Product Review: Power Tower

Most of us are too busy to get to the gym every day, so working out at home is the key to working out consistently. You don’t need a lot of equipment or space to set up a serviceable home gym. When I was in grad school in Boston, I had a foldable bench, a Bowflex adjustable dumbbell system and a Gazelle Edge elliptical trainer. All of this equipment could be stored in the closet of my studio apartment or under my bed.

However, if you have a basement or a garage as a dedicated workout space, you have the luxury of adding a few pieces of equipment that can really add variety to your at-home workout. Now that I live in a house in the suburbs, I have a nice sized basement with plenty of room for fitness equipment.

Today I’d like to review a great piece of equipment for those that have a little more space to dedicate to their home gym. It is called a power tower. This is a simply designed multi-station home gym that allows you to perform a variety of body weight exercises.

Pros

1) Inexpensive. You can find a variety of power towers on Amazon for as little as $82.99. This is an amazing value.

2) Easy to put together. I put mine together myself in a short amount of time and without any help. 

3) Versatile. You can perform a lot of different exercises with this system, including; pull-ups, chin-ups, dips, neutral grip push-ups, and a number of ab exercises.

4) These are very sturdy.

5) They look sharp. 

Cons

1) They take up a fair amount of space. You have to make sure your ceiling is high enough to accommodate a power tower. The model I picked up was 81 inches from ceiling to floor. I could do this comfortably in my basement, but I had to measure first. There are other models with higher or lower heights, so be sure to check on this before you order.

Do I Recommend A Power Tower?

Absolutely. If you have the space, a power tower will make your home gym feel a lot more like an actual gym. Muscle confusion is key to a proper resistance training program. The more exercises that you have to choose from, the better your results are going to be.

If you want to pick up a power tower, they are available on Amazon.

Disclosure: I am not affiliated with any company that makes power towers and make no money if you buy one.

What Are Ultra-Processed Foods?

You may have recently been hearing about the health effects of ultra-processed foods. What foods fall into this category, exactly?

Ultra-processed foods are:

-Industrially produced

-Ready to eat

-Low in bioactive compounds like fiber, vitamins, minerals and phytochemicals

-High in salt, saturated fat, sugar, refined carbohydrates and food additives

Examples are frozen meals, soft drinks, hot dogs, fast food, packaged cookies, candies, cakes and chips.

Exercise Variety And All-Cause Mortality

The Study

The research literature consistently shows that exercise is important to our health but is variety of exercise important? A study published recently in the British Medical Journal attempted to find out.

Over 110,000 subjects from Harvard’s Nurses’ Health Study and Health Professional Follow-up Study had their exercise monitored and were followed for up to 34 years. An exercise variety score was created based on spending at least 20 minutes per week engaged in a wide variety of exercise.

The results were interesting:

-When comparing subjects with the highest exercise variety score to the lowest, there was a 19% lower risk of all-cause mortality.

-This benefit was independent of total physical activity. In other words, no matter how much total exercise you were getting, variety was associated with lower mortality.

doi:10.1136/bmjmed-2025-001513

Take Home Message

There appears to be a strong benefit to mixing up your exercise routine. Alternate different forms of cardio like walking or run-walking with gym equipment like elliptical trainers and Stair Masters. You can also build variety by trying different sports like tennis, ice skating, golf or skiing. 

Why is this important? The researchers in this investigation believe that there are distinct physiological effects from different physical activities. These include a variety of ventilatory responses, muscles used and different nerve pathways utilized. Therefore, each type of exercise has its own unique health benefits, so the more variety, the better.

Low Carb vs. Low Fat For Heart Health

The Study

Proponents of low fat diets and proponents of low carb diets have been battling it out for decades. This study wanted to find out which was better for risk of heart disease. Over 200,000 participants in Harvard’s Health Professional Follow-up Study, Nurses’ Health Study and Nurses’ Health Study 2 had their diet measured repeatedly and were followed for up to 32 years for incidence of coronary heart disease. 

A scoring system was created for a healthy version of each diet (lean proteins, plant oils and unrefined grains) as well as an unhealthy version (fattier animal-based proteins, saturated fats and refined grains). 

