How Suzanne Somers turned the ThighMaster into a viral fitness hit

Suzanne Somers was already a celebrity when the ThighMaster made her a fitness star.

The “Three’s Company” actress, who died of breast cancer on Oct. 15, became a pitch woman for the exercise gadget in the 1990s. She invited people to “squeeze, squeeze your way to shapely hips and thighs” as she demonstrated the technique herself in a classic TV commercial.

Somers and her husband, Alan Hamel, collaborated on the ad, in which the camera begins at Somers’ feet and pans up as Hamel’s voice says, “Great legs!”

The ThighMaster — a simple V-shaped fitness device made of metal tubes connected with a spring-loaded hinge to create resistance — started out as the “V-Bar” or the “V-Toner.” It was invented in the 1960s by Anne-Marie Bennstrom, a Swedish physical medicine student looking for a way to help injured skiers strengthen their muscles, according to the Orlando Sentinel.

Some 20 years later, she was approached about creating a home version of the exercise equipment for the public.

“I always knew it would sell… because it works,” Bennstrom told the newspaper in 1993. “You can use it all over the body… biceps, triceps, all over.”

Investors then approached Somers and her husband about promoting the product, pitching it as a fitness gadget for the upper body — the pecs and arms — and demonstrating it to the couple in that way. But Somers didn’t think that was the best selling point.

“I’m staring at it and I said, ‘Does that work for the inner thighs?’” Somers recalled in an interview with Entrepreneur in 2020.

“She goes, ‘Yeah, but people are more interested in their upper body.’ And I said, 'Not women!’”

As she focused the marketing on the legs, Somers also thought the V-Toner was “a very unsexy name,” so the gadget was renamed the ThighMaster. The TV commercial starring Somers quickly created buzz and the gadget became part of pop culture, including jokes on late night TV.

"Maybe it’s funny because our mothers always told us to keep our legs together. And this is a legitimate reason to move your legs back and forth," she told Entertainment in 1992.

The ThighMaster also became a huge financial hit.

“We stopped counting after we sold 10 million of them, but they continue to sell and sell and sell,” Somers said on the Hollywood Raw podcast in 2022. “We’re probably at 15 million now.”

The host of the podcast quickly calculated that at $19.95 per gadget, the advertised price in the TV ad, she’s made almost $300 million from the product.

Somers said she initially invested in the ThighMaster with partners, but later bought them out and owned the brand outright. The product is still available on her website.

Men’s Health reviewed it a few years ago with the headline “I Used a ThighMaster for a Week, and Honestly, I Freaking Loved It.”

The appeal is that it’s easy to use because there are no buttons or weights and the exercise can be done while sitting on the couch, the reviewer wrote. But trainers gave it low marks, noting it’s used for spot training of one specific muscle, rather than doing a wide range of exercises.

"OK, so maybe the ThighMaster won’t turn you into the Hulk," the reviewer wrote. "(But) it offers 15 minutes of pure tranquility, a way for you to rest your brain while moving your legs."

Somers herself thought the fitness gadget would be part of her legacy.

“Suzanne told me once, she said, ‘I think I’m going to be remembered for the ThighMaster. It’s going to be on my tombstone,’” her husband told People.

This article was originally published on TODAY.com