing up posts into the live feed (which work like FB status updates), throwing up an avatar, allowing you to write a bio, creating custom challenges to add to the database and logging your weekly weight improvements are all things that Keas should be looking into. What REALLY blows my mind is that Keas has the ability to be the online version of The Biggest Loser. You already have teams, you already have a point/reward system, why the hell not add the ability to track everyone’s weight and reward the team with the most weight lost?

Or maybe they are blind to the opportunity… but that’s cool, because it’s why I exist. Let’s hope someone at Keas is reading this. Let’s dive into something they got mostly right, their UI. It is simple and pleasant on the eyes. The font choice is effective but could be bolder and easier to read, but that’s a minor nitpick. Their facebook-like status updates also work great. Adding/managing/interacting within your team is also a painless experience. But even in their UI, there are some things that need to be looked into. For example, there is no notification system as far as I can tell. When the dude above responded to my post, I got an email which led me to the thread, but Keas itself never showed anything which would tell me someone took action on my post. So if I never looked at this email, I would’ve never known he responded.

Game Over

Now I know I ripped these guys a new asshole, but it is what it is. You can’t be a start up and not expect some constructive heat. As it stands right now, Keas is a weak product meant for a select group of individuals that basically live in homeostasis as far as physical activity is concerned. I give it a 2/5 stars. If I was the investor that dumped the $10 million into this venture, I’d crack that whip and tighten some leashes to get this game to be more effective. They need to accept the fact that any digital game, regardless of all the safeguards in the world can be “gamed” and need to focus on rewarding those that put in the time.

In the end, a fat ass could sit at his desk and start doing fake challenges all day and get his panties wet about having the most points but who is he really fooling? Himself. Those that play the game legitimately will feel good about the rewards they received because they know they put in the sweat equity… and isn’t that the whole point of this start up? To help people live healthier? At least that’s what I thought. Who cares if BillyBob17 has a bazillion points? People know he’s a loser trying to feeling good about nothing. So when it comes to fitness games, I’ll be sticking with one that’s doing it right, by letting me log real workouts whenever I do them and how I do them while still allowing group challenges.

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© 2011, By FitJerk. FitJerk.com is a division of Flawless Fitness Media – All Rights Reserved – No part of this post is to be republished without author consent under any forms of media (including print, internet, video or audio transcription). Doing so is a violation against copyright law and should be punishable by a punch to the face. All images are copyright of their respective owners.

Only LOSERS have nothing to say or discuss. Put your thoughts, comments or general rants in the comment section below. FJ does not use censorship but obvious racial slurs and over-the-top stupidity will be deleted.

Product Name: EatSmart Bathroom Scale
Company: Health Tools LLC
MSRP: $28.95
Warranty: 2 Years

I’ve often said that if you aren’t tracking your progress, you’re aiming in the dark. When people aim in the dark, they end up shooting themselves in the foot. Constantly. Repeatedly. It’s actually quite funny… so don’t be the one that ends up being laughed at. There are a few key tools you’ll need, to track how your body is doing and one of these tools is obviously the scale.

While not the most accurate tool to track progress (muscle weighs more than fat) it’s still necessary; and the old spring loaded analog dial scales just don’t cut it anymore. You want an accurate digital scale that tracks your progress to the tenth of a pound and today I happen to have such a product that might be worth your time. It’s called the EatSmart Bathroom Scale… simple enough.

Official Description

The EatSmart Bathroom Scale is versatile, easy to use digital bathroom great for any home. Simply step on the scale and in seconds you’ll have an accurate readout on the EatSmart’s oversized 3.5″ LCD display.

Features

• Large 3.5″ LCD display – Easy to read from any distance
• 4 high precision sensors – Consistent and accurate measurement
• Max weight 400 lbs / 180 kgs
• Sturdy tempered glass top and large 12″ x 13″ platform
• Auto Calibrated; Auto Power-Off; 4 AAA batteries (included)

First Impressions

The packaging isn’t exactly inspiring, it’s quite generic and the color scheme is kind of odd with off-red, almost orangy look. It looks like someone spilt fruit punch all over a white surface and then it dried up. Still, the box protected the scale quite well and I was delighted to know that they included 4 AAA batteries inside. 

The scale itself is sturdy and well built, here’s what I liked about it…

• It’s got a very large LCD display with bright blue back-lighting which makes it very easy to read
• Their “Step On” Technology is a… er, step in the right direction. Most digital scales I’ve used ask you to tap to turn on then make you wait like at the doctors office while they take their sweet time to “zero” themselves. Not this one. Step on it and off you go. Simple and brilliant.
• Glass seems to be made of high quality; so your probable fat (or skinny) ass won’t be able to break it. I think.
• It’s got three different modes. Pounds, Kilograms and the stupid British “stones”. I never bothered with “stones” as it’s a ridiculous measurement but I was always curious about it. Now I know that I weigh like 10 stones or some shit. It’s nice to know that EatSmart thought about everyone while making their product.
• And finally, the scale actually looks quite classy. The whole glass look is very modern and I wouldn’t mind having this scale showcase itself where others could see it.

