The Bowflex Uppercut is the latest exercise device to appear all over late night TV infomercials. Bowflex has a long history of success in the marketing and sales of Exercise equipment. Uppercut is their newest product, but is it worth the price?
What is Uppercut?
Bowflex markets this device as an all around workout. It’s used to perform exercises such as flys, pikes and pushups. The product features two handles connected to a base buy moving arms and resistance bands with three adjustable resistance levels. The design adds resistance to pushup type exercises and allows for you to perform lower body and ab exercises against the same resistance.
What Does Uppercut Do?
Many exercises can be performed with the Bowflex Uppercut. The movements of the Uppercut allow you to work out with hands on the device for upper body exercises like resistance pushups and chest flys, or feet on performing abdominal workouts such as pikes, jackknifes and ab rollouts.
What are The Claims?
Bowflex claims that with the Uppercut, you will be doing “the toughest exercises on the planet” which will “activate 30% more muscles.” This is typical sales jargon used to move products, nothing more. Don’t buy the hype when a company tells you “Our product will build 50% more muscle…increase strength 40% faster…etc.” notice that they don’t say “than.” That is to say that they don’t tell you 30% more muscle than…what? There’s a reason for this. It’s just marketing hype that sounds good to people who aren’t paying attention.
How Much does Uppercut Really Cost?
The infomercials and Bowflex website both say $14.95. This is, however, for a trial, and the total cost is significantly more. First let’s take a look at the shipping. A 30 day trial is $14.95 , but the shipping is $19.95. Shipping is more than the cost of the trial. Also consider that after the trial ends you will be billed for the remaining cost of the product bringing your total to around $120 depending on options at checkout.
Is it Worth it?
Is the Bowflex Uppercut worth buying? The best answer I can give is maybe. It kind of depends on your priorities. One issue that I have with this piece of equipment is that, while it does have a somewhat unique design, the exercises it offers are not unique to it and many of them can be performed with alternate and often cheaper means. For example many of the ab exercises can be performed with a $10 stability ball or an Ab Wheel. Personally, I like the Power Wheel II from Lifeline for these kind of exercises. But, the Power Wheel sells for around $50 and cannot perform near all of the exercises the Uppercut offers.
As far as chest workouts go, the Uppercut is pretty great, but again, there are other options. For flys and highly challenging pushups, I like Health Mark’s “Torso Cross” and the “Ultimate Body Press” with Push up rings. However, Torso Cross runs about $40 while Ultimate Body Press sells for over $100. So what it comes down to is that there are better devices out there, but the Uppercut doesn’t sound like too bad a deal when you look at the cost of these other pieces of equipment. Additionally convenience is a big selling point with the ability to perform different exercises with one relatively small piece of equipment. Whether or not this latest offering from Bowflex is a good purchase depends on your needs, finances and desire for convenience.
Overall
Overall, I have to say this is a good one, not amazing or revolutionary, but good. The price is a little high for what you’re getting, but it’s not near as high as many exercise products advertised on late night TV. In the end I have to give the Bowflex Uppercut a grade of B-.
Sources:
Personal Observations and experiences
Bowflex Uppercut Site
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