wHave you, just like most of us, thought about the standard New Years Resolution? The one that we all tell ourselves every year and still often miss the mark. Getting fit, healthy, skinny, muscly, faster, stronger, just over all happier with our weight and appearance. So many of us are at it again. Well there are many dos and don’ts. Lets start with the don’ts….
1. Do not think it all happens over night. It can take even an entire year to loose weight healthfully. So much depends on what you think you need to loose and if you go about it in the right way. Which is number 2.
2. Do not crash diet. It has been proven over and over again that you will almost always put the weight back on and often more than you had when you started. Your body goes into shock. It thinks you are not going to give it the nutrients it needs to survive and will store what ever it can once it feels some is being provided again. This does not mean you should not change your eating habits- just do not stop eating.
3. Do not think the change in your diet alone will ever give you the results you are hoping for. Exercise and Eat Right. They go hand in hand. Exercise is equally as important as the food intake. Couch potatoes eating only rice cakes are sure to be unhealthy.
4. Do not give up. Anything worth doing is usually hard. Find friends that may be trying to change their life styles and hang with them more. Make sure that everyone close to you is aware of what you are trying to do so they encourage you and understand why you say “no” to many evenings out. You will learn to eat right when you go but it will take some time.
Let’s get to the fun stuff…The Dos.
1. Do have fun with the new changes in your life. Just because you are changing your eating habits and your exercise routine does not mean you have to dread it. Particularly working out. So many different types of exercise out there that you can take advantage of muscle confusion as well as cardiovascular levels.
Let me explain what muscle confusion is first. Simple. Do not perform the same exercise on the same muscles and do not do them at the same time everyday or in the same order. Lift weights, climb, bike, walk, run, swim, dance, do it all. Just make sure you exercise. They say at least 30 minutes for 3-4 days a week. With all of the options and levels I say you can easily build up to as much as you are healthy to do.
2. Do watch your calorie intake. Not only do you want to watch the calorie in take you also want to watch where you are getting your calories from. Do eat healthful, fresh, local, organic, produce and meats. Try to avoid what comes in a box. Not very natural. Try to avoid the over load of carbs. You have heard this as much as you have heard eat right and exercise. It is true. It is hard too. So much of the really great tasting foods are in the carb zone. With all of this said- be sure and treat yourself to very small bites now and then. Just like starving you may give in too easily and go over board. A small treat now and then will actually help you stay on track.
3. Do Exercise, Exercise, Exercise. I can not talk enough about the immediate benefits as well as the long term benefits. Your entire life will change forever if you exercise on a regular basis for as long as you can. Bones will be stronger, blood flows better, skin is even healthier. Muscles are important and they can only get better and stronger if you work them. Once you work them they will work for you. Just like all good relationships you must work together.
I have not said anything that you probable do not already know I am just reminding you again. Have fun and have a healthful life. You will be so much happier when you feel better.
The classic black Soloflex is the fitness machine which made home weightlifting socially acceptable in America.
From a meager beginning, Soloflex has become a model of business success–admired and copied in the fitness industry for its product and marketing techniques.
However, the phenomenal success of Soloflex, Inc. seemed remote in 1976, when Jerry Wilson first applied for a patent for his muscle machine.
Jerry Wilson’s idea was to create an exercise machine that would be attractive, convenient and easy to use in the privacy of one’s own home. Wilson’s commitment was to combine all the advantages of free weight lifting with the safety of machines. Over a period of one year, Jerry built 10 prototypes in his garage, doing the welding himself.
Initial Financing: Mortgage Everything
Although financial institutions were skeptical of the idea of a home weightlifting machine, the Wilsons believed in the Soloflex.
To borrow the $60,000 needed to get their fitness machine business started, the Wilsons mortgaged their house, three cars, a motorcycle and the patent on the Soloflex. Jerry quit his job as a Lear Jet charter pilot and began to concentrate full-time on the development of the L-shaped machine.
Following his invention and patent application, Soloflex, Inc., was formed in Texas, in July 1978.
