About

Shake Weight is an infomercial fitness product that is a version of the classic dumbell that has been modified to shake vigorously. The lengthwise shaking motion that the Shake Weight produces has been mocked for resembling the motion made during male masturbation.

Origin

The Shake Weight was created by the company Fitness IQ in July of 2009, and was marketed as a fitness tool to reduce female arm flab. According to the Shake Weight website^[1], the motion that the dumbbell produces is called "Dynamic Intertia":

Shake Weight® Utilizes New Workout Technology Called Dynamic Inertia, which can increase Muscle Activity to nearly 300% compared to a Standard Dumbbell.

Commercials

Around August 2011, multiple videos featuring the shake weight marketed towards men and women which received millions of views before being removed from YouTube. Various versions of the ads still exist which feature demonstrations of the product.

Spread

Saturday Night Live aired a parody of the Shake Weight commercials on April 17th, 2010 (below).

Wired^[2] published an article revealing the results of their Shake Weight tests on September 15th, 2010. It claimed the Shake Weight was "hilarious but useless."

We'll admit you do feel reasonable tension in your muscles. However, jerking this 5-pounder only got our max heart rate up to 114, which pales in comparison to a standard weightlifting session, let alone back-to-back sets of push-ups. More importantly, after a few days of use, our muscles didn't feel nearly as sore as they do from weightlifting.

South Park parodied the Shake Weight in season 14 episode 14 titled "Creme Fraiche" that aired on November 17th, 2010. The video featured the Shake Weight "Deluxe Model" that had a built-in work out assistant who released a "cool down spray" after the work out finished (seen below).

On October 5th, 2011, Jimmy Kimmel Live posted a clip from their previous night's airing (below) which featured "The Tug Toner" as a parody of the Shake Weight that was more sexually suggestive than the original product. The video received 5 million views as of February 2018.

A Facebook^[3] fan page for the Shake Weight has 18,163 likes as of August 4th, 2011.

Derivatives

Images

Videos

Search

Search queries for "shake weight" picked up in July of 2009, and had their highest peak in December of 2010, one month after the South Park parody aired.

External References

^[1] Shake Weight / 4-20-2010

^[2] Wired – Shake Weight: hilarious but useless

^[3] Facebook – Shake Weight