Exercise Gimmicks: Vol. 5: The Shake Weight
This ad’s been making the rounds on the internet, so forgive me if you’ve already seen it.
I couldn’t resist showing this to my husband and kids. They all looked incredulous, but no one said anything until Ryan guffawed, “That is soooo rude!”
Out of the mouths of babes (ok, he’s 19 – but still…)!
But beyond that, there are two obvious points to make about the Shake Weight:
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Excess arm fat in the upper arm area will only be lost via a sustained caloric deficit (spot reducing is a myth).
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Exercise for muscular development (even “toning”) needs to be progressive. Unfortunately, adaptation to whatever stimulus provided by the Shake Weight will occur pretty quickly.
Ultimately, if you want “strong, sexy, sculpted arms and shoulders”, then you have to do exercises that will build strength… it’s that simple. If you train to be strong (whole body – not just arms), all you have to do is to tweak your diet and the “sexy, sculpted” part will (eventually) take care of itself.
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Rob Aka Littlebigman on 14 Aug 2009 at 5:52 pm #
So if a 2 1/2 lb weight held in an isometric contraction can do all that while shaking just imagine what a 5 lb weight could do. Looks like a glorified 2 1/2lb dumbell for $20.00
I noticed that the model was still demonstrating other common exercises like the tricep kickback, and single arm shoulder press and twists that would get the same result with a normal dumbell.
So Elissa, maybe you they would give you one to review for free?
Elissa on 14 Aug 2009 at 6:21 pm #
LOL – and what would I do with a 2 1/2 pound dumbbell?
To be sure, doing common exercises with it likely would generate the same results as a normal dumbbell…unfortunately, this would be minimal in the absence of any progression in the load being handled.
No challenge, no growth.