One month later, the husband and wife team of Jerry and Marilyn Wilson opened the their first office in Roswell, New Mexico, to begin marketing directly to the consumer, not to health clubs as past weight machine manufacturers had.
“There were 5,000 health clubs in America and 75 million homes. We knew were we wanted to be,” said Jerry Wilson.
Manufacturing of the first Soloflex machines was on a much smaller scale than it is today. The frames were constructed in the Wilson’s garage and the wooden benches were cut in the barn. The finished machine was then painted in the driveway and packaged for delivery in the living room of the Wilson’s Roswell home. As orders reached into the hundreds, the Wilson’s hired the company’s first employee.
In March of 1979, the manufacturing of Soloflex was moved from home-based to a close Air Force base–in a rented building once used as a veterinary hospital.
First Magazine Advertising Paid Off
Their first advertising effort began in September on 1979, with a $3,300 print ad in a South West-regional edition of Playboy magazine. Orders flooded in.
Sales for the first year of operations totaled $80,000 with the sale of 228 machines. The second year, sales increased to $1.2 million.
Sales continued to grow, and in August 1980, Soloflex operations were moved moved to Hillsboro, Oregon, 20 miles outside of Portland. The move was made for several reasons, including the availability of raw materials and the need for a larger work force.
Space was first rented in the Hawthorn Farm Business Park complex, the largest industrial park in Oregon at the time. In June 1983, the corporate offices and manufacturing center moved to 570 N.E. 53rd Street in Hillsboro, Oregon.
By 1989 sales had reached all the way to $98 million.
Soloflex print ads, designed to sell America “better birthday suites,” became award winners after their appearance in such national markets as Time, Newsweek, Sports Illustrated, GQ and Esquire.
The black-and-white magazine advertising, featuring hard-bodied, warmly photographed male models, made such slogans as “No Pain, No Gain” and “Body By Soloflex,” literally household phrases. Soloflex brochures included endorsements by sports luminaries such as body building great Arnold Schwarzenegger, Olympic gymnast Mitch Gaylord and football star Gale Sayers.
Soloflex Became TV’s “Infomercial” Innovator
Around 1986, Jerry and Marilyn recognized the advantages of using 30-minute sales videos in the rapidly growing cable television market. Eighty percent and more of the Soloflex advertising budget was going directly into television, taking advantage of huge blocks of surprisingly affordable cable-TV time, at a period when such “space-buying” was virtually unheard of.
This spurred an increase in sales, surpassing a quarter of a million machines sold by mid 1988.
Soloflex also was one of America’s greatest success stories in selling through “videotape brochures”, 20 to 30 minute cassette tapes mailed directly to potential cstomers who’d seen Soloflex TV commercials and dialed a 1-800 telephone number seeking more information on the machine.
In Jerry Wilson’s opinion, the video brochures demonstrate the Soloflex machine better than any salesman and can be watched repeatedly and passed on to other potential customers.
The astonishing growth of Soloflex led to Jerry and Marilyn creating the company’s own advertising firm, 53rd Street Advertising, in 1987. The firm handles all advertising and video productions, as well as media placement for Soloflex’s innovative TV advertising campaign.
Soloflex has always been sold exclusively through advertising, not in stores or mail order catalogs. Consumers still can call the toll free number for a brochure of what the machines can do. Then, the consumer follows up with and order if they want to purchase. It is that simple.
By 1990, Soloflex was the home weightlifting standard by which all other machines were measured. Over half a million machines were sold.
Stay tuned for part two of the Soloflex History story. Coming soon.
I bought my first Soloflex over 25 years ago after working out on a friends’s unit with the wood bench and the Shock Rings. I’ve loved it from the start. I gained muscle, lost inches and became stronger. I have never thought about buying a competitor’s brand in all of these years. Recently, I went back and read ALL of the blogs on the Soloflex website and became interested in Jerry Wilson’s (inventor of the Soloflex) assertion that using shock rings WITH weight plates on the end of the Soloflex lever arm gives the best and smoothest feedback to the body in his opinion.
