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Reviews on Bowflex Ultimate Bowflex Ultimate is it really? SALES INFORMATION This product is not made in the USA!!!! The sales people at the company assured me it was manufactured in the USA before ...

Reviews on Bowflex Ultimate Bowflex Ultimate: The True Ultimate In Home Gyms! I currently own the base model of the Bowflex Power Pro line. I own the basic Power Pro model which I bought for $1,098. I can't be any happ...

I’m 48 and have been lifting weights since 14 (34 years). My early workouts with the Ultimate 2 were not as good as they are getting because you really must spend the time to learn the machine. To their credit, Bowflex includes high-quality videos (I love watching Amy workout, don’t worry girls - there’s a stud there for you to watch). Seriously, the training materials are first rate.

Here’s my quick summary:

- Solid Machine

- Plenty of Exercises

- Solid Motion – forget what they other reviewer said

- Good to Great Burn Possible – most exercises

- Expensive – but better built than Weider

- A Few Gotchas – for that you’ll need to read the detailed below…

Quality & Setup:

The machine itself is very solid - 550 lbs. You really need a small bedroom for it and decent ceiling height (i.e., I can’t fit it in my basement). It’s also a pain to set up, 11 boxes - plan on 16 man-hours, not the 4 they claim.

Variety of Exercises:

Their claim of 100 is an exaggeration because some exercises are just slight variations of each other. However, I would say there are at least three dozens real, separate exercises. Certainly enough for all but competition weight lifters.

As a matter of fact, I’d say that my workouts are 125% more balanced than when I was just using weights. For instance, I hated squats with real weights because they were such a pain to set up and you really need a spotter and they are bad for your back, knees, and generally painful on your shoulders. On the Bowflex, I’d say it’s one of my favorite exercises. They have really well engineered the squat rack piece. Perfect form is guaranteed. No pain, just good burn.

Can You Really Get a Burn?:

Yes and no. I can get a great burn with the chest and leg workouts. The arm workouts are pretty good, but I get better from free weights, that notwithstanding, you can still get pumped with Bowflex.

Enough Weight?:

Is there enough weight? For most – yes, however, I did buy the optional 100 lbs but unless you’re currently squatting 500 lbs. don’t think this machine is too wimpy for you. For exercises on every other part of the body there’s plenty of weight and their weight is not a one for one comparison with free weights. The resistance grows through the range of the exercise.

Speed of Workouts:

Is it faster than weights - no and yes? First the no, I have a full set of dumbbells in my basement, for a fraction of the price of this Bowflex. With them, I can change weights and exercises within seconds. I can push a workout into 20 minutes with them. My average is about 45 minutes to an hour.

Now with the Bowflex, my quickest workout has been 30 minutes, but my typical is 75 minutes. That kinda defeats one of the key reasons I bought it. Their sales hype says “in as little as 20 minutes a day, 3 times per week, you’ll look like their models” - no you won’t. If you want to look like Amy or their stud, you have to spend hours. That said, you’ll certainly look like a much better you after 45 minutes, 3 times per week.

Why is it slower than weights, well you have to get up and change the power rods, maybe move he bench around, change the pulley positions or the hand grips, etc. You get the idea; you’re not simply just picking up the next set of dumbbells.

The above being said, you get much more potential exercises than I could ever get with just my dumbbells.

Negatives:

Minor negatives - the preacher curl doesn’t seem to have enough range. I think this was poorly designed. They throw it in and that’s probably why.

Serious negatives:

But easily corrected - the handles are too short for the start of most of the chest exercises. They’d have you starting about 10″ behind your shoulder line. I have rotator cuff and this was really inflaming it. I’d go so far as to say, if you don’t have rotator cuff and lift heavy on the chest with their grips, you’ll get rotator cuff.

Solution - for $14 each. I bought some mountain climbing snap rings connected by super strong webbing of about 8″. The tensile strength is a few thousand pounds (hey it’s for real mountain climbing). I got this at Eastern Mountain Sports. They call it the Black Diamond Quicksilver 2 Quickdraw Short. This allowed me to elongate their grips so that the resistance doesn’t start 10″ below my shoulder line. (They should pay me for this one!)

This brings up another serious negative – the book that comes with it from some “Dr.”. They should call him Dr. Injury because what he suggests will really f-you up. For instance - to keep it to the sales pitch of just 20 minute workouts - he suggest only doing one set of each exercise and just “warming up on the first few reps”. Just like weights, you are best off doing a light set, a moderate set and then maybe a heavy set or at least moderate to heavy. Jumping into the heavy set (as he suggests) will definitely get you hurt. So you really need at least 2 sets of each exercise therefore, their 20 minute workout turns into at least 40 minutes.

Speaking of Rotator Cuff:

Their rotator cuff exercises, which are identical to what I do at Gold’s Gym, seem to really be helping me.

Included Software - mostly good, little bad:

First the bad, if you use the bigger font option under the advance tab of Windows XP Screen Display Options - your screwed. It won’t appear right. Those said, probably 95% of people don’t even know about this option, let alone use it.

The good on their software is it actually shows little video snippets of each exercise. The handiness (especially early on) can’t be overstated. Additionally, their software allows you to set up workouts. I found their automatic workouts not too good, but you can manually create your own. Allocate some time for this too. I have probably spent a total of 3 hours refining workouts and then saving them. Finally on their software you can record your progress.

So where does all this leave you. Well this machine is expensive compared to weights or even one gym membership. However, if there are two or more of you, especially if one is not really into weights (many women) and you can easily swing the payment of $2.5k then this is a machine to consider, but only if you commit to learning it. Otherwise it will be a very expensive towel rack.

In my opinion, DON’T – DON’T consider it under their payment plan. It will cost you over double with their high rate of interest. Instead, get a great set of weights and the best training videos available and put a few thousand in the bank.

I hope this review helps you.

God bless,

DC

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