New tricks for old muscles

continued

The Coles say most people learn the machine quickly—even those who have never used a leg press. “The beauty of this machine is that it works for the frail elderly all the way up to a high-performance athlete,” says Neil Cole. “The training protocol is based on your personal strength capacity. You can train at fifty pounds or up to two thousand pounds.”

And if you’re at the low end of that spectrum, well, that can be your secret. “Some people don’t like to go to gyms because there are power-lifters putting on four-hundred-pound weights and showing off, and then I put on my little seventy-pound weight and feel intimidated,” Chuck says. “On our system, nobody knows what amount of weight you are using.”   

[Originally published in October, 2008.]