I don’t have the Shock Rings yet but I have just begun to workout using Weight Plates with my Straps(a 50/50 percentage approximately) on many of the exercises and let me tell you, I am nearly as EXCITED as I was when I first got my Soloflex. I feel that I am working out on a NEW, IMPROVED Soloflex muscle machine. Here are the advantages from my perspective:
1. Using weight plates with the straps(or shock rings which I intend to buy as my straps wear out) add a new dimension of smoothness to the reps when doing the exercises. I don’t know why but I know that they DO! Jerry Wilson could probably explain it.
2. One reason many “free weight” believers including some fitness experts like free weights over machines is that it makes you focus on balance which is important especially as you get older. Adding Weight Plates to the Soloflex lever arm by using their free weight attachmant rods along with the straps/shock rings gives one the best of both worlds: You can still work out by yourself without a spotter but you still get the feel of balancing the weight plates.
Finally, how many products have you bought in your life that you can honestly say “almost” NEVER requires maintenance or repairs? For 25 years, the only thing I have had to do to my Soloflex is keep it clean and replace the straps as they wear out. It’s built so solid and well. So, here I am after all of this time, still enthused about a product I bought 25 years ago. THANKS SOLOFLEX.
“I never had the opportunity to meet Jack but knew well his counterpart here in Portland, Joe Loprenzi. Joe had a similar TV show here locally for decades, inspiring and teaching people how to live better, and was close friends with Jack. Joe died last year, healthy way past ninety just like Jack. Nobody lives forever but I was so impressed that Joe kept his wits and charm about him until the end. Kept his compassion, his love for others too. He really cared about people, knew that his example would make other lives better so was totally dedicated to setting the right example by teaching what he’d learned. Can’t think of a better way to earn a soul than that! These men were “happy.” It was infectious and they knew it. My shortcoming was their ace in the hole, they could motivate people to get off their asses to exercise and eat right! I did build a better mousetrap, own the federal trademark on “exercise and eat right” but never came close to being able to motivate people like these men did. It’s never too late to start. I’ll work on that.”
Yet another reason to maintain healthy body weight throughout your life: Women who gain roughly 30 or more pounds between the ages of 20 and 55 have twice the risk of developing post-menopausal breast cancer, found in April study of more than 70,000 women from the National Cancer Institute. Weight gain after 55 -which is even harder to combat due to a slowing metabolism-increases risk too. To stay healthy, shoot for a body mass index (BMI) fo 24.9 or lower.
Exercise and and eating right will help you combat cancer. A healthy life style is vital to a long life.
If late-night television commercials are to be believed, America’s soft-bodied sofa dwellers dream primarily of three things: owning a knife that can cut through a penny; obtaining cash for gold; and building their muscles with a minimum of time, money, and effort. Of these three dreams, the last appears to be the most pressing. Today, gullible endomorphs can choose from dozens of fitness miracles: the Total Gym, which is endorsed by Chuck Norris; the Ab Flyer, an expensive swing that tones your midsection; the Thigh Glider, which turns leg-spreading into an exciting workout; and the Flex Belt, which uses electronic stimulation to shock your abdomen into six-pack shape.
Twenty-five years ago, though, a single home-fitness product ruled the airwaves: Soloflex. The first comprehensive home-exercise device marketed to a mass audience, Soloflex broke ground with its unique design, which promised users a safe way to build their bodies at home; its magazine ads, featuring close-up photographs of chiseled torsos and abdomens; and its infomercials, which brought those torsos and abdomens to life. Although Soloflex no longer paces the home exercise market, it paved the way for all the Ab Flyers and Thigh Gliders to come and changed the way we think about building our bodies.
Some days, getting the mail here at the Soloflex office is a lot of fun. We’ve gotten so many great letters over the years and I’d like to share one of the latest. This man is an inspiration, he’s been exercising and eating right for decades!
To all the Good People at Soloflex:
I want to thank all of you for the profoundly positive impact you’ve had on my life. I bought my Soloflex exercise machine in 1984, and I’ve used it everyday for the last 25 years. It is one of the main reasons I’m in excellent health as I approach my 69th birthday.
