Tag: The Apollo Exerciser

The Exergenie was an isokinetic device, roughly the size of a television remote control, consisting of a friction brake, a 10 foot length of rope, and a loop on the back end to secure it to something immobile. Since resistance came from friction, and not dependent on gravity, as the story goes, The Exergenie was developed for the astronauts to utilize in space during the Apollo and Skylab missions of the 1960”s and 70’s (The Exergenie was also marketed under the name “The Apollo Exerciser” to capitalize on this phenomenon.)

Gym teachers and sport coaches loved the Exergenie because it was small and cheap, hence large groups of athletes could train with a bunch of them at once and go through a full workout quickly. As you can see in the advertisement above, a major selling point to sport coaches was to mimic athletic movements with resistance added by The Exergenie with the goal of improving sporting ability in running, jumping, swinging a bat or racket, etc and other specific skills. The Green Bay Packers were one of the first professional sports steams to utilize the Exergenie and within a few years, many other pro sports teams followed suit. Evidently, The Exergenie is still going strong today!