Bowflex Tips

Bowflex Power Pro XTL For many years now I've been trying to stay in shape with aerobics and weight training. Since we moved to our new home, I now live wa...

Bowflex Power Pro XTLU I work 90 minutes from home, and I have 4 children, so I elect not to spend another 60 minutes+ away from my family in a gym. (Before ...

I have owned a Bowflex Power Pro XTL for app. 4 years, 3 1/2 of witch it has served as a coat hanger. I am afraid to use it (get to that later) and can’t sell it either (also get to that).

I wasted $1600 of hard earned money on this piece of crap. The lat pulldown is junk. I am 6′3 and I had to bend over just to get some resistance from the power rods. The lat attachment isn’t high enough for anyone over 6′2 or has long arms. As you pull down on the lat bar, the front of the machine pulls with it. The base of the machine just isn’t wide enough to provide support for this.

The leg ext. is about the same. The more resistance you put on it, the more it wants to raise off of the ground. The machine works fairly well at low resistance, but as you add more it shakes and bends, almost feeling as if it is going to break, which in one case, it did.

This is where I am strongly AGAINST the Bowflex. A friend of mine was using my machine one night. He was performing the incline bench, where the backboard is at a 45 degree angle leaning against the lat pulldown pole. He weighed around 180 lbs. at the time. He had all 310 lbs of resistance hooked up. He inclined the 310 lbs 4 times, on the 5th time, the backboard broke, folding him in half. I was in shock as I watched this. His upper torso bent at a 45 degree as he slammed into the back of the machine. His head slammed into his chest. I thought his back was broken for sure! He rolled off of the bench like a wet noodle. To my surprise he got up and started walking around, but his muscles started to spasm. I had to call 911 and he was rushed by ambulance to the emergency room. He is still recovering at this time. He has had chronic back pain since. He is no longer able to lift weights, engage in any type of physical sport, or do many of the things which most of us take for granted.

Bowflex sent me a new backboard that is supposedly re-engineered. There is supposed to be some sort of metal rod(s) in the new backboard, but I just don’t trust it. If you have a power pro xtl, you might want to check this out. With the lat pulldown attachment on, the backboard rests against the pole. The support bracket on the back of the backboard just hangs in the air, it doesn’t touch anything. Without the lat attachment, the support bracket for the backboard actually works like it should. It rests at the front of power rod base. An engineering flaw? You make your own conclusion. I’m not a MIT grad, but common sense will tell you that when you support a piece of wood at the very tip of each end, it is going to be weak in the middle, and thus more likely to break.

As you can see, I’m not very pleased with my $1600 coat hanger. I would sell it, but I’m hanging on to it so that if and when my friend goes to court, the jury will get to see my glorified coat hanger in action.

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