Bowflex Tips

Reviews on Bowflex Power Pro The Bowflex: Highly Overrated for a Highly Overrated Price I admit it, I've become a workout freak over the past two years. Especially when it comes to weight training. Never having really been into ...

Reviews on Bowflex Revolution” Home Gym Aptly named - best in class For context, I am 6ָ” 235, 43 years old in excellent condition and have been circuit training with Nautilus, Cybex, Life Fitness, H...

The Bowflex power-pro is quite a feat of engineering. The exercises the equipment allows you to do are staggering, and if you have the willpower to use the machine, you will NOT be disappointed. There are at least 3 additional pieces of equipment, such as the lat pulldown bar, the squat attachment, and the leg curl bar that attach to the Boxflex too. (I know because I own them, and 2 of them are still in the box, due to sheer laziness).

Out of the box, the Bowflex has some assembly required. I’m no mechanical engineer, but managed to get the machine put together in about 45 minutes. NOTE: a plastic cap that fit on the end of one of the tubular steel frame ends was cracked upon arrival. A 10 minute phone call had one in the mail right to my door in about a week, and I was impressed by the fact that every piece of your Bowflex is under warrenty for “life”, including the powerrods, the rods that bend during exercise, generating resistance.

There is a poster and workbook that accompany the Bowflex that show some various exercises and regimens for your type of workout. The workbook highlights about 8 different regimens from Aerobic Workouts to Bodybuilding Workouts, and is somewhat helpful, but the negatives will follow shortly…Another point of note is that a Bowflex has numbers on the powerrods but they really don’t correspond to pounds or kilograms to me. A one-hundred powerrod bench press feels A LOT heavier than 100 pounds (Geez, maybe the numbers ARE kilograms after all). You really need to start lower than you might think in terms of pounds as far as numbers go when you begin using this machine. The misconception might occur in persons who are used to lifting free weights and buy a Boxflex in order to skip the gym and stay home.

So the cons of the machine are minor but definitely worth reading. First, this machine is definitely not like free weights. My body responds better to free weights, and I get better results faster. But I also get sore with free weights. With the Bowflex, I do not (individual results may vary, please don’t blame me). Also, the exercises may be very difficult to get used to, especially if you are used to working on a horizontal free weight bench. Most notably is the bench press, which is always done in the incline position on the Bowflex. There is now a bench press attachment that repositions the pulleys below you for a more even horizontal exercise, but I failed to get that one and figured I had enough of a collection already at this point (remember the other 2 still in the box? my wife does…DOH!) Anyway, another shortcoming of the total package is the video included. It showcases the machine and a few select exercises, but DOES NOT provide a watch- and-workout step-by-step type of video where you work out along with your own videotaped personal trainer. I thought this was a big omission and also think women, especially my wife, learn better and faster by watching the exercises being done, rather than seeing still pictures of the exercises in the workout booklet provided. Sure, putting the Boxflex together is not hard, but I didn’t find it easy. It’s best to have an extra pair of hands, and the attachments can’t all be hooked up at the same time all the time. Lastly, there is a slight hitch in the movement of the Bowflex pulleys. But don’t let me cause a misconception. The overall movement of the Bowflex pulleys is very very SMOOTH, but the hitch occurs when you bring the grips all the way back to the starting position and the slight slack in the cables causes a loud metallic clanking noise as the tension in the flexed powerrods takes up that slack (hard to explain it is, plus my Yoda-like use of syntax doesn’t help either). The noise is loud enough to wake up my wife and son and really is minor but worth noting.

Overall, if you’re looking for a piece of home exercise equipment (and have wasted enough money on the other 6 pieces sitting in your basement) then this is the be all end all solution to the problem. The machine truly does what it is intended to do, and is actually fun to use. My only advice is don’t try to replace free weights with a Bowflex without suffering some growing pains. A Bowflex is NOT free weights and is not intended to be free weights (personally, that was my only misconception!). Sure the price is high but so is a membership to a gym and that is a moot point to me, so good luck and have fun. The only thing you’ll need in addition to a Boxflex is motivation!

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