The Totals Gym platinum gives a great workout without placing strain on the joints or jarring movements on your bones. I have a family history of osteoporosis at a young age, and I can already feel aches and pains from jarring movements. Not when I'm using the total gym, its perfect for keeping my body strong without putting undo strain on it. The total gym works by using your own body weight and allows you to lift 6% to 60% depending on the position you place the glide board. It enables you to do crunches, squats, curls, bench presses as well as many other exercises that you can find in the exercise book. I prefer the leg based workout with the squats and leg pulls but my husband is more of an upper body builder he really uses the pulleys to bulk up his upper body. It's great we can go from my workout to his in just a switch of the glide board position no removing of weights or changing of pulleys. This is our second Total Gym and won't go without one, the first we owned when we lived on an island and didn't want to ship it back with us so we sold it and purchased a new one when we got settled back in. Had we been able to move without shipping everything we would have moved it with us, we have moved since owning this last one and it's very easy to move. The total gym platinum is very sturdy in its construction, the frame is stainless steel and very sturdy and steady, the glide board is padded for comfort and glides smoothly, the pulleys are made of steel with hard rubber handle grips. Overall the quality and construction is great, far past my expectations. This is a piece of equipment you won't have replace due to construction or lack of workout. We keep our total gym in our bedroom so the kids don't play on it, I'm worried they might pinch a finger on the glide board rail messing around. The total gym folds up nicely and can store in a corner of a room. We love ours so much we will not go without one ever!