# Strange Old-Time Exercise Machine **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [July 24, 2009, 4:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/strange-old-time-exercise-machine/504134 "2009-07-24T16:21:05Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 11\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Shawn1767](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ee7513/32.png) [@Shawn1767](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shawn1767)\ **Post date:** [July 24, 2009, 4:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/strange-old-time-exercise-machine/504134/1 "2009-07-24T16:21:05Z")
In old movies and TV shows, whenever the characters were at a gym or someplace similar, there was usually a “machine” that had a belt attached to it and you stood inside the belt loop and the belt shook you. What was that machine? What did the people who used it expect it to do? I really can’t see any benefit to being shaken. But it seemed ubiquitous. ---
**Author:** ![Tim\_R.Mortiss](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tim_r.mortiss/32/142_2.png) [@Tim\_R.Mortiss](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tim_R.Mortiss)\ **Post date:** [July 24, 2009, 4:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/strange-old-time-exercise-machine/504134/2 "2009-07-24T16:29:38Z")
It was an alleged weight-loss device. It was also great for making comical scenes in black-and-white 1950s and 1960s sit-coms…TRM (but not for much else) ---
**Author:** ![Kent\_Clark](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kent_clark/32/105_2.png) [@Kent\_Clark](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kent_Clark)\ **Post date:** [July 24, 2009, 4:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/strange-old-time-exercise-machine/504134/3 "2009-07-24T16:37:41Z")
It was supposed to jiggle the fat right off your midsection. By the way, [it’s still around](http://www.oo.com.au/Vibrating_Belt_Massager_with_R_P10631C110.cfm). ---
**Author:** ![Tim\_R.Mortiss](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tim_r.mortiss/32/142_2.png) [@Tim\_R.Mortiss](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tim_R.Mortiss)\ **Post date:** [July 24, 2009, 4:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/strange-old-time-exercise-machine/504134/4 "2009-07-24T16:40:37Z")
I remember seeing several of them at the “Museum of Questionable Medical Devices” in Minneapolis a few years back. Unfortunately, their website has no pictures of them. But it does have lots of other fun stuff: > **[museumofquackery.com : Bob McCoy: founder of the The Museum of Questionable...](http://www.museumofquackery.com/index.htm)** > > Dubbed 'The Quackery Hall of Fame,' the museum > is the world's largest display of what the human mind has devised to cure > itself without the benefit of either scientific method or common sense.. ---
**Author:** ![Tastes\_of\_Chocolate](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tastes_of_chocolate/32/3232_2.png) [@Tastes\_of\_Chocolate](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tastes_of_Chocolate)\ **Post date:** [July 24, 2009, 4:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/strange-old-time-exercise-machine/504134/5 "2009-07-24T16:45:16Z")
The building my parents worked in had one if these, in the early '70s. Even then it seemed like a silly excuse of an excercise machine, but it was fun to play with. ---
**Author:** ![chrisk](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/6de8d8/32.png) [@chrisk](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/chrisk)\ **Post date:** [July 24, 2009, 4:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/strange-old-time-exercise-machine/504134/6 "2009-07-24T16:48:40Z")
Managed to read this OP as: Strange Old Time-Machine Exercise. 😉 ---
**Author:** ![kayaker](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kayaker/32/441_2.png) [@kayaker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kayaker)\ **Post date:** [July 24, 2009, 4:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/strange-old-time-exercise-machine/504134/7 "2009-07-24T16:56:08Z")
Guess I’m the only one who can think of nefarious uses for the machine. 😉 ---
**Author:** ![Freudian\_Slit](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/5daacb/32.png) [@Freudian\_Slit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Freudian_Slit)\ **Post date:** [July 24, 2009, 4:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/strange-old-time-exercise-machine/504134/8 "2009-07-24T16:58:49Z")
> [@kayaker](#): > > Guess I’m the only one who can think of nefarious uses for the machine. 😉 Peggy, damnit, the assignment’s over, stop taking that belt home. ---
**Author:** ![dracoi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/90db22/32.png) [@dracoi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dracoi)\ **Post date:** [July 24, 2009, 5:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/strange-old-time-exercise-machine/504134/9 "2009-07-24T17:01:32Z")
I saw a chiropractor demonstrating something very similar just last weekend. The vibrating/moving part was what you stood on. He was explaining to a small crowd that the moving foot plates forced your body’s muscles to constantly adjust and that it not only gave all of those muscles exercise, but it improved balance and helped to align your hips, shoulders and spine. I would hate to call him a quack outright but… come on. ---
**Author:** ![aruvqan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/aruvqan/32/2891_2.png) [@aruvqan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/aruvqan)\ **Post date:** [July 24, 2009, 5:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/strange-old-time-exercise-machine/504134/10 "2009-07-24T17:14:39Z")
> [@dracoi](#): > > I saw a chiropractor demonstrating something very similar just last weekend. The vibrating/moving part was what you stood on. He was explaining to a small crowd that the moving foot plates forced your body’s muscles to constantly adjust and that it not only gave all of those muscles exercise, but it improved balance and helped to align your hips, shoulders and spine. > > I would hate to call him a quack outright but… come on. Actually, that one may have a little merit. You would think that riding a horse is pretty null exercise wise, just a little trail hacking at a slow amble. An hour of sitting on a horse and you _will_ have sore muscles in places you did not know you had … all those little movements mount up after a while. That ‘little adjustment movement’ is the principal behind the pilates ball office chairs ---
**Author:** ![Sigmagirl](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/c89c15/32.png) [@Sigmagirl](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sigmagirl)\ **Post date:** [July 24, 2009, 5:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/strange-old-time-exercise-machine/504134/11 "2009-07-24T17:33:06Z")
Funny you should mention it. My aunt was thrown from a horse in the mid '60s and had severe back injuries. Her doctor suggested one of these things for – I guess you’d call it helping her “stay loose.” I’m sure it was of negligible use, but she couldn’t do any real form of exercise, so I imagine it didn’t do any harm.