I have been pretty harsh on fitness infomercials in the past.  My shake weight video, talking badly about P90X, and all these other random workouts on TV.  But I’m going to take a step back from that, and go the other direction with this short post.  I’m going to decode infomercial fitness workouts for you.  From the popular, to the weird.  Very quickly.

Ok.  here it goes.  When you see an infomercial claiming to be the next great program for you to get in shape at home, it’s probably not the end all be all to workouts.  These workouts include p90X, Insanity, TurboFire, and on and on.  It might actually be a decent, or great workout, but most likely it’s not the best for you.  Basically what they are doing, for the most part, is giving YOU accountability.  Something you haven’t given yourself on your own, or you wouldn’t be looking into these infomercials  in the first place.  But what it does is tell you to do this, on this day, and that on that day.  It’s essentially giving you a schedule.  It’s giving someone who doesn’t have consistency and any intensity in their fitness program, both.  If you are the general public, who exercises on a time to time basis, this will work well for you.  It gives you a general progressive workout to try for an established amount of time, and a general diet to follow.  Great for the majority of people in the United States, since most of them don’t have any sort of consistent, efficient workout routine.  So I will have to say, these programs hold some value, and if you do nothing, would benefit you greatly in the goal of weight loss or muscle gain.

Next I want to move to ab devices, which I see all over TV.  Usually those results you see on the Ab Dolly, or the Perfect Sit-up commercials, aren’t from that device alone.  They’ll tell you in the fine print that this is in conjunction with a regular exercise routine and nutrition plan.  For the money, you are better off getting one of the above mentioned workout programs.

Then you have things like the Shake Weight.  Hmm..  I don’t know what to say about this.  I’m torn, because it isn’t useless, as, you can get a little pump by “shakin’ it”, but it’s not going to get you in shape.  The commercial blows the effectiveness of this out of proportion.  It doesn’t really offer any functional results, unless you are a call girl.  But, for $20, it’s fun to say you have one. 

There you go.  My quick take on some of these infomercials.  Bottom line, if you don’t do ANYTHING, you’ll benefit from doing SOMETHING consistently, whether it’s from TV or not.