The Weider Total Body Works 5000 Gym is comparable to the Total Gym, which is a home gym series made popular by Chuck Norris endorsements. The Weider Total Body Works 5000 uses only your body weight to do a variety of exercises. Even though using your body weight is the only option, you won't have to worry about your body adapting to doing exercises at the same intensity each time. The bench of the Total Body Works 5000 can be manually raised to seven different heights to make exercises more challenging. Also, unlike the Total Gym, this machine has four adjustable power bands that you can insert one at a time into the Bungee Bracket for increased resistance with each addition.
Instructions
Chest Flye
1. Sit on the Total Body Works bench facing away from the upright and cables. Extend your legs straight in front of you on the bench. Hold your arms out to your sides at chest height and hold a handle attached to a cable in each hand. Straighten your arms and position your palms facing forward. Straighten your wrists. Soften your elbow joints by bending your elbows slightly. Sit up tall and squeeze your abs. Look straight ahead and keep your chin level to the floor.
2. Bring your arms together as if you are hugging a tree. This imagery will assist you in maintaining a slight bend in your elbows without bending them further. Touch your knuckles together. The bench will slide upwards as you move your arms together. Breathe out through your mouth.
3. Open your arms back to the starting position in line with your chest. Pull your shoulder blades together as you retract your arms and inhale through your nose. You have completed one repetition. Perform the next rep immediately without resting between them for a total of 12 repetitions.
4. Add a power cord for more resistance or raise up to a higher incline if you can easily do 12 repetitions with perfect form. Do not add a power cord if you are making any of these "compensations:" bending your wrists, arching or rounding your back, jutting your head forward or tucking your chin and shrugging your shoulders. Compensating is a term meaning that you are activating muscles that are not supposed to be worked during that exercise and your form is therefore compromised.
Kneeling Upper Back Row
5. Kneel on the bench facing the upright and cables. Sit your buttocks on your calves. Grab a handle of the cables in each hand and extend your arms straight in front of you with your palms facing toward the floor. Raise your arms to shoulder height. Sit up tall and squeeze your abs. Look straight ahead with a level chin. Pull your neck back so it is in line with your spine and slide your shoulders down away from your ears.
6. Pull your arms and shoulders back. Bend your elbows but keep them lifted so that they go out the sides and are parallel to the floor. Elbows should extend behind your body. The bench will slide upwards as you do this. Exhale through your mouth.
7. Straighten your arms again to finish one rep. Inhale through your nose. The bench will slide downward. Do 11 more reps.
8. Adjust the incline and/or power cords to find the right combination to allow you to perform 12 reps with correct form but no more. Avoid compensating by leaning forward or backward, arching or rounding your back, jutting your head forward or shrugging your shoulders.
Leg Pull
9. Lie face up with your head at the bottom of the bench. Straighten your legs and hook your feet under the black, foam-covered foot pads. Place your heels on the silver foot bars. Hold the sides of the bench with your hands. Relax your neck onto the bench. Slide your shoulders away from your ears.
10. Bend your knees and pull yourself and the bench upwards toward your feet. Go as high as you can. Exhale as you do so. Make sure your neck and back maintain contact with the bench.
11. Straighten your legs to lower yourself back to the starting position. Inhale through your nose as you do so.
12. Perform 12 reps. Adjust the incline up or down so you can do 12 reps to fatigue with good form. Avoid compensating by arching your lower back.
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