There’s another thread around here about a poster’s friend who paid $10,000 for a gaming table. Well everything has subjective value, and while I wouldn’t pay 10 grand for something like that, I am considering plopping down about 8 grand for an elliptical machine.
My wife’s been bugging me to by some home gym equipment because sometimes it’s just too difficult to get to the gym with the kids, etc. It probably makes sense, as I would use it as well, as I’ll go to the gym regularly for a few months and then work will get busy and I’ll stop and then get out of the routine. If we had this bad boy in the house, I do believe that I would use it. But it’s like buying a small car.
It’s the Precor Adaptive Motion Trainer. The same piece of equipment that they have at the gym. Our gym only has about 8 of these guys and they are always being used. Normally you have to wait about 10-15 minutes for one to become available. You can buy a reconditioned one (assume from a gym) for about $4,000.
I’m trying to decide whether to get one at all, and if I do, whether to get a reconditioned one or to bite the bullet and get a new one.
Please let me be the first to congratulate you on being able to fit such a purchase into your budget. If you think it’s a worthwhile expense, then go for it!
I did a little looking around, and Sears has a Nordic Track elliptical trainer for about 1/10th the cost of the one you mentioned. Granted, I have no idea what the difference between the two are, but you might save some serious coin if you do a little comparison shopping.
The thing that makes the adaptive motion trainer (only made by Precor, to my knowledge) is that you can do much more motion than what you can on a standard elliptical. You can actually have a running motion with very low impact on your feet, knees, joints etc. You also burn calories more quickly than you do on a standard treadmill or elliptical.
I use that same machine at my gym where there are only 2 of them. It’s the only elliptical (or any other kind) machine that doesn’t make my knee hurt. I don’t really want one at my home as I am retired and enjoy getting out to the gym. I just want the machine to be free when I am there! Not much to ask…
Anyway I can certainly see why you are considering buying this machine as it is different from all others for sure. I think I would go with the reconditioned if I were buying, as long as there is some sort of warranty.
Here is how I would look at it? How many times do you expect to use it in the next year? Next two? Next five? Whats the cost per use?
If you had it at home does it pretty much mean you won’t need to go to the gym? How much does it cost you to go to the gym in gas/travel time/car wear and tear? If you had this pricey baby could you or would you actually cancel you gym membership?
8k or 4k sounds like a lot of money, but if you put some numbers to the above questions maybe not.
I suspect the biggest problem/consideration is many folks can force themselves to go to a gym and once they are there they will work out, but if the equipment is at home they will never use it.
I believe the standard wisdom is to get a machine that’s of sufficient quality that you will actually use it, instead of deciding it’s a piece of crap and turning it into an expensive clothes rack. I actually followed your line of thinking and shopped for the models that were at my gym, but they were out of my price range. (I managed to find one I liked for about $800). If you can afford it, go for it! I suppose I would trust a factory-reconditioned model if, as kayT suggests, there’s some kind of warranty. Otherwise, if you’ve got the eight grand to blow, more power to you.
Precor is one of the top brands in cardio-fitness equipment. If you are buying a used one from a gym (or a used commercial as opposed to residential peice) most likely it was maintained by contract by a precor certified technician and was probably reconditioned by the same technician or shop. Generally used Precor commercial grade equipment is a good deal when bought used from a gym.
The Precor weighs 445 pounds while the Nordic Track only weighs 200 pounds. You get twice as much iron with the Precor. Of course it costs $18.42 per pound compared to only $4.25 per pound for the Nordic Track.
The only other consideration, aside from cost, I would have with this machine is noise. Are you sure it won’t be crazy loud in a home setting? The lesser ones like NordicTrack are made to use in a home and might be designed a little quieter, where the bigger gym machine might not have been made with the noise it makes as a consideration, since it’s not that important in a gym setting. If there’s a way to look up the different machines and their decibel output, it might be a good idea.
There’s not much noise. It doesn’t even plug into an outlet. There’s a battery for the electronic display and memory functions, but it’s charged by the motion of the machine working.
I would check Craigslist first to get people’s second hand stuff that they ended up using as expensive clothes racks…
I’m the proud owner of 4 air conditioners all less than 1 year old. One retails for $350, got it for $180, two retail for $110 apiece, got them for $55 each and one retails for $350 and I got it (installed too) for $150. Retail I’d have paid $920 + 7% tax so $984, instead I spent $440, less than half.
Also bought a solid hardwood and microfiber like-new couch, retails at $1500 for $100.
It’s really better to buy stuff secondhand. At the bare minimum factory reconditioned/scratch n dent/ what have you.
Great idea. A friend of mine spent a good bit on an exercise bike that his spouse wanted. He calls it her menstrual cycle, since she is on it about once a month.
I remember a magazine column where the author said that the Nordic Track he got kept him in great shape. He made himself a deal: if he did something active like running, biking, swimming, etc., he didn’t have to go on the Nordic Track. That was a horrible enough thought that he kept active and never had to touch the machine in five years of ownership. Sounds like a good investment to me!
Seems like a waste of money that would be better spent on the kids.
You can load an exercise video on your tv and get your heartrate up for 1/100th the cost of that machine. Try the cardio and pylometrics videos in p90x. He even does low impact routines, and much less boring than standing on a machine for 45 minutes.
Wow, the price on that has gone up. Are you buying the gym version? Before I quit working to go back to school I was in the market for an elliptical and I considered that Precor (without using it). It was 5K at the time for the home version.
I have since used that the Precor since the gyms I now go to at school and when I’m wafting around Boston switched to it, and I don’t like it as much as the one I was going to buy and used for years (which was LifeFitness at about 2K). I DO think Precor has a higher cardiovascular impact due to the adaptive motion, but I find that the motion ends up making me really dizzy. Btw, I find it to be extremely silent but the gym version is gigantic. You’ll have to allocate a decent amount of space.
Right now I am so ridiculously bored by the elliptical and avoidant of it that I’ve switched to the treadmill. Originally I was going to do that couch to 5K thingie but I got on the treadmill last week and got a 5K done in 34 minutes the first time running in 10 years. That’s slowish, but bear in mind I’m barely taller than 5 feet and have a smaller stride! So now I’m training for a 10K and am flirting with the idea of buying a treadmill with my signing bonus. I’m probably going to chuck it all into travel, though.
OK, didn’t realize that. I just looked at what was available on Amazon at the time to compare against LifeFitness. I generally go with the assumption that Amazon or the marketplace vendors usually sell the home rather than gym version.
All that said, I’ve now used that same Precor for a year, and I still don’t like the experience as much as the LifeFitness, which was half the price even for a gym version and much less (1700-1900 ish) for a home version.