*I was sent a Bowflex Uppercut, free of charge, in exchange for this review. These are my honest opinions.
It seems like the most promoted father’s day gift ideas always come from the same categories – hunting, fishing, sports or dress clothes. My dad likes to fish so that works, but I know tons of people who have fathers who just don’t fall into those categories. I was recently sent a Bowflex Uppercut for review and I think it would make a nice father’s day gift for athletic dad’s or those who are currently trying to lose weight.
The Bowflex Uppercut retails for about $100 and is smaller than a lot of at home fitness gear out there which is a huge plus for people who might live in apartments, kids living in dorms or just those who don’t have an entire corner of a room to dedicate to fitness gear.
The Bowflex Uppercut is designed to assist you with four basic workout moves – presses (push ups), pikes, fly’s and dives. However, you can add variety to these moves in a few ways. One way is by instead of doing regular presses, trying to do one handed presses (with the added support that the Uppercut provides), or for some of the other moves lifting one leg, etc. In all, Bowflex says that the Uppercut can assist you with over 30 unique exercises.
Also, the uppercut has three settings for the resistance so you can adjust how difficult it is to move the Bowflex Uppercut. The tighter the resistance is, the harder the move will be. As you can see in the photo above, there are three slots that hold the red plastic piece, and the higher up the slot is, the more the band will be stretched. When all sides are locked into the #2 or medium setting, I can sit on the top of the Bowflex and it won’t flatten out, so that’s quite a lot of resistance and you can go up to the third setting to increase it even more.
If you want to learn more about how to use the Bowflex Uppercut, the video above does a great job of explaining further.
Essentially, the Bowflex Uppercut allows you to target muscles other than what you could target without it, and it helps support your body while doing the move so that you can either do more reps or do variations of moves that you couldn’t otherwise do.
At 5″ and a relatively small woman, perhaps I’m smaller than the Bowflex Uppercut is intended for but I felt a bit unsteady and awkward while using the uppercut. Ryan said that he didn’t feel that way while using it. He was a bit surprised at how it worked because he expected it to work him out harder than doing push ups alone would, which wasn’t the case. I explained to him that that was not it’s purpose, and he understood that but ultimately decided not to use it. I wanted to write this review anyway, because neither of us really disliked the Bowflex Uppercut, and we feel like it’s a nice product, it just doesn’t seem like it’s something for us. I think it would be a better fit for people who are looking to extend their workouts and/or target new muscles. For people like us who are just starting a fitness journey and looking to build muscle, it seems odd to use it when it makes us feel like we are working out less-hard than we would be otherwise. So again, we think it has a market out there and that it’s a well made product but it’s just not for people like us.
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Hi there! I am Emily Evert, the owner of Emily Reviews. I am 28 and live in a small town in Michigan with my boyfriend Ryan and our two pugs. I have a large family and I adore my nieces and nephews. I love reading memoirs, and learning about child development and psychology. I love watching The Game of Thrones, Teen Mom, Sister Wives and Veep. I like listening to Jason Isbell, John Prine, and other alt-country or Americana music. I created Emily Reviews as a creative outlet to share my life and the products that I love with others.
This post currently has 5 responses.
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Now that is something I would totally use and so would my husband. In my new home I dream of a fitness space and a home office and this would go nicely in one of those rooms. It would also be a great gift for Father’s Day.my husband is a fitness junkie now. He does all his workouts in the kid playroom ie junk room in my basement.
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I’m surprised to hear that this actually assists in doing push-ups etc. it does look like it would make doing them tougher. I think this would be great – I’m not very good at doing push-ups and would love something that would help me do more of them so I could get stronger and at some point doing more on my own. I’d like to try the other exercises too. I’ll have to look into this, I just might add it to my wish list.
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My girlfriend has one of these and I’ve used it before. It takes some time to get use to, but I loved it. I workout at her house. This has definitely be on my wishlist for a while now.
My friend swears by her Bowflex. I don’t know if it would be something I would use though. However, I HATE my arms so I could probably benefit from toning them up!