Is the Bowflex the Right Home Gym For You

What does Bowflex have to hide?

One important Bowflex design flaw they are trying to keep from you is a low level of durability. When I bought my Bowflex the first thing I noticed is that it was made largely of synthetic material as compared to other home gym systems which are made largely of iron, metal, upholstery and steel cables. After about 8 months the hold latch on the plastic bench broke and I had to use a screw driver to hold the bench in an upright position when I wanted to do my benchpress chest exercises. Which brings us to another durability issue - the warranty. The Bowflex machine only came with a 1 year warranty! This is a bit of a short duration I would think. Other home gym manufacturers such as Body Solid include a lifetime warranty with no questions asked and the Body Solid prices are about 20 to 30% lower for comparable equipment. (I will save price analysis for another article)

My next area of examination is ergonomic design. You may have thought it a bit strange in the above paragraph when I mentioned that I had to move the bench into an upright or incline position to do standard flat bench press exercises? The answer to that question brings us to the next issue with Bowflex machines. The Bowflex runs all of the exercises off a low pulley system which makes many of the exercise positions and angles very awkward and less effective than the traditional Home Gym systems. Some exercises work fine such as upright or mid rows. But others are very tedious and not very effective such as bench press, pectoral flys, shoulder press, leg press and arm curls.

So why do people buy the Bowflex?

Having browsed some of the recent product reviews I noticed a common benefit that the satisfied consumers had pointed out - weight loss. But when you examine what they attribute the weight loss to it was diet changes and an aerobic style workout. Ironically, they attribute these diet and workout guidelines to the Bowflex manual and not the Bowflex machine itself. If you want to see the aerobic benefits simply minimize rest time between sets to keep your heart rate at an optimal level. You will save money and have the additional ergonomic exercise benefits that come with a traditional style machine. As for the diet changes - Cutting back on beer and chocolate bars as part of your fitness plan is common knowledge and you can find good diet tips anywhere and the price is very affordable....$0.00. For the same price the reviewers paid for their Bowflex they could have bought an exercise bike and a quality home fitness gym such as the Body Solid EXM1500s.

With the abundance of quality traditional home gym equipment on the market today you can get much more bang for your buck by buying into proven technologies that have been tried and tested. The home fitness gyms available today are ergonomically designed to flow with your natural body movements, you don't alter proper exercise form as with the Bowflex machine, it is the other way around. In addition, warranty coverage is much better on the traditionally designed machines. Last but not least it is this author's opinion that the price you pay will go much further if spent on traditional home gym equipment. Best of luck with your new home gym purchase, to be completely satisfied try to stick with a traditionally designed and ergonomically correct home gym.

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