Take fitness to a whole new level with the Bowflex Ultimate. It’s one of our most effective machines giving you an incredible leg, ab and upper body workout.

5 Responses to “Bowflex Ultimate XTLU Home Gym [Discontinued]”

1. M. Mietus says:

   January 19, 2009 at 12:00 am

   I purchased the Bowflex for my husband for a gift. We spent 31/2 hours putting it together. (not to hard if you have assistance). The exercises are easy and effective. Once you get the hang of which parts to connect to where, because there are many attatchments. Good product.
2. Little One says:

   January 12, 2009 at 12:00 am

   After doing a fair amount of research on home gym equipment, I settled on Bowflex. They appeared to have a good, versatile product and good customer service. Our Bowflex arrived in less than a week in six large boxes. Be prepared to spend some good quality time putting your home gym together. It is not difficult to assemble, just time consuming. (It took two of us 3 hours to put this model together and we both are mechanically inclined.) The final product feels very solid and sturdy.

   Most importantly, we love our Bowflex. I am tiny (4′10″), my husband is not (6′1″), but we are able to work out together easily with this machine and both of us feel as though we get a great workout. I have lifted free weights for 20+ years and am very happy with the weightlifting workouts I am getting now. The system is very versatile, allowing for dozens of different exercises.
3. Mary A. Ragsdale says:

   January 10, 2009 at 12:00 am

   This is my first Bowflex product but I am happy so far. I haven’t had it long. The assembly is incredibly easy. Assistance by one other person is best. Working with one other person I had it up and running in 2.5hrs (working leisurely).

   My only dissatisfaction is the weight is not equal to free weight. One of the first exercises I tried was the bench press. 150lbs feels like 115-120 in the free weight world. If you’re a heavy lifter I suggest purchasing the 410lb rods right off.

   It would be nice if this product came with a DVD to aid the manual.
4. A. Tomlinson says:

   January 8, 2009 at 12:00 am

   I do not yet own the Bowflex Ultimate XTLU, but I have used it & it is excellent. I want this item REALLY bad. Before & during Christmas, the item was as low as around $965 or $985, which is at least $200 cheaper than now. Note to Amazon or the Fitness Outlet: lower it back to the pre Christmas price & I will snap one up right now!!
5. Robert Crandall says:

   December 8, 2008 at 12:00 am

   I purchased this product just after Christmas 2007. It’s now one year later, and I still use the Bowflex 3 days a week. I’m rating it 5 stars after using it for a year.

   First, a look at the financial:

   This Bowflex was just under $1000. In one year, that means it was $83 per month. By the end of next year, it will be $42 a month. For a two person family, gym memberships are comparable in this area.

   I’ve had gym memberships prior to this, and I always stopped attending. The time it takes to go to the gym was not worth the gain. And I like to workout alone. Not everyone feels like that, but I do.

   So financially, this was a great investment.

   Regarding “20 minutes, 3 days a week” statement:

   Shortly after buying the Bowflex I also bought the Bowflex body plan book (2% more on the initial cost). Even though the book repeated a lot of information from the manual, I’d highly recommend it to Bowflex owners. The real gem of the book was convincing me to stick with a 20 minute workout, 3 days a week. Before buying the book I was doing 35-40 minute workouts, but the book gave weekly schedules that try to stay at 20 minutes. This was one thing that helped me stick with the Bowflex for a year.

   The other advice the book had was a “short on time” workout that I’d do when feeling either tired or crunched for time. The beauty of this was that it was a short, 4 exercise circuit: no excusing for not doing it. After doing just one or two of the exercises, I’d end up doing the entire circuit. But if you are short on time, you can do a “core workout” that hits your most important parts in under 10 minutes. This is the reason I always failed at gyms but succeed at Bowflex: 10 minutes is enough for Bowflex.

   Regarding results:

   Short description is yes, I’ve seen results. I got it when I wanted to put on muscle and didn’t care about losing weight. Over the year I doubled my bench press + doubled my bicep curls, and put 2.5″ on my chest in 6 months (I stopped tracking during the summer after a plateau). I had to purchase one set of weight upgrades and am about to purchase another set.

   While using the machine, my weight stayed steady. Then I had a 4 week break and put on 10 pounds in Europe. Coming back, weight loss was a goal. I’ve followed the book (again), and have steadily lost 2 pounds a week. A little “straight talk”: I used to have problems losing weight, but it became easy on a different plan (the 8 minutes in the morning one, which helped me lose 35 pounds). After losing the 35 pounds, I discovered my own method for losing weight (which is similar to the 8 minutes plan and Bowflex plan: their diet is similar but exercise is different). So although I can say the Bowflex & Body Plan did help me lose weight, I don’t know if it would have worked without first knowing how to lose weight for myself. Basically, I believe each person needs to discover how to lose weight. Bowflex works for me, but I’ve already discovered how to lose it. I don’t know if it would have worked without the discovery phase elsewhere.

   You can tell by the review here that I am a Bowflex fan. This machine worked very well for me: I saw results, I don’t spend a lot of time on it but stick with the commitment it needs, and it was a sound financial decision. The cons of it (the unit is TALL! Measure first!) are far outweighed by the positives.