When choosing a home gym, you should look at the problem from all angles. Do not just buy what your friend has or what is least expensive because what might work for someone else and their fitness goals may not be ideal for you. The Total Gym and the Bowflex machines are both home gyms, but at their core they work quite differently.
Bowflex Resistance
The Bowflex machines offer resistance through Power Rods. The Power Rods are rubber-like bands made from composite materials. The Power Rods attach to the various accessories like the leg attachment, hand grips and lat bar so when you pull on one of these items, the Power Rods bend down and try to spring back up as resistance. The Power Rods come in different thicknesses and are numbered based on the amount of resistance they offer. The standard Bowflex comes with 210 lbs. of resistance, but you can purchase an additional 100 lb. or 200 lb. accessory for a total of up to 410 lbs.
Total Gym Resistance
The Total Gym uses your own body weight and gravity as resistance. The Total Gym glideboard slides up against gravity when you either pull on the hand grips, pull up on the wing bar or push off the squat platform. You can also stand with one foot on the floor and the other on the glideboard and slide the board up against gravity. Instead of selecting more weight from a Power Rod, you raise the angle of the glideboard to increase difficulty. This means that you cannot make as small of changes with the Total Gym as you can with the Bowflex. A Bowflex has Power Rods of as little "weight" as 5 lbs. The difference between one angle and another on the glideboard does not translate directly as weight, but it will feel like more than a 5-lb. difference.
Exercises
Many of the same exercises are possible on both machines. Chest presses, chest flys, squats, back extensions, overhead presses, rows, hip abduction, lat pulldowns and resisted crunches are just some of the overlapping exercises. Both machines can be used as a flat or incline bench without weight from the machine as well. For example, you can lie on the Bowflex bench or the Total Gym glideboard in the flat positions and do crunches without holding the hand grips of either machine.
Total Gym Benefits and Drawbacks
The Total Gym is almost always moving. Unless you lie the glideboard flat and just do unresisted crunches or a similar exercise off it, the glideboard is going to move. This semi supportive or unstable environment causes the core muscles to activate on almost every exercise, though more in some than in others. Almost every exercise works your stabilizer muscles and small muscle groups. The drawback here is that you cannot do fully supported exercises with heavy weights, which is desirable for working at your maximal strength.
Bowflex Benefits
The Bowflex allows more flexibility in choosing to do unsupported exercises, such as a single leg calf raise, semi-supported exercises, such as an incline chest press, and fully supported exercises, such as a leg extension on the leg attachment. If you want to lift heavy weights for building large muscles or working at your one rep maximum, the Bowflex gives you that option. The drawback here is that you may need to purchase the additional Power Rod packages because 210 lbs. may not be enough to work your larger muscle groups for this type of training.
Considerations
Some Total Gyms may be folded up and stored out of the way, whereas a Bowflex will need permanent space. Price is also a consideration. The Total Gym 2000 is only $500 as of 2010, but the Total Gym XLS and Total Gym 14000 both cost around $2,000. The Total Gym 2000 is only capable of doing half the exercises as the XLS and doesn't come with a warranty. You can purchase used models for much less. The Bowflex Classic is only $650, but offers less than half as many exercise options as the next model up, the Xtreme 2 SE. The Bowflex Xtreme 2 SE costs around $1,600. Used Bowflex machines are available as well.
References
- The Bowflex Xtreme Home Gym Owner's Manual; Tom Purvis RPT, RTS; Nautilus, Inc.; 2006
- The Bowflex Ultimate Home Gym Owner's Manual; Tom Purvis RPT, RTS; Nautilus, Inc.; 2004
- Bowflex: Bowflex Xtreme 2 SE
- EFI Sports Medicine: Total Gym Models
- Total Gym 1700 Club Exercise System Owner's Manual; Fitness Quest, Inc.; 2004
Member Comments