Total Flex Gives a Total Gym Workout at Home

A few weeks ago, I succumbed to an infomercial and ordered a Total Flex home gym, sold by Thane Direct Canada.

The Total Flex is a resistance band home gym. A few years ago, I borrowed my brother-in-law's Weider Total Gym, sort of a lower cost version of the Total Gym promoted by Chuck Norris. It was a convenient alternative to going to the gym for weight/resistance training. While it was 'foldable' and had wheels, it was very heavy to move around and stayed in the middle of the basement floor. Eventually, I returned it because it took up too much room.

The Total Flex is much more compact, is indeed easy to move around and re-position. However, the Total Flex is still quite heavy and I wouldn't want to have to regularly lug it up and down stairs.

The resistance bands take a bit of getting used to, but having done 3 workouts, we'll be keeping our Total Flex.

I ordered the Total Flex 'Performance Package' - the leg extender and head rest (image, right). This is definitely a worthwhile addition. The leg extender is needed if you want to do leg extension exercises to exercise your quads.

The Total Flex kit comes with a package of exercise charts and a DVD with video workout segments led by fitness trainer Kim Lyons. The DVD segments correspond to the exercise charts, which are grouped by Core, Upper Body, Lower Body, etc. The workouts on the DVD are a bit slow, but should be watched for technique.

The infomercial showed the Total Flex comes fully assembled, but that's not the case.

• One of the resistance band pods is attached but you'll have to attach the second one.
• Parts and tools are provided. The Total Flex User Guide isn't quite complete as it should be, and page 4 of my copy of the English user guide was in French.
• Putting everything together, including the attachments for the leg extender, took about an hour.

Under the current Total Flex special offer, the base unit has a 30-day free trial with free shipping.

• I paid the total price of $249.75, got the free shipping.  
• The Total Flex Performance Package cost $59.95, with additional shipping cost of $24.95.  Plus HST on everything. 

So far, the Total Flex is working well, does provide a total gym workout and I give it a definite thumbs-up review.

Update (2015):  Does the Total Flex home gym work?  Yes.

We also purchased an elliptical and the combination has been great.  Unfortunately, the elliptical has broken down, we've gotten rid of it and are not planning to buy another.  I have gone back to a gym membership, and therefore have just sold the Total Flex on Kijiji.