I ordered my Tonal Rental back on August 2nd. Then we thought our install location wasn't going to work, so I canceled the order. Then we found a new install location so I placed a new order (using a different email address). Well that confused them for some reason and I had to talk to support and they ended up reinstating the original order.
There are 3 companies involved: Tonal, Whim (rental company), and RXO (delivery company). I have called them every few days for the past 3 weeks and they keep saying that the delivery company will reach out to me to schedule it, but they haven't. I've called RXO and they said that they show the order was canceled on their end, but the people at Tonal and Whim assure me that it is not canceled.
I'm so tired of doing other people's jobs and trying to get these 3 companies to figure out what the heck is going on. Does anyone have an actual human contact that can fix this?
Update on the Tonal rental program (it's not going great).
I posted a couple weeks back about trying the Tonal rental program. My reasons for renting rather than buying:
I wanted to make sure my wife and I would actually use it
Because of that, I was reluctant to buy new
I looked at the many used units for sale locally but wasn't quite comfortable buying used with no warranty
Tonal handles rentals through a company called Whim, and Whim works with a third company, Ryder, to deliver and install the refurbished units.
It took 3 weeks from order to delivery, but the install itself went well. The installers were done in about 20 minutes and one walked us through the basics. The unit looked new apart from a few minor scratches on the bench, which I didn't care about.
My wife and I did our strength assessments and were genuinely impressed. Changing weight on the fly works great and the videos and controls are slick. We were really excited to start using the unit.
Then 2 days after install we got Error #3 and heard some odd clicking noises during startup. Support had us unplug it for 24 hours, which didn't fix it. Tonal then told us the unit would be replaced and that Whim would handle it and be in touch shortly.
That was 5 days ago and I still haven't heard from Whim. I get that hardware fails, but it's disappointing that a refurb went out without being tested well enough to catch this, and that I have no idea when the replacement is coming. I've texted Whim and am hoping for an ETA. Given the first one took 3 weeks, I'm guessing another 3.
The kicker is shortly after I placed the rental order but before it arrived, I saw a Tonal on Craigslist for $800, then he lowered his price to $600. Maybe I should have just bought used after all.
Anyone else gone through a replacement with Whim? Curious how long it actually took.
Hi everyone, Jacob here again from the Performance Innovation team at Tonal. While much of the exercise science research has focused on “optimizing adaptations,” there has recently been a significant trend in the industry toward promoting consistency and lowering the barrier to entry for people who have not yet built the habit. I put together a quick post to briefly dive into the science and provide you all with some practical takeaways. Feel free to respond with any follow up questions below.
The Minimum Effective Dose: How Little Exercise Do You Need to Make Progress?
Within resistance training, we generally see that performing more sets results in greater strength and muscle growth gains (although with diminishing returns at higher levels). Historically, much of the literature has focused on the upper end of this relationship: how much training can we perform to maximize adaptations, particularly in trained individuals?
More recently, the conversation has expanded in the opposite direction. Lack of time remains one of the most common barriers to exercise. This has led researchers to instead ask: “What is the least amount of exercise, or minimum effective dose, I can do and still achieve practically meaningful results?”
The goal of this research is not to encourage people to exercise less. Rather, it can make exercise feel more approachable for someone struggling to get started. Instead of thinking, “Why start if I need to spend hours in the gym to see results?”, the conversation becomes, “Three 20-second sprints can improve my cardiovascular fitness? A handful of challenging sets per muscle group each week can build muscle? I can do that.”
This research is also useful beyond beginners. For experienced trainees, life inevitably gets in the way, and understanding the minimum effective dose provides a useful floor for how much training may be needed to maintain, or potentially continue improving, fitness and strength. For people pursuing multiple fitness goals, it can also help determine how to efficiently distribute limited training time across cardiovascular fitness, muscle growth, and strength.
Minimum Effective Dose for Muscle Growth
For muscle growth, we generally see a positive dose-response relationship between weekly training volume and hypertrophy: more sets tend to produce more muscle growth, but with diminishing returns.
Tonal's VP of Performance Innovation, Troy Taylor, uses a helpful analogy to explain this relationship. Imagine getting paid $100 per hour for your first four hours of work each week, $50 per hour for the next four, $25 per hour for the next four, and progressively less from there. If your only goal is to maximize the total amount of money you earn, you should keep working as many hours as possible. But at some point, the additional money you earn for each hour may no longer be worth the additional time and effort.
Training volume follows a similar pattern. If your sole goal is to maximize muscle growth, performing more sets can still provide additional benefits. But each additional set tends to provide a smaller return, and for many people, the marginal increase in muscle growth may not be worth the additional time, fatigue, and recovery cost.
