Mein Gazelle!

I decided to order a Gazelle Power Plus Glider (I'm not great with product names, but I think that's right). I graduated from rehab and had to do something to remain active during the week. It's too dark when I get home to ride my bike or walk the dogs, so... Actually, truth be told, I was going to buy a treadmill but was shocked back to reality by treadmill prices, so what attracted me to the Gazelle was its low cost.

Now, there's low, and then there's low. My mom and sister in law both have similar machines, but they're much lighter and probably cheaper, though I can't prove that. But since I weigh as much as my mom and sister in law put together, I was afraid I'd mangle one of the lightweight machines, so I went to Fitnessquest and found a beefier alternative.

http://www.fitnessquest.com/scripts/cgiip.exe/WService=fq/itemdetl.html?item=4-GPP422&src=FQ1474%20

It finally arrived yesterday. I was out on the tractor pulling a berm in the "west forty" and never saw the truck; the first inkling I had that it had arrived was when I walked into the garage and saw a sadly abused box lying on the floor. Fitnessquest seems completely mum on shipping method and I never saw the truck, so for all I know it was delivered by a team of storks.

But whoever delivered it put it in the garage instead of dumping it out on the rain, so I thank them for that, whoever (or whatever) they are.

The box was rough. It looked like something the Marines might have used to ship an amphibious Sherman tank to Okinawa in 1945, or maybe Mike Tyson and the box had gone twelve rounds during his brief stay in Tent City. But the good news was that once the sadly abused cardboard was removed, the machine proved to be undamaged and complete.

It was fairly easy to assemble. I'm not a fan of the stamped steel wrenches provided in the box, but they work well enough for Gazelle assembly purposes. But otherwise, the machine seemed sturdy and robust. The welds looked good - I had to subject them to detailed scrutiny because some of them looked too good, like they might have smeared a little Bondo on them, but no, I think they're just decent welds done by someone who welds professionally. (Oh, what do I know, though the thing was made in China, it was probably machine-welded.)

I didn't have to remove any burrs, ream out any holes, clean out any threaded lugs or anything. Assembly was straightforward and not complicated by crappy workmanship. So other than the uncertainty in how it actually arrived, I was pleased with the delivery and assembly process. Now it was time to use it.

It didn't squeak, nor did it want to creep across the floor. I couldn't feel that the arms were bending under my not inconsiderable load, and throughout my first (and so far only) workout, its moving parts moved without squeaking, complaining or binding. It has delivered what its advertising promised, at least so far.

And it's HARD. I tried the zero-resistance settling and found it a little unnerving. My first fear was that I was going to over-do the splits and suffer catastrophic damage to a testicle; my second fear was that somehow I'd get both legs going in the same direction as the same time and suffer catastrophic damage to the back of my head. So I moved the "power rods" (or whatever they're called) to the first resistance setting. They quell the nervous looseness of the machine and give me greater confidence as I stand on it, but Level 2 is a major jump up in effort from Level 1. After a relatively brief while I could definitely sense that I was being subjected to a workout - though I wasn't breathing all that heavily, my heart rate was well up, my abdominal muscles were complaining, and my triceps in particular were burning heavily.

I may not be ready, physically, for Level 2. But I'm not sure I'm ready, psychologically, for Level 1, regardless of what the super-fit but rather ominous Sharon Money Twombley says on the accompanying DVD. We'll have to experiment and see.

But on the whole, I'm pleased. The machine is as advertised, it feels sturdy and robust, and it goes through its range of motion without any kind of complaint. If I have any complaint with the machine at all, it is that the thumb-press heart rate monitor takes a while to come up with a reading, and even then it seems to jump around a lot. It works better if I use my index finger.