Real World Results

As you might expect, the scale is pretty straightforward. You step on it and it does the work for you. You step off, and it shuts off. However, there were a few quirks that are worth mentioning. First, the LCD display has a horrible viewing angle. It’s fine when you’re looking at the display while you are standing in the center of the scale but if you look at it from any other angle, it starts to get washed out. See picture below.

You could say that this is a privacy/safety feature so that others won’t know how much you weigh but I think it’s just the screen quality that’s lacking. Also, when someone over 200lbs steps on the scale, you can see the “liquid” effect start to pop up… the same cool effect you get when you take your finger and press it up against an LCD computer monitor. The scale says it can handle 400lbs and I haven’t bothered with that much load yet but let’s hope the display doesn’t give out.

And finally, it would’ve been nice if this scale came with a few extra features such as bodyfat percentage calculations. Most scales aren’t super accurate with these calculations but then again, most folks aren’t good with callipers either and as long as your method of measurement stays consistent, it’s better than nothing. It wouldn’t be hard to implement some conducting plates on the surface of the glass.

Conclusion

If you’re still rocking the old ass analog scales, then it’s time to enter into 2011. The EatSmart scale is just a hair under 30 bucks, comes with batteries, decent warranty and measures your weight in three different settings with high accuracy. It does what it’s supposed to without any fancy frills, and for that I don’t see why I can’t recommend it. I give it a solid 4/5 stars.

Liked The Review? Support The Site And Get Your Very Own EatSmart Scale. Click This Link!

- FitJerk

Content originally written by FitJerk for www.fitjerk.com – © 2010 All Rights Reserved – This post is NOT to be republished without author consent under any forms of media (including print, internet, video or audio transcription). Doing so is a violation against copyright law and should be punishable by a punch to the face.

———–
© 2011, By FitJerk. FitJerk.com is a division of Flawless Fitness Media – All Rights Reserved – No part of this post is to be republished without author consent under any forms of media (including print, internet, video or audio transcription). Doing so is a violation against copyright law and should be punishable by a punch to the face. All images are copyright of their respective owners.

Only LOSERS have nothing to say or discuss. Put your thoughts, comments or general rants in the comment section below. FJ does not use censorship but obvious racial slurs and over-the-top stupidity will be deleted.

When it comes to building muscle, there are plenty of methods that are available and all of them promise results. If you’ve been reading my blog for a while then you know that usually, everything works at least once. The basis for building muscle is simple; apply a heavy load which causes hyperplasia (or hypertrophy… or both) and feed yourself with ample calories. If you were to dumb down muscle-building into one sentence, I doubt it gets any simpler than that.

However, the process of building muscle can become very complicated when your body starts to adapt, and that’s when we humans, in our quest for everything big, try and invent new techniques. Today I’ll be looking at a system from Nick Nilsson. It’s called Muscle Explosion: 28 days to maximum mass.

Product Name: Muscle Explosion
Publisher: Price World Publishing
MSRP: $10.17 >> from Amazon (soft cover)

First let’s get one thing straight, building the maximum amount of possible mass in 28 days is kind of ridiculous. I’m not saying you cannot gain mass in 28 days, but don’t expect to look like the Hulk or reach  your “maximum” potential. The process of building mass is a marathon, not a sprint. Small progress over a long period of time.

First Impressions

I like the cover of the book… it would most definitely make me stop and take a skim through it if I was roaming around in a book store looking sexy as hell. Which I do quite often. So congrats to the cover artist on a job well done.

What I don’t like is the ridiculous size of the book compared to the amount of content that’s inside. Also the font. Maybe it’s because I’m used to reading thick bricks with a standardized font size… but hell, it’s been that way for a reason. Ease of reading. This book measures 7’x10’ and the font size is massive (my guess would be 14px). There really is no reason for this size as far as I’m concerned. It just makes it more cumbersome to carry and slightly annoying when you’re a quick reader and are having to turn pages every 5 seconds.

Does It Work?

Still, let’s get down to what this book is all about. Here are the chapters that lie within:

The Muscle Explosion Program

> Muscle Explosion Weekly Training & Nutrition Charts

> How and Why the Program Works

Muscle Explosion Training Techniques

> Metabolic Acceleration

> Tissue Remodeling

> Interval Training

> 5 Day Structural Attack

> Stretch Pause Training

> The Core Combo

Nutrition

> Week 1: Low Carb Eating

> Week 2-4: Eating For Maxx

> Post Workout Nutrition

> Supplementation

> Caloric Intake

Maybe it was just me but while reading through, there were times where I felt slightly lost. It was hard to relate one thing to another and I found myself going backwards for a quick re-read and a glance at the table of contents to know where I was. Still, not a big deal. The big deal lies in the heart of Nick’s techniques… which I found were mish-mashes of other tried and true methods that are already pretty well known. Nothing wrong with that but it made me question the effectiveness of this whole 28 day system.

