One of the biggest problems a person faces when it comes to exercising at home or while traveling, aside from time, is the availability of equipment to workout with.

While there are options in terms of bodyweight exercises, sometimes having some good equipment can give you that extra variety and motivation you need to do your training. Let's face it...hotel exercise rooms that consist of a couple of pink neoprene 2 lb dumbells and an exercise bike with no seat aren't going to do you a whole lot of good!

But what do you do when space is at a premium, i.e. if you're traveling and can only pack equipment into a suitcase along with everything else you're bringing? Or if you just don't have room at home for normal, bulky exercise machines?

That's where a new product called the Omniglide comes in.

The Omniglide, while being simple in design, allows for good versatility in the exercises you're able to do with it. In fact, there are exercises you can ONLY do with the Omniglide!

What Is the Omniglide and How Does It Work?

The Omniglide is a very compact product, consisting essentially of two plastic hand-grips. The bottom surface is flat and smooth while the top surface provides a comfortable grip for your hands and fingers. The small size means you can take it with you pretty much anywhere you go.

The Omniglide works by sliding on carpet, using your bodyweight (applied at various angles) for resistance. Your hands grip on the top of the Omniglide sliders as you do the exercises.

Having separate, freely-moving handles for each hand allows for a good range of effective exercises to be performed, even allowing for diagonal movement of the hands for a totally different kind of stress on the body. This ability to perform diagonal movement (similar to how the arms work when cross-country skiing - one goes up while the other moves down) is unique to the Omniglide.

The exercises can very easily be tailored to your ability level. Depending on how you position your body, you can increase or decrease the resistance you apply.

Some of the exercises you can do with the Omniglide include:

Circles - Front
Circles - 45 degrees
Circles - Single Disc
Degree Extensions
Front Extensions
Front Extensions - Single Disc
Swim
V Extensions
V Extensions- Single Disc
Fly Front
Side Swing
Fly Front
X Extensions

You can view these exercises in action on the Omniglide site (the URL is listed below) and the product itself does come with an instructional video so you'll know exactly what you're doing and how to get the most benefit from the product.

After testing these exercises for myself, I found them to be very effective at working the chest, abs, arms and even the back. With a little experimentation, I was even able to come up with a few exercises of my own that weren't on the site (and I'm sure there are plenty more that could be done that I haven't thought of yet). The freedom of movement that the Omniglide gives provides you with a great base from which to work.

Also, being equipment that uses your bodyweight for resistance, the Omniglide is very good for building functional chest and core strength. Exercises that move your body through space will actually activate more muscle fibers as well. The Omniglide is a great example of innovative bodyweight exercise equipment.

There were only a few minor drawbacks that I noticed with the Omniglide. The first is that there really aren't any direct lower body exercises you can do with it. Only the muscles of the upper body can be worked due to the size and shape of the grips. As there are many effective bodyweight exercises you can use for the legs, such as squats, lunges, calf raises, one-legged squats, etc., this is not a big concern. It is good to know going in that this is an upper-body exercise tool.

The other drawback that I could see was that the Omniglide can only be used on carpet or other similar surface. That being said, most homes and every hotel or motel room I've ever been in has some carpet in it, so this is not a very big limiting factor for the Omniglide. It may simply restrict where in your home you can use it.

[NOTE: while it is possible to use the Omniglide on other surfaces, carpet is the manufacturer's recommended surface.]

Conclusion:

All in all, if you're looking for a good piece of versatile and very portable exercise equipment, the Omniglide may be a very good choice for you. It provides a nice variety of very effective exercises for a wide range of ability levels.

The drawbacks of not being able to work your lower body and not being able to use it on every surface are minimal and not hard to overcome.

It's an innovative piece of equipment that can help you get a great workout at home and on the road.

For more information on the Omniglide, including pictures and videos of the exercises you can do with it, please click the following link to go the product's website:

http://www.zionindustries.com