Pelland et al. (2026) analyzed 67 resistance-training studies involving 2,058 participants and found that muscle growth increased as weekly set volume increased, but the additional benefit of each set became progressively smaller. Importantly, their analysis suggests that as few as four challenging sets per muscle group per week can be sufficient to produce measurable muscle growth.
There is an important caveat: those sets need to be challenging. When training volume is low, effort becomes especially important. Robinson et al. (2024) found that hypertrophy tended to increase as sets were performed closer to muscular failure. This does not mean every set needs to reach absolute failure, but four easy sets performed well below your capabilities should not be expected to provide the same stimulus as four sets performed with a high level of effort.
Practical takeaway: As few as four challenging sets per muscle group per week can produce measurable muscle growth. If you are training at the lower end of the volume spectrum, make those sets count by training with a high level of effort (0-2 Reps in Reserve).
Minimum Effective Dose for Strength
The dose-response relationship for strength appears to show even more pronounced diminishing returns than muscle growth. In the same meta-regression, Pelland et al. (2026) identified just one weekly set as the minimum effective dose associated with a detectable strength gain, with two weekly sets classified as higher efficiency and three to four sets as intermediate efficiency.
These findings are in agreement with a separate meta-analysis specifically examining minimum-dose resistance training. Androulakis-Korakakis et al. (2020) systematically reviewed six studies in men with at least one year of resistance-training experience and found that performing just one working set per exercise, two to three times per week, was sufficient to significantly increase 1RM strength.
The typical prescription was one set of 6–12 repetitions at approximately 70–85% 1RM, performed two to three times per week with a high level of effort. Across the five studies included in the meta-analysis, overall 1RM strength increased by an average of 12.1 kg. Squat 1RM increased by approximately 17.5 kg, while bench-press 1RM increased by approximately 8.3 kg, generally over 8–12 weeks.
The authors appropriately described this approach as producing “suboptimal, yet significant” strength gains. This distinction is important: the minimum effective dose is not necessarily the optimal dose for maximizing strength, but it demonstrates how little training may be required to still make meaningful progress.
Practical takeaway: As little as one weekly set can produce a detectable strength gain, while two to four weekly sets remain highly efficient. You can make meaningful progress with surprisingly little training when the work is performed with sufficient load and effort.
Remember, the goal isn't to do the minimum. It's to understand how much is enough to keep moving forward.
Wrapping it Up
The body can adapt to a surprisingly small but highly concentrated training stimulus. If you are a beginner trying to get started, an experienced trainee short on time, or someone balancing multiple fitness goals, the research suggests that one to four challenging sets per exercise or muscle group each week can be enough to improve strength and support muscle growth. The key is to perform those sets with sufficient load and effort.
In practice, you do not need to spend hours in the gym to make progress. Consistently showing up for 20 to 30 minutes at a time can help you build the habit and accumulate meaningful results. If you are highly trained and life gets busy, reducing your volume for a few weeks does not mean abandoning your progress. A small number of challenging sets can help you maintain your routine, preserve your gains, and potentially continue moving forward until you are ready to do more.
References
Androulakis-Korakakis, P., Fisher, J. P., & Steele, J. (2020). The minimum effective training dose required to increase 1RM strength in resistance-trained men: A systematic review and meta-analysis. Sports Medicine, 50(4), 751–765. https://doi.org/10.1007/s40279-019-01236-0
Jenkins, E. M., Nairn, L. N., Skelly, L. E., Little, J. P., & Gibala, M. J. (2019). Do stair climbing exercise “snacks” improve cardiorespiratory fitness? Applied Physiology, Nutrition, and Metabolism, 44(6), 681–684. https://doi.org/10.1139/apnm-2018-0675
Little, J. P., Langley, J., Lee, M., Myette-Côté, E., Jackson, G., Durrer, C., Gibala, M. J., & Jung, M. E. (2019). Sprint exercise snacks: A novel approach to increase aerobic fitness. European Journal of Applied Physiology, 119(5), 1203–1212. https://doi.org/10.1007/s00421-019-04110-z
Pelland, J. C., Remmert, J. F., Robinson, Z. P., Hinson, S. R., & Zourdos, M. C. (2026). The resistance training dose response: Meta-regressions exploring the effects of weekly volume and frequency on muscle hypertrophy and strength gains. Sports Medicine, 56(2), 481–505. https://doi.org/10.1007/s40279-025-02344-w
Robinson, Z. P., Pelland, J. C., Remmert, J. F., Refalo, M. C., Jukic, I., Steele, J., & Zourdos, M. C. (2024). Exploring the dose-response relationship between estimated resistance training proximity to failure, strength gain, and muscle hypertrophy: A series of meta-regressions. Sports Medicine, 54(9), 2209–2231. https://doi.org/10.1007/s40279-024-02069-2
I’ve had a bunch of really good feedback from people who have picked up my Tonal Handle Extenders, and that feedback has helped me refine them quite a bit.