For example, take “Metabolic Acceleration”… where Nick suggests you do resistance training with cardio without any rest periods as a form of glycogen depletion. In my opinion this is kind of counter productive. His logic is that doing “everything” taxes your phosphocreatine system, Glycolytic system and Oxidative system. However what you end up doing is training in a way that makes you good at nothing. Do cardio if you want to have muscles that are efficient and are good at producing ATP through the oxidative process (breathing). Do heavy ass resistance training if you want muscles that are awesome at power production and short bursts (by relying on glycogen stores). Doing both types of training in one session doesn’t help you. Also, you can deplete your glycogen stores by doing JUST higher volume resistance training… no need for silly cardio.

Then there is Tissue Remodelling, which I found to be a mix of Partial Rep Training + DC’s Power Stretching + High Volume Training. All methods that have known to work and deliver results so I can’t hate. However, I do have to say that personally I would do high volume followed by DC’s power stretching and partial rep on a separate day. The point of partials is to 1. Improve your CNS efficiency and 2. Improve your strength during the last half of a repetition (or first half). It’s used to strengthen the weak links in your chain. The perfect example is the bench press… everyone knows that the distance from your chest to the half way point is the hardest to press where the distance from the halfway point to full extension is the easiest.

Another similarity is “Stretch Pause” training. Again this is basically the well known method of Rest Pause training coupled with DC’s Power Stretching and Partial Rep Training (this is something Nick openly admits to). The way it works is like this: Do a full range exercise (barbell bench) then rest 20 seconds and do an exercise that will stretch the muscles (Dbell Flys), rest 20 seconds then go back to the bench but now do only partial reps. Seems pretty legit but again, I would put the stretching portion at the end. Heavy static stretching of any kind usually results in loss of power. This has been well documented. This means when you rest 20 seconds and go back to the partial rep set, you won’t be able to do as many reps as you COULD have done.

Time to move away from the physical and into nutrition. Overall you can’t really argue with this nutrition advice… if you eat the way he tells you,  you should end up with a caloric surplus and will gain mass. What didn’t grace my eyevalls very well is how he favours CEE (Creatine Ethyl Ester) over good ol’ monohydrate. Especially when a quick search through PubMed will reveal that CEE is complete garbage when compared to monohydrate. It’s more expensive while being less effective. So, that ain’t cool Nick. Get you shit straight.

Let’s Wrap It Up

I don’t want to go on and scrutinize every little detail because I’ll end up writing my own book. However I will say that as a reviewer, it’s my job to surface the faults where I see them, but I’ll also throw in praise where I see fit. And I have to be honest, most dudes who pick up this book and follow the method (once they understand everything… which will take 2 readings) will see results. No doubt. Nick’s methods are based on methods that have already been successful, so for his plan to utterly fail is unlikely. It’s like telling someone if they eat 500 calories less than maintenance every day that they will lose weight. Well duh, that’s inevitable. And that’s how I see Nick’s book. Whether you’ll gain mountains of muscle in 28 days is kind of up in the air and unlikely but I don’t see why a solid gain of 5lbs is impossible.

In conclusion, for about 10 bucks it’s a pretty good deal. I’ll give this book 3.8/5 stars. You’ll learn a new twist on old methods and can probably incorporate it into your current plan. Any type of new stimulus is great in my opinion so the more you can keep you body guessing the better. Grab your copy from Amazon.

- FitJerk

Content originally written by FitJerk for www.fitjerk.com – © 2011 All Rights Reserved – This post is NOT to be republished without author consent under any forms of media (including print, internet, video or audio transcription). Doing so is a violation against copyright law and should be punishable by a punch to the face.

———–
© 2011, By FitJerk. FitJerk.com is a division of Flawless Fitness Media – All Rights Reserved – No part of this post is to be republished without author consent under any forms of media (including print, internet, video or audio transcription). Doing so is a violation against copyright law and should be punishable by a punch to the face. All images are copyright of their respective owners.

Only LOSERS have nothing to say or discuss. Put your thoughts, comments or general rants in the comment section below. FJ does not use censorship but obvious racial slurs and over-the-top stupidity will be deleted.

Product Name: Fat Gripz
Company: FatGripz.com
MSRP: $47
Risk Reversal: 60 Days

They say you are only as strong as your weakest link… well at least that’s what FatGripz is using as their marketing motto. But the thing is, there is some definite truth to this. Take the deadlift for example – you might physically be able to do a few more reps with an ass load of weight, but if your grip gives out, that hunk of iron is going straight for the floor. It’s the same with the bicep curl… for most people, their forearms will give out first and thus their grip will be compromised, forcing them to stop training. But in reality, their biceps could have handled a lot more.

So how do you improve grip strength? Well one way is to just keep doing the exercises… or you can increase the width of your apparatus by a truly ridiculous margin; and this is what FatGripz is all about.

Official Description

Fat Gripz will give you the benefits of thick-bar training – at a fraction of the price. They instantly turn any bar into thick bars. That’s why everyone from professional footballers to mixed-martial arts fighters is using them. Most Olympic bars are 1” thick. Slide on your Fat Gripz and all your bars will be more than twice as thick – not just your barbell, but your dumbbells, pull-up bar and cable attachments too.

