Whoever said you can't have it all clearly never stood in front of a smart home gym! Yes, you can have the full “gym” experience at home if you choose the right machine. While this may require a big initial investment, you're likely to find that a home smart gym is the game changer you've been waiting for to help you enjoy both strength and cardio in your workout without the need to massively switch gears using different pieces of equipment. With these gyms, you're going to feel elegant while grinding your gears like never before.
Strength Training and Cardio Combined? Can It Be True?
The body isn't one thing. It's a network of different muscle groups. The same goes for the mind. While we may be engaged by pushing ourselves to the max with strength training one day, we crave the freedom and flexibility of jogging the next. We really need a little bit of both strength and cardio to keep our minds and bodies engaged for optimal health. The same goes for low-impact options like yoga and stretching. This is where smart gyms shine because they integrate both strength and cardio to help you enjoy a balanced fitness routine that can change and evolve with your goals. In this way, choosing a smart gym is really not that different from choosing a real-life trainer.
You wouldn't be that impressed if your personal trainer only had one move to show you over and over again. What's more, a personal trainer who only knows how to use one piece of equipment might not seem worth the fee. However, this is exactly how many people approach the decision to purchase a piece of workout equipment. How many of us have dropped thousands of dollars on a row machine or bike that works out the same muscles groups every time? While these machines can be great for specific goals, they aren't necessarily ideal for someone who wants the entire breadth of the workout universe at their fingertips. That's where strength-cardio gyms come into the picture!
Benefits of Combining Both Strength and Cardio in Your Workout
It's a misconception that you have to choose to focus on either strength or cardio based on your fitness goals. When creating a custom training routine, it's beneficial to incorporate both to optimize and maximize every bit of effort you put in. Let's look at the benefits each option brings to the table before seeing how powerful they are once they join forces!
Great for Your Heart and Lungs
Cardio is amazing for strengthening your heart and lungs. First, it boosts your ability to deliver blood and oxygen throughout your body. As you move along with cardio, you'll find that you're able to build up incredible endurance due to the fact that your muscles can utilize oxygen better. That means that being consistent with cardio workouts fuels better workouts of any kind!
Burn Calories
Cardio is also amazing for burning calories. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), a person weighing 154 pounds will burn between 140 and 295 calories during 30 minutes of cardio exercise. We also know that cardio reduces inflammation in the body, helps us to drop fat and regulates our blood sugar. Cardio is also an amazing mood booster that can help to fight depression.
Build Muscle
Strength training helps us to become stronger and more powerful by building up our muscles. No, you don't only need to focus on strength training if you're trying to bulk up. Strength training is important for us all because it fortifies the muscles that support our bodies in our everyday lives. In building muscle, we boost our metabolisms because muscles burn more calories than fat around the clock. In addition, strength training helps to support bone strength, reduces pressure on our joints and makes us feel stronger. Many people find that strength training allows them to keep the strength and posture needed to avoid pains and strains.
Endurance
Something especially magical happens when we combine strength and cardio. You might find that you burn more fat, sleep better and feel like you're “walking on air.” On the fitness side, the biggest benefit of combining cardio with strength is that you're building endurance. As we covered, cardio is amazing for boosting oxygen delivery throughout your body. It turns out that your muscles really need oxygen for growth and recovery. Can you see where this is going? Boosting the efficiency of the oxygen in your blood through cardio sets you up for faster muscle building during strength training!
Reduce Risk of Injury
While it could take hours to really cover all of the benefits of combining cardio and strength, there are at least two big ones that are worth exploring. The first is that you reduce your risk of injury by changing up your routine. The danger of overtraining in one mode is that your body doesn't get the recovery it needs. When you alternate your focus, you're giving different muscle groups room to rest without going “dormant.” This also leads into the second major benefit that's worth covering. Combining cardio and strength can set you up for a great sleep life. On strength days, your body will rest muscles to make up for the energy deficient. On cardio days, the calories burned will help your body to go into rest mode. That means you can get the full range of rest needed by triggering recovery in different muscle groups!
Choosing Tempo Studio vs. Forme Life: Which Provides the Better Workout?
You may be at the point where you know you need a smart home gym to get that perfect mix of strength and cardio into your life. The excitement of knowing that you can walk into a virtual gym to completely tune out the world without getting into your car could have you eager to jump at the first gym you see advertised. This is where drilling down on two enticing gyms like the Tempo Studio and Forme Life Studio becomes essential.
Price
Tempo Studio: 3 Bundles to choose from: The Tempo Starter ($2,495 or $69/month), the Tempo Plus ($3,245 or $90/month) and the Tempo Pro ($3,995 or $111/month). With every bundle, you get the A.I. powered technology, but every bundle is different when it comes to equipment included. Visit their bundle page now to learn more.
