(MONEY Magazine) – Dear Santa: Since you forgot last year, here is my Christmas list again: 1) a large, cedar-lined dressing room in my apartment; 2) a wraparound terrace with southern exposure; 3) a home gym that never gets boring.

Realizing that item No. 3 may be tough for Mr. Claus, I've been doing some research into what is new and fun in exercise gadgets. Like computers and fashion, the fitness industry thrives on built-in obsolescence and does not want us to be happy with one sweat machine; it wants us to want them all. We consumers, on the other hand, prefer something solid and addictive that works efficiently and occupies a small space. Treadmills qualify but are as tedious as their name. Classics, like the stationary bike and rack of free weights, are effective but uninspiring. As for the rest, some of this decade's fads are keepers--the NordicTrack and VersaClimber, Rollerblades and (if you must) The Step--while others were flash-in-the-pan failures, such as The Slide, a long, slippery piece of silicone that you approached with caution, wearing socks.

In search of aerobic diversion, I journeyed to the edge, seeking out the most unusual exercise gadgets I could find. The implements I actually tested will be familiar to insomniacs, since the natural habitat of home exercise equipment is the infomercial. I tried four late-night regulars: the Slam Man ($299.70 plus $39.95 for shipping and handling from Fitness Quest; 800-321-9236); Tony Little's Gazelle Glider ($249.75 plus $29.95 shipping and handling from Fitness Quest); KanGoo Jumps ($150 plus $12.95 shipping and handling from KanGoo Jumps; 888-531-9327) and the Total Gym ($599.40 plus $49.95 shipping and handling, also from Fitness Quest; 800-856-1500). Of the four, only the Gazelle Glider claims to promote all-around fitness; the Total Gym is for strength conditioning, while the other two provide cardiovascular exercise. So let's go, Santa.

First, I accompanied Slam Man--an anthropomorphic plastic-coated alien being with eight red flashing lights that you punch--to the oldest continuously operating boxing gym in the U.S., Gleason's Gym in Brooklyn. Full disclosure: I am a professional boxer, a pioneer female of the genre, and although I'm a very bad fighter, I do hit hard. Also, I once knew Slam Man's twin brother. He used to live between the heavy bags at Gleason's, until the boxers punched his lights out--literally. It took them less than a week to do it.

Today's fresh young Slam Man came with a pair of gloves (for me), a video and a stand to fill with 250 pounds of sand (to stabilize the machine between punches) and mount the computer upon. In the accompanying video, a "certified aerobic boxing instructor," the very essence of perkiness, shows how to select the program, set the skill level and throw the four basic punches. She then warms us up, stretches us out and takes us through a few rounds of Slamming the Man. But this woman should not work your corner. In the ring, she'd last perhaps 20 seconds.

I set the controls to "advanced," which makes the lights flash fast and stay lit until you hit them, but Slam Man was not happy. My jabs rocked him on his stand, my hooks turned him around, and my right hand took him for a walk across the floor. It was an unfair test for a creature clearly designed for my cedar-lined dressing room, not the fight gym, but anyone hoping to throw real punches someday would soon outgrow this sparring partner. On the other hand, boxing is so challenging that even this imitation version can be a strenuous cardio workout. Then again, why not go to your local Gleason's, get a few lessons, then hang a heavy bag at home?

Unlike Slam Man, Gleason's two Total Gyms--a gift after the infomercial was filmed there--are popular with the boxers, a more reliable recommendation than the infomercial with Christie Brinkley and Chuck Norris. The eight-foot-long apparatus with its sliding, sloping seat and array of pulleys, levers and bars uses your body weight as resistance. The seat slides, so you can use it as a combination inclined bench and rowing machine. Where it scores over mere chin-ups, push-ups and crunches is in the number of positions it enables you to adopt, thus targeting hard-to-isolate muscles like the deeper abdominals.

The thing really works, but--and this is a big but--you need to know what you're doing. If your moves are incorrect, you could be exercising the wrong muscles--or none at all.

I confess to a certain failure of patience in not acquainting myself with all of this machine's possible permutations. It's just too difficult to use it to full capacity. Multigyms I have lived with have gathered dust for this reason--it's a choice between spending hours fiddling with pins and cords and pulleys or settling for massively pumped biceps with weedy legs. Boxers at Gleason's use the Total Gym for abdominal strengthening and for performing an array of difficult rows, flies, curls and pulldowns for the deltoids, rhomboids, lats and traps, biceps and triceps. They like it a lot.

I bet they wouldn't like Tony Little's Gazelle Glider, which I constructed--easily--at home in front of the TV, ready to be personally trained by Tony Little (a misnomer--this man has the largest thighs, biceps and hair I've ever seen).

"In this video," begins Tony, "I'm going to try and instill a philosophy that leaves you with a physiological aspect of strength, agility and self-confidence and a psychological aspect that leaves you with 'There's always a way when you know there's always a way.'" Well, it turned out Tony's nonimpact cross-country ski-like machine is about as coherent as his script.

Most fitness equipment impedes your movements, forcing you to use your muscles; The Gazelle adds no resistance whatsoever. I found that if I squatted as deeply as I could (thus removing the much vaunted benefit to feeble knees), leaned back and gripped the handles as far up as possible, I could create almost as much resistance as a push-up, if less comfortably.

Tony's training method is to yell a lot about being positive and not negative and about how we are winners, not losers, and that we can do it, while prodding his forefinger at the camera. "This is fun, fun, fun!" he yelled desperately, nine minutes, 48 seconds into the workout. In fact, this was boring, boring, boring and easy, easy, easy. At 19 minutes, 17 seconds, Tony showed a shot of a model putting on her trousers. "Look at this girl! She can fit into her designer jeans because she takes care of herself!" he screamed. I broke into a gentle sweat.

At the end of the 30-minute "advanced" workout, Tony told me to slow down and "Bring your speeding heart rate down to normal." Pushing as hard as I could, I'd raised my heart rate to 72 beats per minute--about the speed induced by walking to the corner deli. Tony showed a model running along the beach--a genuinely aerobic, and inexpensive, activity. "Look at that, I'm jealous!" he yelled. "I want a woman! I ain't got one. Got two great kids, though, and a great job!" I'd say Tony is in the wrong great job.

After that, I was relieved to discover that the KanGoo Jumps, which are, in essence, boots with springs on the bottom, are the best thing since being a child. I was skeptical, I admit, as I clipped on the Rollerblade-style boots, having attached the flexible tension band and the lower arch--"made of a special material coming from the space research," it says here--with its sturdy plastic tread underfoot, and stood up. But after an initial wobble, I bounced and bounced again, and took off along the East River, sproing-ing like a springbok or a gazelle (take note, Tony) or, yes, a kangaroo.

You could make record-shattering jump shots in these. You could spring around town, knocking those suicide Rollerbladers who play in traffic for a six (not that I'd recommend such a thing). You could bounce around your jogging route and have people dash after you begging for the supplier's number, as happened to me. My mood was raised immediately, as was my heart rate. I predict KanGoo Jumps will be the next fad--which will be good, because I did feel somewhat conspicuous. Until then, what I really need, please Santa, is that wraparound terrace, so I can bounce in private.

Kate Sekules' book Boxing for Girls will be published next year by Crown.