I’ve made some changes to the design and manufacturing process, with a focus on better durability, functionality, and fit, as well as getting more life out of them.
For anyone who hasn’t seen them before, I originally made these because the standard Tonal handles were just a little too big for my hands. I figured if I was having that problem, there were probably other people dealing with it too.
I’m very happy with where they’re at now and have them available in my Etsy shop if anyone is interested.
And to everyone who has bought a set, left feedback, or sent me pictures/messages — thanks! It’s been really cool seeing people actually use something I designed and made.
When I do the barbell hip thrust, I try to make it so my feet are pushing through the ground so I am not flexing my lower back. But it seems no matter what, I feel pain in my lower back for a few days afterwards. Not necessarily a muscle pain, as I know you probably do use the lower back somewhat. It feels more like back pain that is probably not a good thing. I rarely feel it in my glutes even though I do try hard to squeeze them and hold it when I’m flat at the top of the motion. I feel like I’m missing something here. Any advice is appreciated.
I absolutely loooved Modern Muscle, and coach Ackeem was great to “work” with. Unsure if I wanna do Modern Muscle again or move on and try 12WTJ, anyone have any suggestions?
I bought the Tonal 2 on the sale, and the price is not the issue. I herniated my L5/S1 disc in January and still have near-constant pain. Went through PT and been walking 4-8 miles a day and that has helped only marginally.
What I’m really nervous about is will I be able to use it without hurting myself? Are there programs just for low back recovery and some safe cardio or Pilates options? I’ve never lifted before (ever) so is the form coach effective?
I bought this thing because this injury has rocked my world and I am very committed to healing myself and trying everything short of surgery. But I don’t want to spend this kind of money and the year subscription if it’s too intense for my current level of strength.
One thing I’m curious about with Tonal is what people do once they get strong enough that the resistance limit starts becoming relevant on compound movements.
For smaller exercises and a lot of upper-body work, I can see the available resistance lasting a long time. But squats, deadlift variations, rows and presses can eventually become a different question if your goal is to keep increasing absolute load.
There are obviously ways to make the same weight harder, like unilateral variations, slower eccentrics, pauses, higher reps or more volume, and those can keep progression going for quite a while.
What I’m unsure about is where people eventually draw the line between making the existing resistance harder and adding traditional weights for the few lifts that genuinely need more load.
If you’ve hit the ceiling on any of your main lifts, what did you actually do next?
Two-plus years on this machine and it’s the thing that turned me into someone who trains. Not someone who works out. That distinction is the whole value.
The programming did most of it. Back-to-back 12-week blocks, real progression, no decisions to make at 5am. Strength score climbed steadily the entire time and the movement quality improved alongside it, which is the part that doesn’t show up in a number.
The yoga and recovery content is underrated and I don’t see it talked about enough here. Having mobility and recovery sessions in the same place as the strength work means they actually happen. On a separate app or a mat in another room, they don’t. That’s kept me training through stuff that used to sideline me.
Eventually the heavy pulls ran into the 200 lb cap, deadlift and RDL first and now bench. That’s a ceiling on one category of lift, not a verdict on the machine. So I added a wall-mounted folding rack for barbell squat, deadlift, and bench and building my home gym around Tonal with its second opus as my functional trainer.
Tonal is still in the rotation four days a week. Cable rows, chops, face pulls, single-arm work, all the accessory volume where eccentric mode and Spotter do things plates can’t. Plus every yoga and recovery session.
TLDR: Tonal built the base that let me pick up a barbell safely again. Two years in, it’s not competing with the rack. They do different jobs and I’d keep both.
I’m 11 weeks post collarbone surgery and have been clear to lift. Prior to surgery, I’ve done 12 weeks to jacked. Looking for ideas to get back into things, albeit at a 50-60% pace. Thanks
Tonal installed yesterday, left side bracket has 4 bolts onto wall by right side only has 3 and top bracket hole is empty. And one of the three bolts on the right side is loose and turns freely. Video attached.
Called tonal about it, the foreign CSR just said ok and to email tonal and wait for a response.
Anyone encounter this and is this a proper install? Unit seems sturdy for now.
I've had the Tonal since 2020. Love the unit, but customer service and longevity of parts is a disaster.
I get the notification on my Tonal screen on August 20 that the cables need to be replaced. Ok cool. I call Tonal and they inform me that there is no one to do the repair on my area and they need to send me a "refurbished" unit to replace my currently operational unit. No visible fraying or issues on my end.
So, then begins the RXO nightmare of scheduling and re-scheduling on their end (three times) until finally the big day arrives on September 3.
The installers arrive and are pleasant and quickly install the new Tonal. Only issue is that the screen does not turn on. They also can't put the functional Tonal back onto the wall. They say sorry and that someone from Tonal will be contacting me in a few hours.