My body is in perfect shape! I have the muscle-tone of a strong, healthy 25 year-old. My Soloflex, which has become a dear, dear friend, has repaid the money I paid for it thousandfold. I bless the day so long ago that I saw your advertisement and decide to respond to it. It was truly a Wise Choice Day.
I’ve made similar Wise Choices. I’ve been a non-drinking vegetarian for 32 years. I eat mostly organic living foods, and drink about a gallon of home-distilled water each day. I meditate, walk on the nearby beach, exercise regularly, and am in bed every night by 10 p.m. God has blessed me abundantly.
And the Soloflex you made for me has been one of the memorable blessings of my long and contented life. Thank you for this life-enhancing product which you made available to me and others. I am in your collective debt, and consider you kindred spirits.
I wish all of the people at Soloflex the very best of all the good things Life has to give!
Blessings & Deep Gratitude,
Owen M. Delray Beach, Florida
Thank you for the great letter, Owen! Keep up the good work.
Today we modified the safety to make it adjustable and changed it to round tubing. The adjustments are easy to make, it needs a little more bracing but happy with the way it’s come together so far. We may also change the front vertical safety bar to square tubing for more stability. It’s pretty solid but not good enough yet.
We also changed the back brace to round tubing as it makes a more comfortable step and also allows you to use it for elevated push ups (if there were no plates on the back) and convenient as a hamstring/glute developer. Adding some round tubing generally make the machine better looking, softens it up a bit.
We just drilled out 2 holes for the squat cradle but intend to add more adjustments there, at least 2 or 3 additional locations.
Our next step is to get the connections points correct. This is vital for the feel of the machine and easy assembly. We are thinking that welded ears for the main frame, connected with a heavy bolt through the bottom would be the best. Not unlike the way most heavy duty squat racks are connected. We’ll probably connect the front safety legs the same way.
The latest in fitness is to do your workout in as few minutes as possible. This only makes good sense. And it would inspire those who don’t now workout to hear the words 20 minutes vs. 2 hours. My gosh, what a turn off 2 hours is for most of us. This smart move doesn’t mean you are to get less of a workout. It means you are using your time better. You just need to use the right tools and routines. Circuit training immediately come to mind. Circuit training means doing 4-6 different exercises that reach different muscles without resting between exercises. Mostly these exercises are weight training but you can sprinkle in some running- in- place or jumping jacks or something like that. Do this set three times with a one minute rest between sets. Not only do you save time but studies show you even get a better workout. Now, how can you beat that? Toss in Whole Body Vibration and you get even more benefit. Just stand on the vibrating board and do your compound exercises. These good vibrations simply make your workout more effective.
Have you, just like most of us, thought about the standard New Years Resolution? The one that we all tell ourselves every year and still often miss the mark. Getting fit, healthy, skinny, muscly, faster, stronger, just over all happier with our weight and appearance. So many of us are at it again. Well there are many dos and don’ts. Lets start with the don’ts….
“I never had the opportunity to meet Jack but knew well his counterpart here in Portland, Joe Loprenzi. Joe had a similar TV show here locally for decades, inspiring and teaching people how to live better, and was close friends with Jack. Joe died last year, healthy way past ninety just like Jack. Nobody lives forever but I was so impressed that Joe kept his wits and charm about him until the end. Kept his compassion, his love for others too. He really cared about people, knew that his example would make other lives better so was totally dedicated to setting the right example by teaching what he’d learned. Can’t think of a better way to earn a soul than that! These men were “happy.” It was infectious and they knew it. My shortcoming was their ace in the hole, they could motivate people to get off their asses to exercise and eat right! I did build a better mousetrap, own the federal trademark on “exercise and eat right” but never came close to being able to motivate people like these men did. It’s never too late to start. I’ll work on that.”![WeCanDoItPoster[1]-thumb](http://www.soloflex.com/wp-content/uploads/WeCanDoItPoster1-thumb.jpg "WeCanDoItPoster[1]-thumb")
