Thank you for the invite, but I will have to decline at this time. I don’t think you are catching on to the understanding of physiology – somehow you are a gym owner. It is not the machine (ROM) that we or I am against in theory, it is the science or lack of science that I am poo-pooing. I could care less if you are using a treadmill, stairmaster, erg, stationary bike or a ROM machine. Four minutes is not enough time to develop the aerobic system, the musco-skeletal system the nerve axions to drive those muscles, the mitochondria to extract oxygen from blood and not enough for capillary development. It is not enough time to do anything. Stop peddling bullshit.

I don’t need to be invited to ‘try’ a machine, it is not the machine I dislike, the ROM machine is probably wonderful engineering. Four minutes of intense exercise as a replacement for a healthful lifestyle is pure BullShit. You think you and the few people who play on your machine’s are too busy for a healthful lifestyle and somehow far too important to engage in meaningul exercise. You are being very assumptive about those who disagree with you.

The theory is wrong and is basically a lie or pure ignorance on the ROM exercise program developers. To suggest the prior comments are ignorant in the way you wrote it, is in the wrong context, which is followed by enough spelling errors to set off a grade 2 child’s spell check spidey senses, to click ‘Tools’ then ’spellcheck’ before handing in their assignment.

I do not have something against busy people. In fact here again you are assumptive. I write a weekly article for an athletics based website, have two kids, career, write a quarterly newsletter for my running club, put on and arrange races, fundraise and try to train 8 to 12 hours per week. I think I am probably busier than your clients.

You wrote: ‘Stop kniocking something…’

I will knock it all I want and until you clean up your sales pitch, which happens to be full of false science.

You seem to have something against busy people working to be a bit healthier..
The Rom Machine is nothing more than a tool.. We use it to improve the lives of our clients.
And we have owened it now for over 5 years!.. So we can say it really does work!.

Stop by any time… once you use it you will get it.. And good for you if your fit and trim and have hours a day to spend working out.. Most of us barely have time to get to a gym, much less work out.. So The ROM for us allows Cardio for our Pilates Clients.. and our non Pilates Clients simply get Cardio when they would otherwise just get nothing..

Santa Barbara Pilates and Fitness

I am neither out of shape nor an American couch surfer. Most of the visitors to a site like ‘Trainharder.com ‘ are people who are in some sort of fair condition or better already.

Granted anyone can take a very over-wieght, totally out-of-shape couch surfer and get them to do ANY form of exercise increase and see improvements, including using the ROM machine.

It is not the ROM machine that is the problem, it is the philosophical argument. You and your internet marketing geniuses, need to understand physiology better.

But again – and this proves you have not read the comments. I do not need to try the ROM machine to know what it does. 4 to 8 minutes of aerobic exercise will be a severe drop and completely useless to any runner from middle distance up, cyclist, rower, soccer player who wish to develop their aerobic capacity – you need to learn this.

You can site all the little, short duration lab tests all you want. And for every little, short duration lab test you provide on the ROM, I can provide 100s of real-life, long term (like 20 – 30 years) athletic careers, where the results of come from long term, head-down endurance base training first. Not 4 or 8 minutes worth, but hours, upon hours, done over months and years and decades.

You cannot increase your aerobic capacity with 4 to 8 minutes of work on a machine. Cannot be done, except for a person who cannot yet move for 4 minutes….those tests you site are either bogus or inaccurate.

Also: ‘taken from manufacturer’s website’. This gives them less credibility. IF the manufacturer is willing to spew lies and put that information out in the media, then they are morally negligent.

Go back and read the comments more thoroughly. You and the company need to get a better understanding of physiology.

3 Studies and a review of minimum time requirements for effective aerobic capacity (V02max) improvement See the link below.

http://sbpilates.com/studies/

1. Study conducted with ROM machines at USC ( University of Southern California ) shows the effectiveness of 4 minute and 8 minute per day exercise on the ROM as equal to or better than 20 to 45 minutes on a treadmill 3 to 5 times per week.

The USC study was conducted by Robert Girandola Interim Chairman, Department of Exercise Sciences.
University of Southern California (USC) at Los Angeles, California.

2. Study conducted in Japan at the National Institute of Fitness and Sports in the Department of Physiology and Bio mechanics. This study shows the superior effectiveness of high-intensity interval training versus moderate intensity endurance on VO2Max (aerobic capacity) and on anaerobic capacity.

Study conducted by Izumi Tabata, Kouji Nisimura, Motoki Kouzaki, Yuusuki Hirai, Futoshi Ogita, Miotohiko Miyachi and Kaoru Yamamoto.
Department of Physiology and Biomechanics, National Institute of Fitness and sports Kanoya City, Kagoshima Prefecture, 891-23 Japan

3. Study conducted by Dr.Angelo Tremblay Ph.D. in Quebec, Canada at Laval University. This study showed the superior effectiveness of high intensity interval training (HIIT) over medium intensity endurance training (ET) for fat “burning”. The high intensity. short duration test protocol of the 15 week study resulted in 9 times as much subcutaneous fat loss versus the medium intensity long duration protocol training over a period of 21 weeks.

Once a peak is achieved, it is achieved and doesn’t need to be pushed any further. The athlete just performs at the top of their game riding the peak. They need to recognize when the peak is over and they are sliding down the other side of it.

I don’t know if it ‘must’ be stopped…the peak will come to end depending the quantity of racing and how conditioned the athlete is.

It is actually detrimental to the aerobic system or the aerobic base to carry a peak too long. And just as that is the case, so is using short term, anaerobic exercise minimally beneficial when there is not an aerobic foundation in place.

