So this is the latest fitness gadget they have at Target. As you may know, I am always looking to see what’s going on in the fitness industry—whether it be legit, false, serious, or funny. I just like to know who’s making money on what.

This is what I found while walking around aimlessly the other day, as I usually do on a weekday night. : /
I immediately noticed something was wrong—something didn’t jive.

I’ve seen other pushup contraptions that add resistance to “the holy pushup” by holding you down, and you push upward against the resistance. They would be similar to your significant other sitting on your back while you were doing pushups. Harder to lift yourself, right?

Well this one didn’t seem to be right, even at first glance. Upon further inspection, I figured out that it works by pushing you up by the chest as you push down with your arms. Now, you would think it’s simply pushing your body up by using your own force via your arms and chest power, but there are actual resistance bands down there. So, as you push yourself up, the pad automatically rises, stretching the bands, making it more difficult to press down on the handles.

Now, there’s the key!

You PUSH DOWN on the handles with this device as opposed to pushing down on Earth and lifting YOURSELF up away from the planet as with a regular pushup. So with this device are you still doing a pushup? Are you pushing yourself up? Well, yes. Yes you are. That pad aint going up without you pushing down on those handles. And if the pad doesn’t go up, your ass aint going up either!

So how does it compare to a regular pushup?

As Rocket Fitness says in their infomercial, it “supports bodyweight up to 78%” and in their video:

AHA! Busted! So there you go! Those metal arms lift your body by adding leverage to make it easier to do pushups if you find them too difficult. Then why the resistance bands? Well they make it a bit harder than if you were using this device with no bands. But both with and without resistance bands is EASIER and therefore LESS EFFECTIVE than doing a normal pushup on the floor without the $100 gadget.

There are so many pushup variations and ways to make them easier and harder on their own with no equipment that you really do not need any device. If you really want to add resistance to a regular pushup, you want to make it harder to lift yourself up, not add something that helps lift you up.

I’d go with a weighted vest instead!

It’s the best way to add resistance to your pushups. You can finish your set of pushups, get up and do weighted pull ups in the blink of an eye for some killer antagonistic super sets!

After that, I’d do some weighted squat jumps, then sit-ups, then… you get the picture.

They range from the $30 lighter vests to real heavy ones. I would recommend you try doing some pushups with a child on your back that weighs around 20-30 pounds to see how that feels so you can know how heavy of a vest to buy.

Or if you aren’t in the habit of conducting experiments using your kids, then maybe a backpack worn backward with something heavy in it.

But a vest is best since you won’t be able to jump or do situps with a heavy backpack because it doesn’t grip tight on your body.