I tried the OYO personal gym to see what it's like to work out like an astronaut

Like probably a lot of people, I let my motivation to work out dwindle since March 2020, when COVID-19 shut down, well, everything—my gym included. And to be honest, I’m still not comfortable breathing heavily and sweating profusely near a bunch of strangers who are doing the same. I also live in a small-ish apartment that’s mostly filled with my kids’ toys, so I don’t have room for a home gym or any large cardio equipment like a treadmill or an exercise bike.

Perhaps because my mother was tired of hearing me gripe about my fitness woes, she sent me a gift in early 2021: the OYO Personal Gym, a small-ish U-shaped contraption that fits in a tote bag or backpack and claims to have the ability to help work out the entire body. I was skeptical until I saw its 4.2-star rating on Amazon from more than 2,200 reviews—so clearly, lots of people like it. I decided to give it a try.

What is the OYO Personal Gym?

OYO stands for “On Your Own.” (Simple, clever, fun to say; I like it.) To get a sense of what it looks like, imagine a boomerang that's about two feet long. Now add ball-shaped grips on either end, thin cables running from one end to the other that extend when pulling the OYO apart, and a sort of hinge in the middle, where you install a disk called a “FlexPack,” which allows you to add or remove cable-based resistance. The OYO itself weighs two pounds but claims the ability to provide up to 25 pounds of resistance.

The OYO portable gym’s main selling points appear to be ease of use and eliminating bulky equipment like dumbbells. The idea is that you can sneak in full-body workouts whenever or wherever you want—at home, in your office, at the park. Right off the bat, I found value in that, as I could use the OYO in the two feet of space between my bed and my closet. Plus, I liked that it’s relatively compact for travel—hotel gyms have never been my favorite, and I wouldn’t put dumbbells in a carry-on.

Also cool: NASA has used OYO in space to help astronauts maintain muscle and bone mass. In space, free weights are weightless, but cable resistance still works for challenging muscles.

The basic set sells on Amazon for about $170 and includes the one 5-pound and two 10-pound resistance disks, plus leg attachments and a door anchor.

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How do you set up the OYO?

Setup was so easy, I could do it on my own. The so-called FlexPacks, which are the size of a circular drink coaster, must be snapped in place in the center of the OYO. A 10-pound pack is the minimum and you can’t use the OYO gym without it (I tried). You can add the additional 10-pound pack and/or the 5-pounder, but everything begins with one 10-pound pack. Therefore, your available resistance for exercises ranges from 10 to 25 pounds. .

How does the OYO work?

OYO was developed by architect-turned-inventor Paul Francis, who designed it to replace free weights and to allow constant resistance through one range of motion (which he coined “SpiraFlex technology”). He also says it “creates a balanced body by exercising both sides of a muscle group during one motion.” This eliminates the need to perform a separate exercise to target an opposing muscle group, which is something you have to do when using free weights.

OYO suggests there are 197 exercises you can do with the Total Body device, including chest flys, Romanian deadlifts, leg kickbacks, and tricep pushes. For example, to perform a chest fly, you take the ball grips in either hand and hold the OYO at arm’s length. You then spread your arms apart and return your hands to the center while squeezing the OYO together to work out your chest. For a Romanian deadlift, you hold a ball grip between your feet—I suggest wearing shoes; I learned this the hard way—and hold the other ball grip in your hands. With the OYO fully extended, you bend at the waist to perform the exercise.

The OYO Personal Gym comes with a short booklet explaining how to set it up and directs you to its exercise videos. There’s a QR code on the OYO’s box that takes you to a basic setup video, and QR codes on downloadable PDFs on the OYO Fitness website that feature entire workout programs and videos to go with them.

What I like about the OYO Gym

It’s small and portable

One of the best things about the OYO gym is how compact and lightweight it is—it’s only two feet long, can be folded in half for transport, and weighs almost nothing. I got on the scale with the OYO gym and without it, and my scale couldn’t tell the difference. Another benefit is its portability—tossing the OYO in a carry-on bag would be a good away-from-home workout choice.

Some of the exercises are great

Even though it’s light, some of its exercises feel really effective. For instance, the “low chest lateral raise” is pretty nifty. You hold both ends of the OYO in either hand at waist height and close the OYO by pushing the two ball ends together. Then, pull the OYO apart while keeping your arms straight and raise it to shoulder height. In addition to the resistance, you’ll feel a pleasant stretch in your lats at the top and bottom of the exercise (at least I did).

The workout programs are easy to follow

If you’re not sure where to begin with workouts, I recommend going to OYO’s YouTube page and adding the “10-Week Challenge” to your favorites list, then doing the workout videos as presented. I tried the first two weeks of the challenge and liked that those sessions are around 20 minutes long with no guesswork as to what comes next.

What I don’t like about the OYO

It can be unwieldy, especially at first

Although the OYO is good at creating resistance that works out your muscles, it’s difficult to control, at least at first. While doing bicep curls, I had to constantly be aware of the manner in which I was pulling back on the OYO’s ball grips, otherwise its balance would shift and one end would launch away from my body when I pushed too hard on the other. You can control the balance by moving a couple fingers off the ball grips and onto the device's arms, but it took me several workouts to realize that.

When doing a shoulder press, both sides of the OYO should end up with the cables fully extended. That’s great: It means you’re using the OYO to its full potential. Not great: The middle of the OYO—with the FlexPacks in the center—swings around freely. Get a little overzealous in your workout, as I did, and the OYO may slap you in the face. To say it’s unpleasant is an understatement.

OYO may not feel like a complete workout

I didn’t break much of a sweat during any of my workouts using just the OYO. To get a more rounded experience and up my heart rate, I added some cardio. In the house, I incorporated jumping rope, which I love and always find challenging, or some jumping jacks or high knees.

It may not be one-size-fits-all

Finally, I have a pretty wide wingspan—I typically wear a length 36 sleeve, depending on the manufacturer. The OYO, when fully extended, doesn’t let me open my shoulders and chest all the way. For someone built more like a T. Rex, that’s probably fine. For the longer-limbed, it’s a limitation when doing exercises that require full extension—these don't make up all of OYO's exercises, but it's a pretty sizable chunk of them.

Is the OYO worth it?

Maybe, for certain uses

During the height of the pandemic, I happily used the OYO to work out at home in order to stay safe and healthy. Though not all the exercises knock my socks off, following the OYO’s 10-week plan took the guesswork out of designing my own program. But as life made its way back to normal, the OYO was retired to the back of my closet.

If you like the idea of a NASA-worthy workout gadget for home workouts and don’t mind the price, you may find value in OYO. But for the same cash, you could also get a TRX Suspension Trainer, which uses your own body weight as resistance and takes up a similarly small amount of room to use and store. Our TRX reviewer bought hers during the pandemic for home workouts, but with its portability, it can be used in a park or for travel, without any of the negatives I found in OYO.

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