The X-Factor is one of a somewhat new product category in the realm of fitness equipment. It is what I would call a door gym. It is not the first product in this category, but it looks like it might be the most intriguing of the bunch that I’ve seen.

The first door gym that I’ve seen is actually the Tower 200 by Body by Jake. Both home gyms work basically the same way. You attach a series of resistance bands to a door via some mechanism and you do a series of resistance exercises using a combination of both the upper and lower body.

The total amount of resistance for the Weider X-Factor is 210 lbs. With the extra resistance band kit you can increase the total amount to over 300 lbs. That is far more resistance that most people will ever need. Think about it, when you do bicep curls you use what 25 to 45 lbs. most of the time? If 210 lbs. isn’t enough to give you a good workout, you probably aren’t in the market for a consumer-grade workout system, much less a door gym.

That being said, I think that most people will probably be able to find a good workout using the X-Factor gym. Since this is a new product I haven’t had a chance to use it yet, it’s still on order, so I don’t have firsthand knowledge of the kind of workout you can get.

Body by Jake Cardio Cruzer Plus

Current Price: US $75.00

Body By Jake Tower 200 - Brand New in Box

Current Price: US $79.99

However, if you go to YouTube, you can find some really outstanding “behind the scenes” videos of how the 2 minute national commercial for X-Factor was made and those fitness models were really working hard. Some of the videos showed models who were sweating hard and could barely talk. This was not people being doused with water right before they start to film. Real sweat, real shortness of breath. Seemingly a real workout.

The price seems to be the real factor that puts the X-Factor into the “must buy” category for me. At $100 plus shipping, you can’t beat the price. I’ve looked into Bowflex or even the Weider Max systems and even used that would have been $200-300. Those systems deliver a similar amount of resistance and even similar exercises, yet they cost 2-3x as much used. New machines cost $300 – $1,000+. At that kind of investment I could buy a X-Factor for a lof of my friends and relatives.

Another great thing about only spending $100 on the X-Factor is that if it doesn’t work or you don’t use it much, you aren’t out a lot of money. A monthly gym membership costs say $30-80 a month, so $100 is only a few months worth of membership fees. In this recession economy, that’s a big win no matter how much you slice it.

The closest competitor to the X-Factor is the Tower 200 by Body by Jake. There seem to be two major differences. The first difference is that the X-Factor is cheaper. If you buy the Tower 200 outright, I believe it costs about $160 or so, depending on what discounts you can get, I’m not sure. The X-Factor is $100+ shipping, so that’s about a $50-60 dollar difference.

The second difference between the X-Factor and the Tower 200 is how they attach to the door. The X-Factor gets its name because it has 4 corner door connections that connect at the corners to create an X shape with the resistance bands. The Tower 200, by contrast, has a kind of metal plate support system that goes on the top and bottom of the door keeping the resistance bands in a vertical posistion.

From what I can tell, the X-Factor is probably a little more portable than the Tower 200. Both are obviously a lot more compact than your traditional gym like a Bowflex or even a Total Gym. However, the support system of the Tower 200 is bigger and bulkier than the X-Factor gym is. I’ve seen some blog comments elsewhere that seem to verify this assumption.

The last thing worth mentioning as far as the X-Factor goes is that Weider has put together a 3 DVD workout set. The DVDs cover Explosion training, Total Body training, and Ab training. Without using any of these DVDs I can’t really say much of anything about them. They were designed by Michael Skogg, a MMA trainer/coach as well as a former special forces soldier. That’s pretty cool, but like most workout DVDs, they only work if you use them.

A workout chart is also included which will show you how to do the different exercises. With a door gym the exercises are limited more by your imagination than anything else. I believe the 200 in the Tower 200 stands for the 200 different exercises you can do with it. I don’t know if there are 200 completely different exercises you can do on either machine, but that’s not the point. If you can have 10-20 excellent exercises that you do in a circuit, you can make a pretty killer workout out of that.

As I mentioned earlier in this article, I just ordered my Weider X-Factor, so I’m waiting to see how it goes. Once I get the X-Factor maybe I’ll put together a weekly diary of progress and such. It couldn’t hurt right? I’m pretty stoked about the X-Factor and based on my past experience using resistance bands, I have pretty high hopes that this will be awesome. Let’s hope that Weider doesn’t let me down!

Related posts:

• Weider X-Factor First Impressions
• Weider Total Body Works 5000
• The Weider Powermax
• The Weider Max Home Gym
• Weider Fitness Powerbell Kettle Bells