There’s no need for extra exercises – no forearm extensions, wrist rollers or grippers. Fat Gripz work with your existing exercise routine to develop functional hand and forearm strength.

Unlike products that you squeeze to get a stronger grip, thick-bar training with Fat Gripz improves your grip when it’s at its weakest – when lifting heavy weights. That way, every time you press, row, curl with Fat Gripz, you’re improving your grip – your weak link – which in turn trains your chest, back and arms more effectively.

The science behind training with Fat Gripz

When you first use Fat Gripz, you may notice that there’s less pressure on joints like your wrists, elbows and shoulders. By using a wider grip on the bar, you’re actually spreading the weight more evenly across your joints. This helps you:

Decrease the risk of injury – Because the weight’s spread evenly, there’s less pressure on individual joints like your wrists or elbows. In fact, Fat Gripz can even help to heal existing injuries.

Lift more weight – With Fat Gripz, you won’t be limited by pain in your joints or the memory of old training injuries. Instead, they allow your core muscles to lift the weight efficiently and effectively. (What’s more, with fewer injuries, you’ll be able to train more consistently and make quicker gains.)

First Impressions

So they certainly make some bold claims when it comes to improving your performance… yet the design and function of the product is so simple. It’s just an advanced rubber sleeve. However, it’s a brilliantly fucking designed sleeve. First let’s talk about the material that it’s made from. It seems like some special combination of rubber, silicone and other wizardry. The end result is a product that is malleable enough to slide on to bars yet hard enough to withstand serious abuse. You really have to feel it to know what it’s like… because there is nothing else like it. This is because the compound is proprietary.

It feels rubbery and grippy in your hand, but try and squeeze it and abuse it and it won’t budge. Honestly, even under extreme training conditions this thing should last you a lifetime. Next is the size and design of the grips themselves. It’s just the right thickness and the diameter of the opening leaves just enough space so that the grip compound “bites” into the grooves on a barbell (or dumbbell) while not being too open leaving you with an oddly shaped grip. You can tell some serious testing was done before they came up with the final dimensions. Cool.

Real World Results

So how is it like to workout with? Well in the beginning… it takes a few tries to get used to it. When you wrap it around a bar, the grips “open” leaving a small gap. So you have to take care and make sure your put on the grips evenly or you’ll end up with one smooth and one half “open” end. The compound is grippy and you can really “grab” the living shit outta it, but if your hands tend to get slightly sweaty then you’ll run into some minor problems. This compound doesn’t do will with sweat… you’ll have a mini slip and slide action happening and this could get dangerous. I highly recommend the use of chalk with FatGripz.

Another thing I highly recommend is starting off with 80-90% of the weight you usually use. I found this out the hard way… my first day of using FatGripz, I decided to do my chest routine. I did a few warm up sets and everything was dandy… there was no challenge. If anything the extra thickness made it seem more stable. However, it only took 2 work sets to realize that the reason everything seemed so stable is because I was actually squeezing the fattened up bar MORE than I normally would. After my 3rd set there was no way I could lift the same weight… my forearms were sore and as a result I could feel my grip losing it’s mighty hand-crushing power.

Trust me on this… just put your fucking heads down, throw less weight on the bar and suck it up princess. It’s not worth battling the FatGripz. They will own your forearms. By the time I got to my last exercise (chest flys) I had to remove them from the dumbbells and continue on my sets without extra fattyness because I couldn’t hold the fucking things in my hands without the fear of my fingers opening up. And while I’m all for putting my ego aside and dropping the weight, 25lbs just weren’t doing anything for my chest… so training went on without FatGripz.

Conclusion

So has my overall grip strength improved? Hell yeah. However I do need to say that these things aren’t a magic pill solution to your weak ass grip problems. Don’t expect to do like 3 workouts and then have monstrous grip the very next day. I’ve been using FatGripz for about 12 weeks now and it was only after the first 4 weeks that I started to feel a noticeable difference in my grip strength when it came to lifting performance. This means I was able to deadlift weights with more reps without losing grip compared to my previous performance. And in the realm of heavy ass lifting that’s pretty damn good progress.

Because of it’s awesomeness, I’m going to give FatGripz a solid 4.2 out of 5 stars! At this time of writing, the price of this product has gone down to $29! So if I were you, I’d grab one as soon as possible. And it also gets my Outstanding Product Award… and you know I don’t give those out to random pieces of crap.

Like The Review? Support The Site By Grabbing Your Very Own Pair Of Fat Grips! CLICK HERE

- FitJerk

Content originally written by FitJerk for www.fitjerk.com – © 2010 All Rights Reserved – This post is NOT to be republished without author consent under any forms of media (including print, internet, video or audio transcription). Doing so is a violation against copyright law and should be punishable by a punch to the face.

