BionicGym – A Leg Muscle Stimulator That Claims to Burn 1000 Calories/Hour while You Lie on the Couch

Crowe says he came up with the idea for this unique neuro-stimulator over 16 years ago, when he would get into the cold Atlantic ocean so he could observe the effects of shivering. He discovered that as he got colder he didn’t shiver faster, but  more and more of him shivered at the same rate (~7-8Hz), until even his teeth were chattering. He also found that this natural way of burning calories was not dependent on generating muscle tension or moving the joints. So a person could burn a lot of calories without actually doing any exercise.

Over the years, Crowe did even more research on how to use shivering as an effective training and weight-loss tool, and developed a number of devices that rely on his findings. The BionicGym is the most advanced of them all, and he and electronic wizard Dr. Barry Broderick have teamed up to bring it to market.

Only in order to do so, they need some funding to redesign the device, miniaturize some of the components and ultimately make it commercially viable. They estimate that this process will take the two of them about eight months to complete, after which the product has to be approved by regulators before being shipped out. There’s no telling how long that last part will take, but the two inventors estimate that BionicGym will be ready for shipping by November 2017.

But people seem so impressed by the capabilities of BionicGym to give them a workout while resting on a sofa, that they seem to have no problem parting with $300 for the chance to one day try it out. Crowe’s Indiegogo crowdfunding campaign had a goal of $20,000, but with 11 day to go, it has already passed the $287,000 mark.