RichardCranium Posted June 4, 2006 Share Posted June 4, 2006 I finally picked up a bowflex yesterday. I snagged an Xtreme2 off ebay for a song. Just got it home and set up last night. It has some wear on a few areas from use but its its great shape. Now I just need to figure out a good routine and start using it. Anyone have any good but fairly short workouts they want to share? Not sure if I want to go MWF and then try to do cardio on T/Th or just go 4 or 5 days of strength (and do cardio whenever) so that I can squeeze more stuff in. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DeaconXX Posted June 5, 2006 Share Posted June 5, 2006 With your build, I'd do cardio on tues/thurs and lift on mon/wed/fri. How you split it up is up to you but what I would do is: mon: Chest, biceps, abs wed: Back, triceps, shoulders (delts and traps), forearms, abs fri: Quads, glutes, hamstrings, and calves...and abs you can swap bicep/tricep days in connection with back/chest depending on how you want to work the muscles. Chest also works tri's, so by splitting it this way I'm essentially hitting them twice in a week. Also, I'm not starting my tricep workout half pumpd, which helps me work them better. My habit is to omit some leg exercises because I build there easy; I get my leg work from cardio. Same with forearms, it's worked colaterally. In place of those exercises I'll focus on something that may have felt under-worked on the other days. Most people prefer to work shoulders on a chest day, but bench hurts my shoulder, so I try to spread it out. Definitely work traps on a back day. Everybody's body responds differently, but this is what works for me. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JuXXtin Posted July 14, 2006 Share Posted July 14, 2006 After a month+, how are you liking this Brett? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
RichardCranium Posted July 15, 2006 Author Share Posted July 15, 2006 After a month+, how are you liking this Brett? Its great. I havent been hitting it really solid yet. The past couple weeks I've picked it up a bit. I cant bench a huge amount normally but I can bench all the weight on this thing. Its "210 lbs" which I dont think is quite accurate. I will eventually need to upgrade it to 310. The bench is the only one Im doing all of the rods on though. I also think that these rods are a bit worn since I got it used. You can really get some fantastic resistance on it though. I'm trying to kick my workout up a bit now that I'm getting the feel for the various movements/configurations. I can definitely recommend it if you are in the market for a do it all home gym. The Xtreme2 is cool in that it has a very small footprint too. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
spEEdfrEEk Posted October 30, 2006 Share Posted October 30, 2006 Not sure if I want to go MWF and then try to do cardio on T/Th or just go 4 or 5 days of strength (and do cardio whenever) so that I can squeeze more stuff in. If you're trying to get lean while getting stronger then put the cardio (short 10-15 min sessions) after your lifting. Why? 1) That cardio will help deplete the last of your glucose/glycogen stores and you'll run mostly on free-fatty acids (or ketones) afterwards 2) Taking the day _completely_ off from activity in between lifting days will help you recover faster and make more progress gaining strength. TJ Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
RichardCranium Posted January 7, 2007 Author Share Posted January 7, 2007 Not sure if I want to go MWF and then try to do cardio on T/Th or just go 4 or 5 days of strength (and do cardio whenever) so that I can squeeze more stuff in. If you're trying to get lean while getting stronger then put the cardio (short 10-15 min sessions) after your lifting. Why? 1) That cardio will help deplete the last of your glucose/glycogen stores and you'll run mostly on free-fatty acids (or ketones) afterwards 2) Taking the day _completely_ off from activity in between lifting days will help you recover faster and make more progress gaining strength. TJ After using the bowflex for several months I decided that it wasn't quite what I wanted. I think it was a nice piece of equipment but I found that the rods really didn't give an even resistance thru the range of motion and it took some fiddling to get certain excercises set up so that I had adequate resistance at the start of the motion. I found myself using dumbells for several excercises and really liking it better. I think it would be perfect for someone who just wanted to get some excerise or to maintain some muscle tone but I was ready to try something else. The good thing about buying a used bowflex is that I was able to sell it for basically what I bought it for in 2 days. I replaced it with a Marcy smith cage system that I'll post about in another thread. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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