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© 2010 – 2011, By FitJerk. FitJerk.com is a division of Flawless Fitness Media – All Rights Reserved – No part of this post is to be republished without author consent under any forms of media (including print, internet, video or audio transcription). Doing so is a violation against copyright law and should be punishable by a punch to the face. All images are copyright of their respective owners.

Only LOSERS have nothing to say or discuss. Put your thoughts, comments or general rants in the comment section below. FJ does not use censorship but obvious racial slurs and over-the-top stupidity will be deleted.

Product Name: Newgrip
Company: Newgrip.com
MSRP: $24.99
Warranty: 90 days

The fitness world is divided into many different niches. There are those that swear by aerobics, those that believe in resistance training and other dorks who go around aimless and get swayed by the latest greatest trend and end up seeing no results. I belong in the resistance training crowd, which is further divided into micro niches. There are those that spend their time on stupid machines and those that man up (or woman up) and lift the heavy stuff against gravity – the way it was meant to be lifted. And if you are into lifting free weights, then you’re gona benefit from the latest product I’ve been testing for the past 2 months.

It’s called “NewGrip” and the reason I decided to test it for such a long time is to see if it would last. Before we get into the gloves, let’s look at what it’s all about.

Official Description

”It is no secret… Weight lifting is a contact sport, and the contact is with your hands. And your hands lose every time. But not any more. NewGrip gloves are like shock absorbers for your hands because strength goes up as sore hands and grip fatigue go down. You can also customize the way NewGrips fit and function to match your unique hand shape and grip need… The Hand Pads attach to the Wrist Support Straps with velcro. Adjust them ‘longer’ for pulling and ‘shorter’ for lifting and pushing.”

First Impressions

Let me get something out of the way – you should not use gloves all the time and every time. A little bit of callusing, chaffing and soreness is part of the game. There also nothing that beats the grip of bare hands with a bit of chalk on raw steel. Nothing. However, there are times (such as days where you’re lifting for a personal best) where using proper gloves will save your hands. Like I said, a bit of calluses and shit will toughen up  your hands but beating them up over and over will result in rips and tears which will keep you away from the gym; and that’s a frustrating position to be in. Trust me, speaking from real world experience here.

Now, NewGrips aren’t exactly gloves and so I’m going to compare them to an earlier product I reviewed – the Gripads. Both function similarly but when it comes time to lift the heavy shit, they feel very different. Both have strengths and weaknesses so I’ll leave it up to you to decide what to get. I have both, and I like it that way.

So let’s talk about the strengths. First and foremost is the kick ass wrist support. While wrist straps are things that I think you should use sparingly, they come in quite handy on heavy bench days. I also like the fact that there isn’t a “one size fits all” nonsense. The pair of NewGrips that you order will be custom suited to your wrist size and as such you can wear them loosely if you wish.

Next is the ingenious grip design. Once again, it’s one of those products where you’re playing around with it thinking to yourself “Fuckk… why didn’t I think of this?!”. It’s brilliance is in it’s sheer simplicity. The grips have a very strong velcro pad that attaches to the wrist strap, allowing you to adjust the length of the grips. If you check out my Gripad review, one of the things that annoyed me was the fact that they weren’t long enough for my big(er) than average hands; making the bench press a painful experience. With NewGrips though… it was a pleasure.

Then there is the neoprene material that the grips are made of – it’s tough shit. With Gripads, shortly after my review, the pads started to tear up while using it for heavy deadlift sessions but in the two months that I’ve been using NewGrips, they look as good as new.

And finally we have the custom grip ability. Unlike the Gripads which only had one way to use them (first 3 fingers), the NewGrips can be used in anyway you like. You can use three fingers, two fingers or all fingers or even no fingers. It’s nice to have choices.

Real World Results

So, compared to the Gripads these things sure seem like a winner, right? Hmm… not so fast. See the two things that the Gripads excelled at was sweat absorption and absolute grip. And while NewGrips provide a very respectable amount of grip, they absolutely suck at sweat absorption. I found myself removing the pads after ever set and letting my hands air out because if I didn’t, the sweat would collect between my skin and the pad and then all my pulling exercises would go to hell.

Trust me, when you’re doing heavy deadlifts, having absolute grip becomes crucial. It can literally mean the difference between a clean lift and nothing. I found out the hard way when the bar slipped out of my hand. I’m not sure if you’ve ever heard what 325lbs sounds like when hits the floor from waist height but I can tell you that a 10 foot radius around me went completely silent. Heh. From time to time I still get looks from the regulars at the gym when I load up the bar for my deadlift sessions. At the time it happened I was pissed… but now I just think its funny. So yeah, air it out.

Other than that I had no problems using NewGrips for all my lifts. They were particularly useful for the dumbbell bench press and pullups. Even muscle-ups were a pleasure since these things will only grip if you squeeze hard and in a muscle-up there is a transition phase where your hands must twist around the bar… and these let you do that! The harder you squeeze, the harder they grip. Nice.

