Workout Wednesday: Rip:60 Unboxing

Monday was a happy day in my house...my Rip:60 arrived 2 days earlier than the tracking was predicting!  Unfortunately, I was at work, but hubby was off so it could be picked up (normally we'd need to wait until Friday because our post office doesn't have evening hours).

To save pieces vanishing by little hands, I waited until the girlies were in bed before I unboxed.

Bad photo...but this is of a little neoprene protector (to thread the trainer through when using the door anchor so your door won't get scratched).  The thing that is blacked out is a little drawstring nylon bag to store it in when you travel.

The handles and the trainer.  The handles are MUCH larger than I expected them to be and are quite different than the handles on the TRX.  The coating is a durable-looking nylon and the grips are plastic.  I don't think they will be as comfortable as the foamy TRX handles, but they will be much easier to disinfect.

Research Note: the handles attach by carabiner.   For this reason, I suspect there will be additional handles come available in the future and wouldn't be surprised if handles like the TRX turn up as accessories.

Nutrition guide and other assorted paperwork.

The DVD case

Everything, all together.

The wall chart it comes with is just paper so I won't be hanging it up until I have it laminated.

Handy tip:  We have done this with all of the wall charts we have ever gotten with assorted kits we've bought.   Our beachbody charts look just as good today as they did the day we got the programs...and we can write on them using non-permanent marker (not the same as dry-erase) and reuse them to track progress.  Word of advice, though, unless you absolutely have no other choice don't take them to an office place (like Staples) to have it done.   Laminating is far cheaper at a map store because they have the equipment on hand for large scale laminating.  Most office stores do not and it will end up costing you double or triple the price.

Another bad photo - there is a little workout guide but it seems kind of useless for my purposes.  I likely won't be doing the 8 week program on its own.   Unless I decide it's a good way to pass the winter...

The nutrition guide lays out meal plans for the 8 weeks, complete with recipes.   Many of them are vegetarian.  A quick glance tells me that if I followe dit to a T, I'd have no problem losing weight.  I will probably follow it loosely because some of the meals look pretty good and appear to be simple to prepare.

The DVD case is hard plastic with sleeves inside to hold the 12 DVDs the program comes with.   The sleeves themselves aren't a very great quality (some of the DVDs slip out the bottom of the pocket).  I have read that some peoples DVDs have been quite stuck int he case and that the case has had to be ruined to get them out...mine were fine.  I took some extra care when removing them to be sure.

Closeup of the "pin" mechanism.  Added plus - the pin is actually attached to the pulley by a short cord s, when you pull it out, the pin won't end up getting lost.

The carabiner that the handles attach to:

After work, I headed to Fitness Depot to buy a mounting bracket for it.   They have one that it remarkably similar to the one TRX sells (the X-mount) but for less than half the price.  At $15, I figured it was a steal to mount this thing easily and properly.

Hubby took it upon himself to install it in the ceiling beams in the middle of our home gym.   For a man who was teasing me mercilessly about buying this...he was sure eager to give it a try :)

I never really considered our basement ceiling to be very low, but we ended up taking up a great deal of slack when installing it by looping it through the mount several times. 

I am really impressed by the quality of this thing. The metal pieces aren't lightweight - they have some heft to them. The stitching is good and it feels like a quality piece of equipment.   I can see us using it when we travel, too, since it can be taken down fairly easily. 

Where the kit is lacking is in the instructions.  There are not great written instructions for installing or using it.  I wasn't really at a disadvantage with this because I had heavily researched suspension trainers and had been exposed to them before.  A complete newbie, though, might have issues. 

I did a few test exercises on it and it holds my weight easily and feels like I am using a TRX.  I'm excited to try out the first video!