So to take a newb into a gym and have them do 4 minutes of exercise hard several times per week will show immediate results and perhaps a sharp result, but they will also plateau quickly. THis is where people quit training, they expect the icing on the cake all the time. Just as you can’t ice an under baked cake, you can put much peak training on an underdone aerobic base.

Long term vision is required – not the short term, get it now attitude.

So stop selling short term fixes, they never have and never will work. And all you are doing is perpetuating the myth that people can get something from nothing.

I don’t think you understand the physiological effects of run training or any endurance training. For your information an endurance base must be built before undertaking peaking training. A powerful 4 minute bout of exercise regardless of the endurance sport you want to apply it to, is peaking training, which is short lived and must be stopped once a peak has been acheived.

Whether you are a rower, cyclist, nordic skier, runner, swimmer or any endurance athlete you need to put the head down and work hard for months on end, for hours-per-day to develop the aerobic system (‘aerobic’ a word stolen by some soft exercise dance gurls in the 80s). You must do this before developing the anaerobic system.

4 minutes will do nothing for athletes 11 months of the year. But ROM will do well because there are suckers everywhere.

I am not afraid of trying something like the ROM, I know what it does already. I don’t need to use it to prove what I already know.

The ROM can not help my performance. Do you know what performance I want improved? I find it very interesting your are willing to dispense information when you don’t know the athlete.

4 minutes is not enough of any type of exercise to help anyone do anything to do with endurance.

I am not fighting hard to knock ROM at all. I am quite happy to dispel it because the marketing is full of false information.

I find it very interesting that you have the time to fight so hard against something you’ve never tried?

What if the ROM really could boost your performance isn’t that what you’re really looking for? I know it boosted mine and kept me in great shape. I was lucky enough to be able to use it over a good period of time.

Most people just want to be healthy. I was in the fitness industry for over 30 years, and believe the best exercise is the one you’ll do.

I do an exercise routine similar to the one that Drew suggested and yes it works, but it doesn’t leave you feeling stretched out like the ROM does. Not to mention very few people have the strength (or understanding of proper form or their limitations) to do such a workout. The ROM’s isokenetic resistance adjusts for muscle strength imbalances, prevents injury and works. If there was a quick gym near by I’d be using it!

The most successful people are usually the ones with the open minds.
I think you’re afraid the ROM will kick your butts or you’d go try one

Kristen,

You’ve invested in the contraption and now you enjoy justifying it’s existance by providing 3rd party recognition by speaking on behalf of others who may exist.

I checked quite a few dictionaries…well two and my own understanding of the word ‘Stamina’. I found it most commonly used to indicate ‘endurance’.

It is unfortunate that you are not actually understanding the meaning of the word stamina. To get a triathlete to move for roughly 2 to 3 hours in an Olympic distance triathlon at the top of their aerobic capacity, they cannot, nor can anyone build their stamina with a workout that lasts for 4 whole minutes.

Now the machine might give you an exercise that will develop fast twitch muscles, reflex stimulatian or get your temp up in a warm gym to make you think you are getting a workout, but there is no way you are developing endurance in 4 minutes.

I don’t care if you can pull a Boeing 747 with your teeth for 4 minutes – THAT is not endurance work.

In order for endurance improvement to happen, the athlete needs to work on building their anaerobic threshold, also known as aerobic capacity or ‘top of their aerobic limit’, for long periods of time – stimulating capillarization – growing the heart muscle and adapting the sport specific muscles to the sport specific workout (where many cappillaries carry oxygen rich blood to).

The HIT machine WILL not do anything for the individual, the individual creates the stress by making the effort. And again 4 or 8 minutes will not do it.

If you actually have Olympic distance or pretty much any distance triathlete tell you that they are increasing their endurance by working out for 4 minutes on ANY device they are also sorely mistaken.

The HIT and ROM faux science is a farce. Now the machine may be good for some things, it is gym owners and gym rats who are irresponsible for not educating themselves before selling memberships to people who know no different.

Your name ‘Colleen Carney’ links right back to a ROM machine.

Prove any of those improvements – you can’t.

Very impressive that this blog is syndicated through Google and is it something that is just up to Google or you actively created?

Who cares? The principle is the same, whether I use a fancy looking machine or some dilapilated rusty peace of equipment – stress and recover. No gear is going to get YOU fit…you get fit by YOU doing the excercise.

Also the aerobic development of your cardio vascular system cannot happen with 4 minutes of training, that’s impossible. Your anaerobic system takes less time however, it still takes much, much longer than 4 (I can’t even beleive I am typing this)…minutes.

The HIT machine and or training theory is 100% based on flawed marketing rhetoric and the worst part is, there are suckers out there who will beleive it will work for them.

No level of fitness or strength or speed will come from minimizing the time and efforts needed. NOT one single solitary Gymnast in the Olympics would even consider it…they spend hours per day, not 4 minutes, but 4 – 8 hours per day. As do every other strength, speed or other ‘fitness’ requiring endevoured athlete.

And if you want to use the argument that everyday people are not Olympians – that is also a flawed argument. The principles are NO DIFFERENT to a middle aged person or a young unfit or a fit any age person….no, the average person cannot afford or would not want to workout 8 hours per day, but they will also get virtually NOTHING from 4 minutes of excercise.

A few ways to measure a workouts effectiveness:
1. Do you have more energy throughout the day?
2. Are you losing bodyfat/leaning up? Are your clothes fitting looser?

Quackery of fitness.

4 minutes. Give me a break.