Bowflex Tips

Bowflex Ultimate XTLU The Bowflex Ultimate XTLU has all the bells and whistles. It is a total body workout. Bowflex quality and a variety of exercises makes...

Bowflex Ultimate Xtlu Official Website Brand:BowflexFitness Type:Other Personal Fitness Products • Weight Training EquipmentSports Type:Personal FitnessWeight Training Equ...

I have had the Bowflex Ultimate for about 4 months now and I really like the machine. The pros outweigh the cons with the unit, and I think it was a worthwhile purchase. Here is my story …

I had been considering a Bowflex unit for about 3 years. It takes me a long time to decide to spend a lot of money, but once my decision is made — watch out! I spoke with a very friendly woman at Bowflex who, I think, was surprised that she didn’t have to do much selling during the phone call. If she only knew how my mind works. I already knew I wanted the Ultimate — if I’m going to buy it, get the most features — but she was able to sell me on the mat and the software. My total purchase was about $2,400.00. She told me that it would take about 3 weeks for me to receive the unit. I purchased my unit at the beginning of October — it arrived the day before Thanksgiving — so it took about 6 or 7 weeks for the unit to arrive. Whenever I called about the delay, they were friendly and explained that they had a sudden rush of orders and they were behind in producing the units.

The reps explained that the multiple-box shipment would be shipped on the same day so that all of the boxes would arrive on the same day. That didn’t happen in my case. Half was shipped one day and half was shipped the other day — or, it may be more accurate to say that UPS picked up half the shipment from Bowflex one day and left the rest for the next day because their truck was full? Just a guess, but definitely not UPS procedure for boxes marked 1 of X. I’m lucky because I live in a single family home with a carport. The UPS guy had a great place to set the boxes because I wasn’t home at the time of delivery. If you don’t have a similar setup, make sure that you are home when the unit is to be delivered, and make sure you have two days to take off.

The Bowflex unit provides a great workout, and that’s before you take it out of the box. There were 11 boxes and all but two of them weighed at least 45lbs. A couple weighed 75-80lbs. Give your UPS guy a big tip if he carries these things up 3-4 flights for you. I had to carry them from my carport down the steps and into the basement where I planned to setup my Bowflex — that was a workout on its own, but I’m not exactly in-shape either.

The items in the boxes are very well placed. Everything was secure and I could easily identify the pieces. While the Bowflex engineers have thought through just about every step of the procedure so that they get very few phone calls on how to put the unit together, there are a few things they fail to tell you.

When I decided to buy, I got the dimensions of the unit so that I could be assured that it would fit where I wanted to place it. However, in the assembly instructions, they forget to tell you that you will need more cubic feet of space to actually put the thing together. Dummy me. I’m usually very good about allowing for that, and I did — horizontally. My basement has about a 7.25ft ceiling, but trust me when I say you will need at least an 8ft ceiling to get this thing put together in the way they intend for you to do it. Since I have the Ultimate, the Lat tower was the bugaboo that caused me to put a hole in my ceiling. I had put so much of the unit together that I wasn’t in the mood to take it apart and move it elsewhere. So, I found a way to pull the unit forward (my basement floor is not perfectly even) and I was able to tilt the unit backwards enough to slide in the Lat tower and assemble it. As an aside, they say that the Lat tower requires two people to assemble (nowhere else except in the box of instructions did they tell me this). I am a very determined person and figured out how to get the Lat tower on by myself by tilting the unit backward to slide it in. However, when I went to tilt the unit back into the upright position, whack! The Lat tower went right into the ceiling and made a nice hole in the drywall. It was obvious that once the unit was upright it would have about a 2 inch clearance from my ceiling and all would be fine, but getting it fully upright required about an additional 1.5 inches that I didn’t have. I managed to pull the unit a little farther forward where the floor dipped about another inch or so and with a couple of smaller strikes at the ceiling I was able to get the unit upright and then slide it back into the spot where I wanted it to be. I had a ShopVac handy to take care of sucking up the mess of broken drywall. Remember: if you buy the Lat tower, assemble the unit in a room with at least an 8ft ceiling, or be prepared to share my experience.

When I ordered the Ultimate, the lady I spoke with in sales recommended that I purchase the rubber mat to set the unit on. The mat makes sure that the unit doesn’t rub the floor and make marks, and it also helps stabilize the unit so that it doesn’t slowly walk the floor while the unit is in use. While it was in my basement and I didn’t care about what happened to the appearance of my 1972 linoleum covered concrete floor (my ceiling now has a hole, you know), I did get the mat to make sure the unit didn’t jiggle or walk. The mat is overpriced. While it’s a nice black rubber mat with Bowflex written in brilliant red (which nearly matches the ugly red the previous owners painted the walls of my basement), it’s just a black mat that cost $99. You could probably go to Sam’s Club and get the interlocking multicolor rubber squares (I think you get 10 squares for $18). The psychedlic squares won’t look as nice as the black mat, but you’ll be about $79 richer for it. It’s your choice.

