Bowflex Max Trainer Review - A New Kind of Elliptical Trainer
Looking for something a bit beyond your traditional elliptical machine? If so you may have noticed the Bowflex Max Trainer and thought “What is that?”
I know I did when I first saw it. It looked like an elliptical - but not really.
Then when I actually looked into it (sites like this one helped answer a lot of my questions), it was pretty cool and it might be worth your time.
So what is the Max Trainer?
This is a new kind of elliptical that marries a stair climbing motion on your lower body with the upper body arms of an elliptical machine.
So you still get the full body workout of an elliptical trainer. But you get more of a stepping or climbing motion with the lower body instead of the running motion of a traditional elliptical.
According to the manufacturer you can burn more than twice the calories with one of these babies than other machines like a treadmill or stair stepper.
And they have a lot of success stories to prove it.
I recently asked a friend of mine who had bought a max trainer if I could try it. Here are my observations:
#1 It’s Harder Than An Elliptical
I’ve been working out with elliptical trainers for years now and let me tell you - this machine kicked my butt.
I was sweating within about 3 minutes - on one of the lowest resistance levels to my shame.
But seriously, it’s darn hard. I can see where people would get better results than a standard crosstrainer.
#2 It’s Smaller Than A Crosstrainer
This thing does take up less space. So if you’re in an apartment or a condo - or you just don’t like having a massive machine sitting in your bedroom or home office - the Max trainer might be a good choice.
#3 This Is A HIIT Training machine
HIIT training is all the rage now and it stands for High Intensity Interval Training. Basically it means you work really hard for about 30 seconds to a minute.
Then you relax and go much slower for about 2 - 5 minutes. You catch your breath and move slower - then you start up again at a very high intensity.
Doing these kind of high intervals has been proven to get you faster weight loss and toning results. And you can burn more calorie post workout- which is a benefit if you don’t have a lot of time in your day to exercise.
I am a runner at heart. I like the steady running motion that a treadmill or elliptical trainer gives me. It’s calming and soothing and I’m used to it.
You don’t get that on the Bowflex Max trainer - you’re stair climbing basically. And unlike an elliptical you can’t pedal backwards, another feature a lot of people appreciate about their crosstrainers.
Elliptical trainers give you a lot of awesome features on the console like large, bright consoles, even web browsers or workout videos on the screen these days.
The Max Trainer console (my friend had the M5 - which is the middle model in the series) was ok. Backlit yes, and there was a kind of speedometer which is supposed to show you how many calories you’re burning.
But overall I’ve seen better consoles out there.
They are adding an online feature so you can track your workouts, my friend tells me. So that might change my opinion but overall I was just like “It’s ok I guess”.
My Final Review of the Bowflex Max Trainer?
This machine can definitely help you burn more calories. It will kick your butt - seriously. So from that perspective it’s great. And if you want faster results in less time, it might be worth considering.
I also like the smaller size. It just seems less “monster-sized” than a lot of elliptical trainers - many of which can seem overwhelming in size to a lot of people.
But I do like my running gait that I get with my elliptical. So at the end of the day I think I’ll stick with that.
Here’s a video review of the Bowflex M5:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High-intensity_interval_training
http://www.maxtrainerblog.com