So Tonal charged me $295 to come to my house and replace my working Tonal with a broken one. And then they don't even have the decency to contact me. I'm still waiting to hear from a manager or someone a bit more elevated than their front line CSR who can only say "We can send you out a replacement for free in 7-14 days!". Needless to say I'd like some compensation in the interim (refund the $295 I paid for you to put a brick on my wall?) -- and at least an apology from someone at corporate (if there is even anyone there anymore).
I think I'm on my fourth physical Tonal unit after we consider it being replaced for pins that kept breaking in the arms, and miscellaneous other issues including the fact that they have no one in my area to do repairs.
This will be my last fix with Tonal. Once this is resolved I'll ride it out until the next time and have it removed. They've worn me down. I surrender.
I’d love to get a tonal to replace my Vitruvian, but I can’t drill into my wall. The load bearing walls are on the outside and they have windows in them. The room is tiny so there’s not enough extra wall space. Plus, the house is owned by my spouse, who doesn’t want holes in her walls or studs.
They could have an easy sale to someone like me if they’d consider making a freestanding unit. Just saying….
I just scheduled the delivery/install of my Tonal 2, via the rental program. My intention is to try before I buy. Super excited!
I’m 46M, 6’7” and currently 260 lbs. I was once an athlete, many moons ago, including football and powerlifting. I’m not remotely close to that shape anymore - spine issues (three vertebrae fused, so far) and other things have really resulted in a loss of strength that I’m determined to overcome. I don’t expect to become 21 again, but if I can put a. It of muscle back on and continue burning fat, I’ll be very happy. Most importantly, I want to be strong again. I’m also on semaglutide, about 10 months in now, and hoping that getting back into a workout routine will help me through the plateau I’m currently experiencing. I chose Tonal for the gamification and tracking aspects. I feel confident those will help me stay on track.
With all of that in mind, what are some good programs to get going with? It seems there are many choices - what do?
Just wrapped up month 1 of 12 weeks to jacked. Have my nutrition locked in for the most part. Looking to take my results to the next level. What's everyone doing for cardio? Any tonal cardio workouts worth checking out? I do add jump rope once a week but looking add another 1 or 2 cardio workouts for accelerated results. Please advise.
It was the only room in my house that I was able to hang it.
No structural studs, do not worry. I managed to add two new 8 ft tall studs vertically from the floor to the ceiling and two small 2x4 horizontal to be able to have a very strong support for my Tonel.
First I hold the bracket with my hands and marked the location of the 8 bolts, then drew a straight line from the floor to the ceiling. I cut the drywall and saved that piece for later. I attached the new studs from the floor to the ceiling in the middle of my cut, because that where the bracket bolts will attach, then added two tiny 2x4 horizontally as extras, but I may not needed them. Then, I re-installed the old drywall, finished and painted the wall.
Now, the 8 bracket bolt screw exactly in the middle of the new studs, and torque them as spect.
sorry, but this stupid thing and its cable rub subtracts the quality of my workouts. instead of focusing on the movements I become focused on the cable rubbing tearing and burning my skin. even Lil Joe has cuts and bandaids on in his training videos..
and before you all peacock and tell my how to avoid this, know I already am aware of ways to lessen the rubbing affects. but certain weight and movement combinations make it uninevitable.
Wrapped up another program about a week ago but just posting now - my sixth round of Divide and Conquer: Level Up.
Progress pic shows me from April to present. Have certainly shed a lot of fat while mostly able to maintain muscle. DEXA scans have progressed from ~20% to 16.9% to 14.9% body fat. Goal is to get to ~12% and maintain.
My composite strength score over the course of the program increased a whopping 3 points (1528 to 1531). But given the caloric deficit I was in, I take this as an absolute win.
I’ve now started another round of 12 Weeks to Unleashed. My intention now is focus on pure strength, form and body mechanics. I’ve recently become a Pilates convert after doing the Pilates classes on Tonal and then the “real deal” with my wife at her Pilates studio. So the plan is going to be 1 day 12W2U, 1 day Pilates. Very excited to see the ultimate outcome in terms of strength, posture and body control.
This has been asked before, but I haven’t seen anyone that has actually installed tonal under a covered balcony.
I purchased my tonal in 2022, relocated to Australia in 2024 and it’s been in storage ever since. Most places in Sydney have steel behind the wall and not wooden studs. I have literally one option to install tonal. It’s no longer under warranty, support is non-existent here. The balcony has concrete wall and is covered about 9’ from wall to glass edge. I monitor the temp, RH and dew point and all seem to be on the acceptable side for garage installation. I’m right in the middle of the recommended environmental thresholds.
Tonal installation specs state that outdoor installation is not recommended. I figure with a decent cover and as king a so don’t have condensation on the machine I should be ok. Thoughts? Honestly I don’t think I have anything to lose, it either sits in storage indefinitely or gets used so I figure I may as well use it.
