Technogym, the chic workout equipment you can expect to see in luxury home gyms

The problem with purchasing home-gym equipment is not just that you are, in effect, buying a self-torture device, which seems foolish, nor that you’re as likely to be still using it in a year’s time as you are that bread maker you should never have bought.

No, the problem is that it is always as ugly and takes up as much room as a life-size steel sculpture of a narwhal. Or at least it was until the invention of Technogym’s Kinesis Personal machine, designed in partnership with world-renowned furniture designer and architect Antonio Citterio.

Yes, it looks fabulous, can be folded almost flat to use minimal space, and it comes in different finishes from plain black, to leather, to narcissistic mirror. Some customers overseas have even chosen to adorn theirs with diamonds and precious stones. 

What I wanted to know, however, was could it make me look red, sweaty and sickly after a 30-minute workout?

Fortunately Technogym master trainer Todd Brodie was on hand to show me how to use the six different handles to perform just some of the more than 200 resistance-based exercises you can engage in using this punishingly clever machine.

Brodie explains that the key to the system’s genius is that it lets you experience both tension and a full range of motion at once; so you can move your shoulders through a full circle, for example, while pulling the cables, meaning every inch of muscle is working all the time.

You can use it to strengthen your golf swing or for traditional exercises like arm curls or chest press, and there’s no need to constantly adjust weights or swap machines. It can also provide Pilates-style workouts, and Brodie reckons that even the most demanding and annoying fitness freaks on Earth – CrossFitters – would love it.

Once you’ve worked out how to do it yourself – and you can download a Virtual Trainer to your iPad if you don’t like men shouting at you – you soon realise that this really is one home-gym machine to rule them all, which is why it costs between $25,520 and $44,420 (for the Heritage Gold version).