Forme Life: $2,495 for Studio/$39 per month for multi-user membership. Payments plans are available that allow you to pay $69.31 per month to own. The deluxe version (Studio Lift) is $4,495. With a payment plan, you could pay as little as $124.86 per month to own!
Workout Machine Style: Do You Need Resistance Training (Forme) or “Real” Weight Lifting (Tempo)?
Tempo Studio: With Tempo, you're getting actual rubber-coated weight plates, two dumbbells, a barbell and weight collars with your purchase! If you're looking for “old school” training, this is going to be more familiar for you.
Forme Life: This gym uses AI to create simulated weight resistance. It will actually suggest resistance levels to dynamically adjust your workouts to provide the biggest benefit.
Strength-Training Workouts
Tempo Studio: Reps for full body, upper body and lower body. While you're using real weights, you're also getting instant feedback and body tracking that helps you to adjust your moves in real time to meet your goals.
Forme Life: Reps for full body, upper body and lower body. The Forme Life automatically sets and adjusts weights for you. The premium-level Forme Life Lift contains weight-training arms that fold into the unit when not in use. The unit also comes with a rope handle, short bar and ankle straps.
Cardio Workouts
Tempo Studio: Tons of cardio options that range from 10 minutes to 30 minutes at the beginner, intermediate and expert levels. You can also select who you want to sweat with from the roster of trainers. Choose everything from dancing to boxing!
Forme Life: Tons of cardio options that are full of motivation. Your machine will recommend appropriate class levels for you. Everything from “sweatboxing” to dancing waits on the roster when you want to change things up!
Wellness Workouts
Tempo Studio: Great options for meditation and yoga!
Forme Life: Great options for yoga and mediation classes! There's even prenatal yoga!
$500 OFF!Aesthetics: Which Smart Home Gym Will Look Good in My Home?
While both will look just fine in your home, Forme Life is a slightly more attractive option. You can mostly chalk this up to the fact that Forme Life is the newer kid on the block. The designers and engineers behind this brand really set out to design the most beautiful home gym in existence. However, you do need to have a talk with yourself about sleekness versus storage. The Tempo Studio gets its bulk from a built-in cabinet stand that allows you to tuck away your lifting equipment nicely. The fact that the Forme Life uses simulated resistance and weight instead of instructing you with real weights means that there's no need to clean up and store your equipment. As a result, you're getting that perfectly flat design.
Reflective Mirror Gym?
The Forme Life does have one sparkling feature that really causes it to pull ahead of the Tempo Studio. The Forme Life is 70 percent reflective. By contrast, the Tempo Studio is not reflective at all. That means you're choosing between having a unit that looks like a mirror versus one that's simply a blanket screen. At 72 inches, the Tempo Studio is 2 inches taller than the 70-inch Forme life.
Recommended Reading: Tempo Home Gym Review and Forme Life Studios Review
What it Really Comes Down To
Where does this side-by-side comparison leave you if you're looking for the top contender. It's obvious that both offer great options for strength-cardio hybrid training. You're not going to be feeling like you're lacking in either category regardless of which unit you choose. That means the three choices that it really comes down to are aesthetics, price and resistance type.
You'll remember that you're getting real weight resistance with the Tempo. You'll be happy with this unit if you're not interested in changing up that sensation. If you're ready to pivot to virtual weight resistance, the Forme Life is going to intrigue you. While the Form Life Lift is an obvious choice for serious weight training due to its independent arm motors, it's not a necessary upgrade unless your primary focus is intense weight training. This is probably the conclusion that you'll come to based on price alone because the $4,495 Lift is at or double what you're looking at for the Form Life Studio and Tempo Studio.
This brings us to choosing based on price. If you're looking to get the best cardio-strength blend for under $3,000, the Tempo is a great choice at $2,145. The $69 payment plan on this unit is probably less than your current gym membership with classes. Unlike a gym membership, you'll actually own something forever without permanent payments! At $2,495, the Form Life offers better technology with better aesthetics for slightly more. This is a better pick if you don't want to buy a traditional strength machine that might end up being outdated once everyone makes the shift to simulated resistance.
Hit your goals with Tempo! Learn More
Which Smart Home Gym Gives You the Better Workout? Forme Life or Tempo?
You can see from everything we covered that both home gyms offer complete cardio and strength workouts that can be changed up and tailored based on your goals and moods. While both are about as high-tech as you can get, the Forme Life edges out the Tempo on several fronts just slightly. Choose the Tempo if you want to get a smart home gym for less than $2,000 while still using the familiar weights you learned to train on. If you're craving something with more of a next-level feel, it's all about spending that few extra dollars per month to get a shimmering Forme Life in your home.
$500 OFF!