Yes, I Want to Buy That

“Well, you don’t want that. It’s not much of a workout. You’ll be disappointed, it’s more of a gimmick thing,” said SalesGuy.

“No, I do want it. How much do you want for it?” I insisted.

“Seriously? Well, I guess $200 will do if we don’t have to deliver it but don’t come back here complaining about it,” said SalesGuy.

I owned this “gimmick thing” for 25 years. Used it almost every day, all day long. It worked just fine.

The “gimmick thing” was a Variable Incline Plane (VIP) sold commercially as a Total Gym. This was way before Chuck Norris and Christie Brinkley helped make it a household name.

Prior to the VIP, to exercise your legs you had three choices: 1) Lie down and do quad sets, straight leg raises, side lying leg raises 2) Exercise in sitting – knee extension, knee flexion or 3) Exercise on your feet – squats, lunges, wall sits.

For most people with knee pain, choice 1 works okay. But choices 2 & 3 usually hurt as the weight or load increases in order to fatigue the muscles.

A personal trainer called me once to ask, “What kinds of exercise do you use for people with knee pain?”

“Squats,” I said. I knew he was thinking squats like up on your feet squats or in a squat-rack squats.

“Really? Because that’s what seems to hurt most people! How many? What kind of weight?” he asked.

“Hundreds of squats. And it’s less than body weight, a percentage of body weight,” I answered.

The VIP, because the force is a percentage of your bodyweight, solves this problem of using squats for knee pain. For example, let’s say you weigh 150lbs and getting up and down from a chair hurts your right knee.

On a VIP, I might discover that at 50lbs of force, you have no knee pain while performing a squatting movement.

See, for most knee pain, the problem is weakness of the knee joint AND the knee muscles. But the joint – the articular cartilage and soft tissues – is the rate-limiting step.

And to improve joint strength, you need motion and controlled load. A pain-free movement and a way to control the load so as the joint improves, you can increase the load.

For the joint strengthening, you need a lot of reps. Way more than with muscle training (which is often 10-12 reps per set).

This is why SalesGuy didn’t want me to buy the device. If you’re at 30% body weight and perform 10 or 12 reps, you’ll have no fatigue. So, in that sense, it is a waste of time.

But, if at the same load (and assuming it’s pain-free and anything at a higher angle hurts), performing hundreds of reps is possible…and helpful.

Then, as your leg grows stronger, you can increase the load (raise the VIP), add muscle strengthening exercises and eventually be up on your feet.

You don’t have to use a VIP. It’s much easier but not a requirement. You can use elastic bands to counter the effect of gravity – assist you – as you perform a squatting motion for example. I prefer the VIP because it shortens the recovery process since you can perform joint strengthening and muscle strengthening with one device.

You can use an elastic band – as in the video below – to perform less than body weight squats. For most people, this is still too much load for joint strengthening but is often just fine for muscle strengthening.

Of all the tools I purchased over my career, the VIP has had the greatest impact (and I have no financial interest with any VIP manufacturer or sales company) on clients’ function. If you have joint pain in weight-bearing joints, it’s a good investment.

Thanks for reading.

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