Bowflex� iTrainer Fitness Software

Stephen on Mon, 25th Jan 2010 10:24 am 



I-Trainer Needs Improvements
Rating:2 out of 5 stars
The first thing I noticed about the I-Trainer application is that many of the videos on the application did not work correctly on my Windows Home Vista-Quicktime-I Trainer combination. Bowflex knows they have a problem and have not resolved it. I tried the fixes they suggested but they did not help. Many videos go green and freeze up even though the sound will continue. Some of the exercises I cannot view at all. The educational material regarding exercise was a great idea, too bad the instructor’s video freeze up on me, I have to make do with just hearing his voice.

Another issue I have is that I see no way to get a large print out on the Workouts. It comes up to about 1/4 page. So the list of all my workouts and weights to use is fairly small and hard to read for me. They need a FULL PAGE option.

The application will create only ONE workout at a time. Meaning if you select three days in the first week to work out, it will attach the SAME workout to each day. In order to give a different routine to each separate workout in the same week, I have to create a separate workout for each day AND toggle some options slightly differently (or it will keep creating the same work out ever time I tell it to make a new workout). The algorithm apparently makes the exact same decision every time, it doesn’t have the ability to think: “Hey, on Monday he worked that muscle group this way, on Wednesday and Friday I’ll have him do it different ways”.

I like the color printouts I can make of each exercise, if I select two to a page they are fairly large and make a good quick reference by the machine.

Overall, I don’t get the feeling that this application gives me much of an advantage over someone who just sits down and looks at all the exercises that come with the machine and sets up his own workouts. It’s easy enough to consider all the different body areas and how hard and how often you want to work them and how to get variety in different workouts. I used an excel spreadsheet for years on my old bowflex and that worked just fine when I wanted to print out new workout sheets.

I do like the fact that in this application I can take away from the routines and add to them. I-Trainer will allow the user to select their own workouts or replace some routines or remove some from consideration. I have a bad lower back and if an exercise bothers it, I can replace the offending one with one for the same general area that doesn’t give me any pain. So there is some flexibility that can be useful in the application.

I think they need to resolve their video issues with Vista and expand the application to allow it to create multiple different workouts for the same person with the same options selected in the same week by just selecting on button. I have to work around the problem by creating multiple workouts for the same week (different days) and also selecting slightly different options such as Total body & upper body one day and Total Body & Lower Body the next and ultimately get three workouts in the same week (different days) that have a good bit of variety between them. More print options would be nice too (LARGER print options for the workout routines).

I love my Bowflex and wanted to at least give this I-Trainer Application an average grade or better, but I felt that it didn’t really quite measure up to “average” it needs a little work yet.

Hard Maple on Mon, 25th Jan 2010 4:15 pm 



Helps alot
Rating:4 out of 5 stars
I have a Blaze. The book offers a workout in the back and there is an exercise card on the lat tower. These are fine if you want their standard 20/3 workout. I want more. I have an hour to fill 3 times a week and I want to hit my muscles from as many angles as possible to achieve muscular balance. I went through all 66 exercises in the book, listed their positions and muscles worked. Then organized them into groups and prioritized and…after a couple of hours I ordered this software.

It takes your vitals, conducts a small fitness exam (some pushups) and tells you that you are a beginner. You enter the amount of time you have available and it will generate a program based on its own algorithms that will come as close to your entered time without going over. It tends to generate only 1 set per exercise to begin with, unless it fills your workout and there is still time remaining. Then I sort it by seat position and grip positions to reduce switching during rest.

The software seems to cover all Bowflex machines, you just have to pick older machines by a different name. It breaks down each exercise better than the book and offers a full-range video for each. This has been great for me because the book shows starting position and finishing position, but leaves the movement form a mystery. It also offers videos from a PhD in UNLV who has been studying the effects of exercise for over 30 years, which have been very informative about the structure of muscles and the science behind exercise.

The only drawback I have is if you make any change whatsoever, it deletes the previous workout sessions you have entered. I can understand if you add or delete an exercise, since the program won’t know what to do with the entered data on a nonexistant exercise. But even changing the recommended weights which have no effect on the tracking and results system will delete the previous data. So I save my previous workout sheets for a few weeks, and print the tracking data before making changes so I can reenter them.

Basically, either keep your money and do what the card says and track your own progress, or buy this and let the computer do most of the mundane work (you will still have to actually lift though). I prefer this.

LiveFromMichigan on Tue, 26th Jan 2010 1:40 am 



Great for the Weider Crossbow too!
Rating:4 out of 5 stars
I like most people had a crossbow sitting in my exercise room for the last 3-4 years. Yes, it had become a very expensive clothes rack. Truthfully the machine intimidated me. The sheet that came with it did a poor job of helping you figure out how to use this beast.

So here some years later I find Bowflex I-trainer. This program is simply awesome. It’s made for the bowflex and you can choose which bowflex machine you own. The crossbow is closets to the original Bowflex Ultimate, so I chose that one.

The beauty of this program is for one it has a video demo of every exercise you can do on this machine. It also has a place where it will generate a workout for you, based on your fitness level. From there is will show you what exercises to do on what day and you can look at the videos to see how to do them. The videos are integrated into the program itself so you don’t have to click out of the program to view them.

There is also a fitness test you can take that will help assist the program in learning what your fitness level is and then design a program around that.

All of this is great, but the main thing for me, is it finally taught me how to use my crossbow and I had the best workout using this program. I use to waste time trying to figure out what to do. Now, for instance, I’ll click on arm exercises, and it will list each one you can do, click on that and the movie demo plays showing you how to do it. It’s great!

I got a little confused at first on how they had some of the groups listed. Like back exercises were listed under spine exercises, while arms are under wrists exercises.. I would have liked arms to be just listed under arms to be less confusing. They also have a set listed under elbows so you could see why all this would get confusing.

Other then that minor complaint, and the only thing keeping this from getting 5 stars from me.

If you want to learn how to use your crossbow, crossbar or whatever similar type machine you have, this is the program for you!

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