Bowflex – Ultimate 2 Home Gym

The Bowflex Ultimate 2 Home Gym is a solid overall workout device; however, it is hardly worth the price tag. Coming in at $2,499, we find that a hefty price tag for a home gym designed around resistance rods. We are always concerned with the reliability, comfort, and overall usability of machines that utilize resistance rod systems. We have seen on many less expensive Bowflex machines that the power rod resistance can be inconsistent, cause plateaus, and sometimes be dangerous when compared to a weight stack design.

With the price aside, the Ultimate 2 Home Gym from Bowflex does make some minor improvements over the less expensive models, but those improvements primarily include tacking on some extra piece of frame to accommodate another 25 exercises or so. While 95 possible workouts seem like a huge number, many of the workouts are nearly identical and we found keeping correct body positions within each workout very difficult. Again, for someone who enjoys the look and feel of a power rod system like this, the Ultimate 2 may be a good fit. For the average user we’d recommend investing in a nice solid weight stack design.