The results showed that when healthy foods were chosen, risk for heart disease decreased and when unhealthy foods were chosen, risk went up. In other words, the amount of carb or fat didn’t really matter, just the quality of the food that was consumed. A low carb diet could be protective or risky, as could a low fat diet.

doi: 10.1016/j.jacc.2025.12.038

Take Home Message

Whatever diet you are following, focus on healthy carbs (fruits, vegetables, whole grains and legumes), healthy fats (olive oil, nuts, avocados) and healthy proteins (lean meats, seafood and lots of plant protein like beans and lentils). 

This study shows that you really don’t need to get too caught up on the percentages of protein, fat and carbohydrate. Just make good choices.

How Many Steps Do We Need Each Day

Step counters have become a common feature of wearable technology and many of us are tracking how many steps we are taking each day. This begs the question of just how many steps do we really need to improve our health? A common answer is 10,000 steps, but there isn’t a whole lot of science behind this number. 

The Study

This interesting investigation appeared in JAMA Internal Medicine several years ago. 17,708 subjects with a mean baseline age of 72 years from the Women’s Health Study wore accelerometers for a 4 year follow up (Reference 1).  By the end of this time, 504 women had died.

The women were split into quartiles depending on the average number of steps taken per day. The results were a bit surprising:

The 1^st quartile averaged 2,718 steps per day and was the reference group (the group the other quartiles were compared to).

The 2^nd quartile averaged 4,363 steps per day and had a 46% lower risk of death from any cause when compared to the 1^st quartile.

The 3^rd quartile averaged 5,905 steps per day and had a 53% lower risk of death from any cause.

The 4^th quartile averaged 8,442 steps per day and had a 66% lower risk of death from any cause.

There were a couple of other surprising findings:

-The mortality benefit leveled off at 7,500 steps. Doing more than this did not really improve risk of dying from any cause.

-Step intensity wasn’t particularly important. The number of steps is all that really mattered. In other words, how fast you walked did not appreciably impact the reduction in risk of dying from any cause.

Conclusions And Recommendations

I think it is great when fitness and nutrition theories are put to the test of a well-designed research study.

A few take home messages:

-If your goal is general health improvement and chronic disease risk reduction, don’t worry about hitting 10,000 steps per day, 7,500 will get the job done.

-Don’t worry about how fast you are walking. It does not seem to matter all that much.

-If your goal is weight loss, higher intensity and longer duration of cardio is likely more important.

-It is not all or nothing. Although the sweet spot for improved health was 7,500 steps, significant benefit was found in subjects walking just over 4,000 steps per day.

References

1) JAMA Intern Med. 2019;179(8):1105-1112

Ultra-Processed Foods And Risk Of Early Onset Colon Cancer

The Study

There has been a very disturbing trend of increasing colon cancer incidence in patients under the age of 50 in recent years. This study tries to figure out one of the reasons why this is happening. 29,105 young women from Harvard’s Nurses’ Health Study II cohort had their diet and colonoscopy results monitored for a 24-year follow-up.

The results were compelling. When comparing subjects consuming the most ultra-processed foods to those consuming the least, there was a 45% increased risk of early onset colorectal conventional adenomas.

JAMA Oncol. doi:10.1001/jamaoncol.2025.4777

Take Home Message

Ultra-processed food are commercially produced food products that are ready to eat and low in bioactive compounds such as fiber, vitamins and polyphenols. They are usually high in unhealthy fats, refined carbs, sodium and food additives.

In this cohort, the most common sources of ultra-processed foods were breads, breakfast foods, sauces, spreads and condiments. 

The authors believed that these foods may disrupt gut microbiota and increase inflammation in the colon, leading to an increased risk of colon cancer.

Do your best to limit ultra-processed foods and eat your food in its whole and natural form.

Is It OK To Drink Whole Milk Again?

The Study

Several fad diets claim that whole milk is a healthier choice than low fat milk. A recent study put this theory to the test. A Norwegian cohort of 73,860 subjects had their milk consumption measured and were followed for 33 years.

The results were compelling:

Whole milk was associated with a statistically significant increased risk of death from ischemic heart disease and all-cause mortality.

When compared to whole milk, low fat milk was associated with a statistically significantly lower risk of cardiovascular mortality, death by ischemic heart disease, death by acute myocardial infarction and all-cause mortality.

American Journal of Clinical Nutrition 2025;122:1075-85.

Take Home Message

Whole milk contains high amounts of saturated fat, which is known to be an unhealthy source of fat. Don’t let authors of fad diets books distract you from decades of high quality research.

Shoot for low fat or fat free dairy products and choose healthy sources of fat such as olive oil, canola oil, nuts, nut butters, seeds and avocados.