Last year my husband bought a used Bowflex Ultimate. He rarely uses it (he gets plenty of exercise at his job!).
It's a beautiful machine, just sitting in our extra bedroom. Every time I walk past it is calling to me to get my fat butt in there. So today I finally started watching the instructional dvd. I'm going in that room....
Does anyone else have one of these? It looks really well-made and simple to use. I'll report back...
I have a Weider, which is similar. Used to use it a lot, but not so much now. I do more dumbbell exercises instead. DH has started using the Weider again recently.
We have a bowflex that we bought three or so years ago. Although we both use it, my husband really has taken to it. He does a routine of 30-45 min 3x a week as well as karate twice a week and has noticed an improvement in muscle tone.
I've been thinking about it, but I also do more cardio then he does--he has no fat to lose, I have, uh, some....
When I've used it in the past, I've liked it. Not a lot of true weight loss, but muscle tone improvement, stuff like that.
I know that there are people who don't like bowflex type apparatuses ( apparati?), and that they promote bad form or whatever compared to free weights, but I figure that it's great if you don't have a lot of space to devote to weights and stuff, I like it just fine.
I train a client on a Bowflex, I like it, but I would much prefer to do some free weights myself, BUT, having said this, if I had no free weights and it was the only machine I had, I would love it. Doing the Bowflex is better than doing nothing... My client loves it a LOT, she's always bringing me back to it when I do too many free weights ... But hey, she paid a lot of money for it, so I can't say that I blame her...