Conclusion

So they are not perfect… but then again nothing is perfect, so I can’t hold that against them. They are however, damn good. And I love how you don’t have to use the pads and can just use the excellent wrist straps… which I should say are worth the asking price of $24.99 alone. I consider these things a steal. Sell and/or give away your leather bullshit gloves to a needy person or and get yourself NewGrips. They don’t absorb sweat that well but my god do they make lifting a comfortable experience. As such, I’m going to give NewGrips 4.5 stars and give it my…

- FitJerk

Liked The Review? Support The Site & Get Your Very Own Pair Of NewGrips >> CLICK HERE!

Content originally written by FitJerk for www.fitjerk.com – © 2010 All Rights Reserved – This post is NOT to be republished without author consent under any forms of media (including print, internet, video or audio transcription). Doing so is a violation against copyright law and should be punishable by a punch to the face.

———–
© 2010, By FitJerk. FitJerk.com is a division of Flawless Fitness Media – All Rights Reserved – No part of this post is to be republished without author consent under any forms of media (including print, internet, video or audio transcription). Doing so is a violation against copyright law and should be punishable by a punch to the face. All images are copyright of their respective owners.

Only LOSERS have nothing to say or discuss. Put your thoughts, comments or general rants in the comment section below. FJ does not use censorship but obvious racial slurs and over-the-top stupidity will be deleted.

You know, when I first got into the whole fitness and health scene, it used to surprise me what people would believe and fall for. My brown forehead was red from the incredible amount of times I face palmed myself in disbelief and muttered, “Fuck me… people actually fell for that shit?!”

But I’ve learned to cope. Now, I don’t smack myself anymore since I expect something insane to pop up every now and again. And when it does pop up, I exercise my duty to blast, bash and reveal it’s absurdity to the public… in hopes that someday in someplace I might help out a poor soul that is frightened and confused. And I also do it for my regulars, who email me, saying that I am “effing hilarious”.

So what’s on FJ’s chopping block today? It’s called The Belly Burner. Is it just me, or does the name of the product already sound hazardous and full of rabbit shit? The BellyFat Burner would have made more sense, but instead… this makes it sound like some sort of murderous tool which will scorch your belly entirely. You’ll be a stomach-less freak. Eat all you want and you’ll never get fat. Interesting product idea… I could’ve come up with a better concept after 10 shots of tequila, juggling kitchen knives and having my ears bleed from sitting through a Justin Bieber album.

But what the product actually is (for those that haven’t seen the endless commercials), is a cheap and flimsier imitation of an actual powerlifting/olympic weight belt that is used to support your lower back. But support is not what this does… oh no. It “turns up the heat” and targets belly fat so that you can have a 6 pack while the fat from your arms and thighs can hang around and watch the amazing transformation. I’m not sure how these morons are still getting away with “spot reduction” claims but it’s getting really annoying – and it should be an immediate red-flag. It should send off your BS sirens louder then the time when Paris Hilton said “I don’t know how cocaine got in my purse!”.

Those that don’t know, spot reduction is a supposed method that if you exercise one area of the body, that’s where you’ll lose the fat. Nonsense. You lose fat evenly and all over the body. The only way you’ll drop fat from a specific area is if that’s how your body wants to lose the fat. It’s based on your genetics… and unless you know how to manipulate your hormones through supplementation, it’s pretty much impossible.

One Size Fits All?

Another thing that made me laugh is how they are targeting this to anyone and everyone. In their ad, they have 2 pictures of really obese people and then cross out their stomachs with a huge “X”… which apparently is a scientific way to express how you’ll drop the fat off your stomach. Just a big X and bam! It will be gone in a few days. Right.

But that’s not what bugs me the most, what bugs me is the fact that they think wrapping a belt around someone so big will be effective. If your belly is about as big as shown in the picture, you’ll need some serious professional help and a real plan… not some fabric belt around your gut.

Then there is the price of The Belly Burner. It was surprising to see how many people failed to read the fine print. Everyone thought the belt was like 8 bucks while in reality you’ll be charged about $50. So to make sure no one else misses the fine print, I’ve taken a whole 5 seconds out of my time and pointed out the actual price of the whole unit. Take a look below…

Sneaky of them eh? I thought so. Big ups to their marketers I guess… they know what they’re doing. Another thing they managed to do (by throwing some cash around, no doubt) is get a few low calibre celebrity endorsements. The funniest one was Carlos Mencia; the faggot stand up comedian whom HBO took off the air and fired after they found out that he plagiarized and has been plagiarizing like 90% of the jokes in his stand up act. If you don’t know the whole history of Mencia, I suggest you look it up. Specially how Joe Rogan ripped him to shreds. Carlos has stolen jokes from many, many stand up comedians, including ones that have opened from him previously! And look what it did to his career; Rogan has verbally smashed him, he apparently got his ass beat by George Lopez and now he is going around collecting table scraps by “endorsing” scam belly fat products.

Nothing adds credibility to a product like a plagiarizing douchebag. I guess one scam compliments the other. If that was their logic while making their commercials then bravo, it sure makes sense on some kind of out-worldly level. Unfortunately, I’m a down-to-earth kinda guy so I’ll never understand. Maybe one day someone can explain it to me.