On the recommendation of the sales lady, I also got the Bowflex software. Now, this piece of software has its own pros and cons, but overall I think most people should order the software. It cost about $50. The software has a very slick design that is more form than function. While it attempts to deliver cool looks like the “skins” you can get for Windows Media Player or Real Player, it still delivers good info. When you answer the setup questions, the Bowflex software creates a workout routine for you with suggested exercises, weights and reps. The software includes video clips that show you how to do every exercise available on the Ultimate. The poster they include has still photographs that don’t always give you the best clue on how to do an exercise correctly. However, the videos show everything — just be prepared to have a PC or laptop near your Bowflex unit so that you can refer to the videos as you learn how to do the various exercises. I can’t remember how many exercises you can do, but it’s probably 100+ on the Ultimate. Once you learn the steps and get into a rhythm you can ditch the videos. Also on the software videos, they have a professor from UNLV talk about exercise, nutrition and results. The info the professor provides is very, very good and I’ll bet that most impulse buyers won’t watch his mini-lectures. His delivery of the information is often bland, but you do hear it in a matter-of-fact way with no flashy presentations that might distract more than benefit the information. Each mini-lecture is about 10 minutes in length and is really beneficial. There is far more to proper exercise than simply measuring how many reps you can complete and at which weight level. You have to approach your personal health through both your diet and your exercise. I didn’t need the professors info because I already knew it (but I watched it anyway - ironic, right?). However, the software allowed me to print off nice exercise charts and figure out how to do each exercise. It also allows me to track my progress.

What would I improve about the software? Get rid of the slick interface. It doesn’t add anything and only detracts. It’s sometimes kludgy to use because I didn’t always know what I was supposed to click on or do to move to the next step. Also, it needs to be presented in a more straight-forward fashion. If Bowflex needs to make money off the software (and I’m sure they want to), they should probably charge us $50 for lifetime access to a website that has step-by-step instructions, videos, fitness tracking, etc. Wouldn’t it be interesting to see how many Bowflex users input their actual numbers for height, weight, exercise times, reps, etc. and see what the results are? Maybe not, since a lot of gym equipment goes unused.

As far as actually using my Bowflex, I love it. I think it does exactly everything it advertises. I am able to get a lot of different exercise options from my Ultimate and I can already tell a difference in how my body feels and works. Of course, if I followed any routine with just about any equipment, I could probably say the same thing. What’s different with the Ultimate is that I don’t know of any other home unit that can provide the same number of exercises and still occupy the same amount of space as the Ultimate. The power rods are strong and do provide very good resistance. And they hardly make any noise. I read many reviews of buyers who said that the power rods weren’t very strong and were too easy to use. I’m not sure if these people were taking the Barry Bonds designer steroids when they bought their Bowflex units, but these power rods have a lot of resistance. I even bought the power rod upgrade, and unless I start taking Barry Bonds designer steroids, it’s going to be a long while before I can use them. Exercising with the power rods is very smooth and the rods ensure that both arms and legs exercise the same — your strong limb can rarely help the weak one — both must work equally. I really enjoy the rowing exercise — I can row much more smoothly than I thought possible with this unit. If anyone thinks that the unit is shaky when they row, they either have no mat under the unit or they are lousy assembly people. Once this thing is properly assembled, it feels rock solid.

Do make sure that nothing gets in the way of the power rods — keep the kids away while you are using the Bowflex. The power rods have a strong whiplash effect when unhooked incorrectly or when in motion. This is only an issue when you are very close to the unit. As with Nautilus equipment, the Bowflex power rods are not likely to cause you any injuries at the point of muscle failure. Just let go of whatever you are holding on to and nothing will drop on your foot or hit you in the head.

What are the cons of the Bowflex? Well, first things first: the power rods need to be better identified. You get 50, 30, 10 and 5 lb power rods, but other than the thickness of the power rods, it’s difficult to tell which rods you are trying to hook or unhook. Only the 50lb rods are obvious. The weight is printed black-on-black on the rods. However, the people at Bowflex need to put the numbers on the rods in white or yellow or some high-contrast color that makes it easy to tell which rods you want to choose to hook up for an exercise. Or, they could color-code the caps of all the rods. This seems like a very simple and inexpensive addition for Bowflex to make. Instead, it becomes a do-it-yourself job at home.

Another con is the bench. The bench has nice, firm padding, but I find it too firm. There needs to be more cushioning to the bench. When I lie flat on my back, it’s difficult for me to get up because I have some problems with my lower back muscles, hence the exercising. However, when I try to get up it’s like trying to raise myself up off a hardwood floor. Don’t get me wrong, the bench is not as hard as a wood floor, but there is so little give to it that it might as well be a hardwood floor. I’m sure that when I was 21 I could lift myself right off a hardwood floor from a prone position without thinking twice about it. I’m 38 now — I have to think twice. There is no sense in not having just a little more cushioning to the bench. Dear Mr. Bowflex, a few economic facts, at 38 I have the money to buy this unit that I couldn’t dream of having at 21 — cater to the 38-year-olds and give them a little more cushioning on the bench. The gel-type padding or “tempurpedic” padding would be great.

Also, when I am doing the exercises on the leg extension and I’m lying face down on the bench, there’s no good place to put my hands (and my ribs tend to meet up with the very firm, sometimes unforgiving bench). The foot rests should be movable so that during the leg exercises you can move the foot rests back and allow them to become handlebars. Taking the leg extension off is a bit of a pain. Perhaps Bowflex should make the metal bench frame longer so that you could just scoot the leg extension backward a greater distance. Removing the leg extension is necessary to allow you to do about one-third of the available exercises.

Finally, that poster that shows how to do some of the exercises on BOTH sides of the poster — how am I supposed to hang a poster on the wall in such a way as to turn it around to see what’s on the other side? There should be a series of ONE-SIDED posters available showing ALL exercises so that I can hang them up and refer to them easily. I’m trying to get my daughter to use the Bowflex and she could benefit from the posters when I’m not around.

When I add up all the pros and cons, the pros outweigh the cons by a mile. I can feel the difference in my body immediately. While the short-term muscle growth they show in the infomercials and videos is possible if you have every day to spare for workouts and are otherwise saintly toward your body, it’s not likely to happen for most of us. It will just take longer. But, it’s possible and I’m determined to get there.

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