How to Use a Bowflex Extreme

The Bowflex Extreme, often referred to as the Bowflex Xtreme, is a home gym offering more than 60 different exercises to let you work out various muscle groups. Priced at approximately $2,000, it's compact design makes it an attractive alternative for those who prefer to work out at home instead of a gym. Changing exercises is easy since there is no need to add or lower weights. Instead, the Bowflex boasts a "no change cable pulley system" where the cables and pulleys are hooked to "power rods" of varying diameters. The wider the rod diameter the heavier the resistance. To add or lower resistance simply hook or unhook the rod from the cable.

Instructions

• 1

  Use the "no-change cable pulley system" to focus on your chest muscles using chest press and bench fly exercises, and your shoulder muscles with exercises such as reverse flies, shoulder presses and raises.

• 2

  Strengthen your leg muscles with squats and dead lifts using the adjustable lower pulleys. These exercises target your gluteals, quadriceps and hamstrings. The Bowflex Extreme also comes with a leg extension attachment to complement the other leg exercises. The leg extension attachment allows you to tuck your feet under the cushioned pads to do exercises.

• 3

  Tighten your abdominal muscles using the abdominal shoulder harness as well as the cushioned seat for abdominal crunches and trunk rotations.

• 4

  Give your back and shoulder muscles a workout using the Bowflex Extreme's lat tower. The lat tower (pictured) attaches to the back of the seat and comes complete with a dangling bar for doing the lateral pull down exercise. While the manufacturers claim that the lat tower benefits your back, shoulder and laterals, many review sites claim it mostly works on your back with your shoulders getting a lesser workout. To further strengthen your shoulders the pulley system allows you to do shoulder raises, presses and reverse fly exercises.

• 5

  Increase your arm strength using the same pulley system that strengthens the chest and shoulder muscles. With the Bowflex Extreme you can focus on your triceps with push-downs and extensions, your biceps with various curling exercises. Wrist curls can work on your forearms.