A Better Alternative

So, do you want to burn off your belly and “feel the heat” during a workout? Well if lactic acid build up and a naturally increased blood flow to your muscles wasn’t enough, you can use FJ’s following belly burning method to get even more out of your workouts. It’s called wrap to lose water weight! Maybe after a hit of LSD and listening to Justin Bieber I’ll come up with a more attractive name but the method is simple:

Wrap your body with my special body wrap tape, hit up the gym do your workout and then go into a sauna and do jumping jacks till you pass out. Upon waking up, get on a scale and marvel at how you lost 5lbs in just a few hours! And for a limited time, I will send you the special body wrap for just $5 + shipping. And after 30 days, you’ll only pay another $37. And after those 30 days you’ll be charged something called a “stupid tax”. Important: Please ignore any wordings and brandings on the special body tape packaging. The word “Seran” is actually an acronym for Super Effective Ripped Abdominals Now.

Here’s to burning off your belly.

- FitJerk

Content originally written by FitJerk for www.fitjerk.com – © 2010 All Rights Reserved – This post is NOT to be republished without author consent under any forms of media (including print, internet, video or audio transcription). Doing so is a violation against copyright law and should be punishable by a punch to the face.

———–
© 2010 – 2012, By FitJerk. FitJerk.com is a division of Flawless Fitness Media – All Rights Reserved – No part of this post is to be republished without author consent under any forms of media (including print, internet, video or audio transcription). Doing so is a violation against copyright law and should be punishable by a punch to the face. All images are copyright of their respective owners.

Only LOSERS have nothing to say or discuss. Put your thoughts, comments or general rants in the comment section below. FJ does not use censorship but obvious racial slurs and over-the-top stupidity will be deleted.

Product Name: Bodylastics Max Tension Set
Company: Bodylastics
MSRP: $59.95 [Click To See Other Bodylastics Options]
Warranty: Lifetime on equipment, 90days satisfaction

In the past decade or so, there have been many fitness equipment trends that have come and gone, and others that just won’t go away. A few that come to mind are Bosu balls, vibrator machines, ab machines etc. Fact of the matter is, no matter how hard these marketers try, a basic power rack with a barbell set is still superior. There is just something about lifting a shit load of weight against gravity that will always be the best workout you can ever get.

However, if there is one piece of fitness equipment that I’ve been incorporating into my routine in the past while, it’s resistance bands (or tubes). Those who have never used them might think they are either gimmicky, unsafe or just won’t provide the kind of heavy resistance that weights can. Well, I have to say, these people haven’t owned a quality set of bands. Enter Bodylastics, a resistance band set that can probably replace an entire gym and provide an effective workout for the average Joe.

Official Product Description

The Best Home Gym You Will Ever Own! Bodylastics is a complete home gym system. We designed this system in 1996 to outperform the most popular and expensive large bulky home gyms.

Smoothest Resistance – When we were first developing the Bodylastics Home Gym System, we searched for the smoothest source of resistance on the planet. Well, we found it – Elastic tubing. Not only is elastic tubing super smooth when you stretch it, but it is incredibly light and flexible. That means it is easy to store – no extra room needed!

Once we decided that elastic tubing would be our resistance “engine”, we set out to design a system that could create several levels of tension. This would enable users of all strength levels to get the best results possible. So, we created the Bodylastics Quick Clip System. Our elastics have solid aluminum clips secured to the ends so that they can be easily attached to handles and ankle straps. This simple yet effective design gives users the ability to generate from 15 to 94 levels of tension (depending on which set you order)

First Impressions

I already owned a pervious and similar set of resistance bands so I kind of knew what I was getting. Upon receiving the package though, it was surprising (and refreshing) to see the quality of this entire unit – it stands in its own class. The tubes feel sturdy and seem like they can withstand a shit load of abuse. One of the fears people have of working with bands is the horror stories of them snapping or breaking. Unfortunately, these stories came from bargain hunters who bought their equipment from WalMart or worse, the fucking dollar store. It always surprises me when people compromise on equipment and products that are meant to enhance their own health but then splurge on stupid materialistic shit like jewellery and clothes.

I received the Max Tension Kit + Dvd. So in the box you get 5 different resistance bands, each with their own unique amount of resistance (134lbs total), a DVD, a book with exercises, 2 handles, 2 ankle straps, one door anchor, a carrying bag and a certificate to Strength Band University (SBU); a community forum for Bodylastics customers.

I’ll cover the actual experience of the bands in a second, but let’s start off by taking a look at all those extras that are in the box. Starting with the 12 month trial of SBU. For those who know anything about online products – It’s basically a membership site where customers have a forum and access to online streaming videos of exercises and workouts. I say 12 month trial because after a year you have to pay $9.95/month. So is it worth it? Not in my opinion.

