I’m sure that many of you have seen the infomercials that some commercial television stations broadcast in the wee hours of the morning, but they can also be on daytime television as well. What really annoys me is the ones that claim to be most effective at weightloss.

Last night the first infomercial that was on TV about 1am was the Cardio Twister System. As with most infomercials for exercise machines, they have people who share their claims of weightloss. I have noticed that some have a disclaimer that these are above average results, and that most people wouldn’t expect to see them.

Just some of the claims I saw were:

• I lost 10 pounds (~4.5kg) in 10 days, that’s just one pound per day.
• I lost 25 pounds (~11kg) in just 8 weeks

Not only do these infomercials have the help of users who have lost these vast amounts of weight quickly, but the Cardio Twister also had personal trainers agreeing with the results. I’m sure that there are millions of personal trainers out there, and that the select few (~3) agree with them, must make it a legitimate product right?

Millions of gyms have been setup around the world right? And of the few that I have been into, both large chain gyms, and small corner store gyms, not one has any of these products from the infomercials. This could be for two reasons, either the products don’t work, or the gyms see these products as solutions that will see people become short term gym users. What does that mean?

The Products Don’t Work
Since gyms of all sizes have been around for many years, I suspect that the biggest reason that gyms don’t have them in their line up of machines is that they just don’t work as expected OR they break easily, and would cost more in the long term. I suspect that it is a combination of both arguments, but I am going to go down the path of the ‘not as effective’ as regular gym equipment.

Short Term Gym Users
I guess this is a combination of the above reasoning, but if the items worked as expected, I would see that many gyms would possibly have users who frequent the gym less because they see such great results from these machines. As a business person, I would want to ensure my users keep coming back, so why would I supply a machine that achieves results in half the time, unless this machine doesn’t work as quickly as expected.

I’m a tad sceptical about these exercise products promoted in many infomercials, and I really do wonder about their effectiveness, even with the testimonials or users and personal trainers, but the fact that gyms don’t carry these machines must say something about them.