Bowflex Sport Home Gym

Bowflex Gym Home Sport Workouts

We spoke with Rick Allen, owner of Midwest Commercial Fitness, and asked him a few questions about Bowflex Gym Home Sport Equipment.

Paul: Rick, I know that you've worked hands on with a lot of different fitness machines and know the fitness industry well. Many people are interested in Bowflex Sports equipment. Could you tell us why you think Bowflex home gym fitness is so popular?

Rick: Sure Paul. For a certain kind of use - not every kind of use mind you, there are limitations to Bowflex home gyms, but for certain uses Bowflex is an excellent piece of equipment. I'd say the very strong points are its space-saving features and its highly-engineered versatility. In terms of those, it's a real fitness success.

Paul: What do you mean by highly engineered versatility?

To give you something to compare it to, there's a product called Total Gym promoted by Chuck Norris – you remember Chuck Norris?

Paul: Yeah.

If you've ever seen the Total Gym infomercials, that's the only home gym product that comes close to this, but the Total Gym does not offer the same number or quality of exercises as the Bowflex Sport Home Gym. It certainly offers a lot of exercise options, but doesn't offer anywhere near the value in terms of stimulating specific muscle groups, particularly those in the lower body. For example, leg extensions and leg curls can't be performed on a Total Gym or they're very difficult to do, whereas on Bowflex home gyms, there are specific pads designed for them.

What do I mean by that? Well, for example, when you're doing a leg extension, leg curl, it's extremely important not just to hook your ankle strap on and do a leg extension. You want the knee joint to be stable. That's why the Bowflex Sport Home Gym has pads there. Because without them- a specific adaptation to ensure stability, you have a chance to injure the collateral ligaments of the knee, and you certainly don't want to do that while you're exercising. The pads also make it possible to detract the knee caps, the patellar properly. So Bowflex Home Gym fitness machines offer adaptations to ensure the proper execution of these exercises.

Paul: And what about the exercises themselves? What does the Bowflex offer?

If you ever have the chance to get on a Bowflex, you'll know that the Bowflex assembly has various attachments known as Power Rods- essentially Bowflex weights - that have the ability to work just about every type of muscle group. Before you purchase Bowflex equipment, before you make that Bowflex purchase, it will be helpful to picture the way the whole thing works.

Let's talk about the lower body first. The main lower body Bowflex equipment exercise is the leg extension. If you've done leg extensions in a gym, this will be familiar to you. With the BowFlex, you do a leg extension by hooking up the Power Rods to the Bowflex's leg attachment, you sit, and then extend your leg perpendicular to the floor.

The second exercise is the leg curl which exercise the back of your leg. To do that you make another couple of adjustments, then accomplish the exercise by - again in a seated position - curling your heel back toward your thigh. You can also put attachments on it to work other parts of the lower body. There's an ankle strap for instance that will allow you to work your butt muscles and inner and outer thigh muscles. There are Bowflex accessories that allow you to do lunges and squats.

For an additional fee, you can purchase attachments that allow you to do other kinds of routines, like for instance one of the most important lower body exercises - the leg press, which is a multiple joint, multiple body movement - really the perfect exercise. So like anything else, depending on what you want to spend, you can do all those types of movements in the lower body.

On the upper body, Bowflex Sport Home Gym exercise offers the same thing. It has the ability to work all the muscle groups, including the chest, shoulders, the abdominal, and the lower back - and again, you accomplish those with different attachments that replicate what you do with individual pieces of commercial or home gym equipment - that is, with weight stack and free weight equipment.

Paul: So you say that Bowflex Home Gyms get points for space savings.

Absolutely. Compare fitness machines and you can't find another piece of home gym equipment that does what the Bowflex Pro, Bowflex Classic or Bowflex Revolution do in that amount of space. If you live in a small apartment and that's the space you have, then go for it, especially if you can grab some of the Bowflex discounts I've sometimes seen. It's a best rated home gym.

Paul: What about the Treadclimber for cardio exercise?

Bowflex gym's home products certainly haven't ignored cardio sports. Bowflex offers the treadmill climber, a cardio fitness machine that aims to compete with treadmills and commercial elliptical trainers. For its price range, it's a competitive piece of equipment.

Paul: Any negatives for the Bowflex Sport Gym?

Negatives - no. But limitations. You're not- you're absolutely not going to get the same quality of exercise from a machine that performs dozens of exercises as you would from individual pieces of home gym equipment that have been designed for specific exercise routines. A Bowflex squat is not going to compare to a squat that you do on a Smith Machine. A Bowflex home gym fitness bench press is probably not going to develop your chest the way that a free weights and a free weight bench will.

But if you're looking to build a very compact home gym or you want to add a piece of home fitness equipment to your collection that ensures that you reach every single muscle group, you probably can't do better than Bowflex Gym Home Sport equipment

Home Gym Essentials

Bowflex Gym Home Sport Workouts