The first problem is the forum itself… apparently, each and every post has to be approved by a mod before it will show up, then you’ll have to wait even longer since people that responded will have to have their answers approved also. Uh, that’s ridiculous. First of all, you can’t just join the site… you have to be a customer since you get your own private user/pass, so what is the point of having an extra layer of annoyingness on top? Necessity of mods is understandable but this is just a slow and painful process and one I wouldn’t bother with. I’m not gona pay $10/month for a forum when I can go to other free forums that are much, much faster and better. I’m also an avid supporter of free speech and I know they’d block any posts with even the slightest wiff of swearing. Fuck that.

Then there is the fact that the president of Bodylastics (Blake) hosts a free live workout everyday at liveexercise.com. There are a ton of workouts there and you don’t even need to be a member – I think this is fantastic. So why would you want to pay $10/month for SBU? Their own website contradicts and undercuts the other. My only critique is Blake’s form during the exercises. Every movement is explosive… not once have I seen him incorporate a controlled tempo throughout the range of motion. It’s all spaztastic. Still, you don’t have to be and his exercise explanation is adequate.

Other than that, most of the goodies in the bag are as useful as dollar bills at a strip joint; which means very. I didn’t see any un-needed fluff. The carrying bag will swallow your entire band set so you can carry it around. When I travel, I don’t go without my set of bands… EVER.

Though I do have to say that at 3.5lbs it isn’t the most portable package, but you really can complain considering the benefits you’ll get out of it. The ankle and door attachment are also very useful and feel as though they will last you for a long ass time.

Then we have the DVD – It’s professionally produced and contains a lot of useful info most of you already know but should have with you anyways. All thumbs up from my end.

Real World Results

So, what about the bands themselves? How do they feel and how are the workouts? Well in short – they’re phenomenal. On the site, Blake talks about how his Bodylastics system is better and smoother than the Blowflex machines etc. Obviously, the first thing that comes to mind is “that’s all marketing bullshit”. But oddly enough it isn’t. I’ve used the Bowflex before, and while it was smooth, there is something about the quality of these bands… they are very, very good. And how often do I say that? Plus, at $59.95, it’s a no brainer over the Bowflex.

However, there is one thing I want to say before you guys think that a set of resistance bands is the end-all-be-all. It isn’t. The problem with bands is the fact that the eccentric portion of an exercise is compromised. They have an opposite effect to traditional weights. Let’s take the bicep curl as an example: With a barbell, the lift starts of as a challenge, and gets easier as you get to the top, then again becomes harder and harder as you start to lower the weight (eccentric motion). Gravity at it’s finest. The good news is that the eccentric portion of a lift is when you build the most muscle.

With bands, the lift starts of relatively easy then gets harder and harder and is the most challenging at the top. Then when you start to lower your hands, it becomes easier and easier on the working muscle (biceps when referring to my explanation). So all you are really working during the use of bands is the concentric aspect of an exercise. It doesn’t mean you won’t get results; it just means that doing traditional barbell work shouldn’t be excluded from your routine. Obviously, a smart person will realize that doing both will provide optimal results. And I’ve been using both for a while.

A few other features that are worth mentioning:

• The clip system attached at the end of the bands all have the resistance amount engraved. This is awesome since you can now track your workouts with greater accuracy. Instead of just writing down “8 reps of bicep curls with the blue band” you can actually write down the exact amount of resistance you used. Is it 100% accurate? Obviously not since it depends on where you are leveraging the bands but I like it none the less.
• The clip system is reinforced with a metal ring… which means there is no way in hell this thing is coming undone. Peace of mind is a very good thing when you are stretching these tubes to their limit.
• You get a 90day satisfaction guarantee and a lifetime warranty against defects and malfunction. Can’t beat that.

Conclusion

There is not much left to say. There is a very good reason that I now recommend a set of Bodylastics to my E-Training clients when they want a complete at-home solution. The number of exercises you can do for the amount of money you can spend is mind blowing. Screw expensive home gyms and all that other machine shit… all you need is a basic barbell set and your set of Bodylastics – it’s exactly the type of home setup I have, and I own a gym membership! So you know i ain’t talking out of my ass. And let’s not forget that if you travel, you’ll find their portability extremely useful. You have no reason to skip workouts, ever!

I’m going to give Bodylastics 4.9/5 stars. It also gets my…

Click to see which set of Bodylastics is right for you!

- FitJerk

Discuss: Do you own a pair of these? What is your experience when it comes to resistance bands?

Content originally written by FitJerk for www.fitjerk.com – © 2010 All Rights Reserved – This post is NOT to be republished without author consent under any forms of media (including print, internet, video or audio transcription). Doing so is a violation against copyright law and should be punishable by a punch to the face.

———–
© 2010, By FitJerk. FitJerk.com is a division of Flawless Fitness Media – All Rights Reserved – No part of this post is to be republished without author consent under any forms of media (including print, internet, video or audio transcription). Doing so is a violation against copyright law and should be punishable by a punch to the face. All images are copyright of their respective owners.

Only LOSERS have nothing to say or discuss. Put your thoughts, comments or general rants in the comment section below. FJ does not use censorship but obvious racial slurs and over-the-top stupidity will be deleted.