Getting a home gym is a great step toward maintaining a top-tier physique. With the right gym machine, you can train most of your major muscle groups and look your best year-round, all without having to have a gym membership. But finding the right home gym can be tricky.
In our Bowflex Xceed home gym review, we’ll examine this home gym’s capabilities and see how its various features might work for your exercise needs.
If you have already purchased the Bowflex Xceed learn how to set it up properly here.
Bowflex Xceed Gym Review
Bowflex Xceed Home Gym
$799.99
Features
- Compact home gym for full body workout from over 65 gym quality exercises
- Provides as little as 5 or as much as 210 pounds of resistance with Bowflex Power Rods
- Integrated lat tower with angled lat bar helps to build back and shoulder muscles quickly
- Leg extension/leg curl attachment can be removed for squats
- Upgradable resistance up to 310 lbs.
Technical Specifications
The Bowflex Xceed as a number of details that make it worth investigating.
Its fully assembled dimensions measure in at 53” x 49” x 82”, making it reasonably large without becoming too unwieldy or bulky to fit into a spacious living room or a gym garage. 
Once assembled, it has a full weight of 157 pounds, making it one of the easier home gyms to construct by yourself even though an extra pair of hands is always recommended.
It can take a maximum user weight of 300-pounds and uses a resistance system of power rods rather than plates. Standard weight resistance is around 210-pounds by default, but this can be adjusted. With over 65 exercises, it does a great job of providing full-body exercise potential in a single machine.
Frame and Accessories
The Xceed has a frame made from durable steel that’s built to last for a long time and withstand significant wear and tear without showing signs of stress. The rust-resistant paint will ensure that it looks excellent even if you use it every day and sweat frequently. The primary colors are gray, black, and red.
The overall size, mentioned above, is extremely large relative to many other home gym machines. However, don’t plan to set the gym up simply within the above specifications. Bowflex recommends that you have some extra space around to let the frame fully expand. This will allow its various exercise stations to be used to their full capacities.
Because of this caveat, Bowflex recommends that you leave about 96” x 78” of space around the gym for safe operation.
It’ll fit well with a room with a 7-foot ceiling or higher. Keep this in mind if you plan to use it indoors other than a garage.
Rather than using adjustable stabilizers to maintain its balance, the Xceed has rubberized pads on the bottom that improve its grip on the floor and provide exceptional stability. Naturally, these rubberized pads work even better on linoleum or concrete floors like the kind you might find in a kitchen or garage. But it can work with a carpeted surface well enough.
At the front, you’ll find a standing plate that allows you to do its accommodating standing exercises such as squats. The lateral bar is included and can also work as support structures for the adjustable pulleys supported by the machine.
Finally, a smaller bar is attached to the back of the frame right above your backrest. This lets you attach the included pulleys for trunk rotations, ab crunches or similar exercises.
The Xceed comes with eight pulleys made of fiberglass reinforced material. Each pulley uses stainless steel ball bearings to ensure smooth operation and a long lifespan. Stainless steel is a corrosive resistant and hypoallergenic metal, so it’s among the best materials for ball bearings overall.
Two of the eight pulleys are adjustable and can be attached to either the front larger bars of the home gym or the smaller bar above your backrest. This customization allows you to focus on different muscle groups each time you use the Xceed.
The Xceed comes with several Bowflex accessories, such as twin D-handles that will be used for most of the exercises supported by this home gym. The handles have rubberized grips that allow you to keep a hold of them even during strenuous exercises.
There’s also an included straight squat bar and a 50-inch bent lat bar and leg developer. 4” foam rollers are attached to the bent lat bar to improve your comfort and let you perform leg extensions or leg curls from a standing position.
Finally, the Xceed seat is also adjustable and has several height positions you can choose from. It can easily support users up to 6’5″ or lower, although men reaching the upper limits of this design might feel a little tight. The backrest is not adjustable, although both parts of the seat have 2 inches of foam padding.
This keeps your exercise experience comfortable and, because of the vinyl upholstery, you should expect the padding to last for a long time. Such an upholstery is also great for exercisers that sweat frequently during their workouts.
Assembly and Maintenance
Putting the Bowflex Xceed together is quite the task since the parts come in several separate boxes. The full assembly will take at least a few hours but, due to the low overall weight of the pieces, you may not necessarily need an extra pair of hands to bring it into your home.
The purchase comes with two Allen wrenches, but you’ll need a Phillips screwdriver and flat head screwdriver of your own. An adjustable wrench will also be necessary for assembly completion. The included instructions are clear and simple, containing step-by-step pictures and schematics.
Overall, assembling the Xceed isn’t too daunting when compared to the process required for other home gym machines.
Resistance
The Xceed uses a power rod resistance system rather than plates or weight stacks.
Each rod is made from elastomer that’s coated with a rubber finish, and each works with precision machined rings that attach the cables of the frame’s apparatus. The rings are exceptionally durable and can’t easily be removed from the rods if at all, meaning you’ll need to contact Bowflex if you need to replace one. Thankfully, there’s a lifetime warranty that we go into detail about below.
Total weight resistance reached by the rods is 210-pounds or 105-pounds for either side. There are two 5-pound, four 10-pound, two 30-pound, and two 50-pound rods in total.
You can upgrade the weight resistance of the Xceed by adding four additional rods, two on each side weighing 50 pounds each. This gives you a new weight resistance total of 310 pounds or 410 pounds depending on your settings or side.
Exercise Options
The Xceed allows for an astounding variety of exercises reaching over 65 in total. To make things even better for beginners, the Xceed comes with an exercise guide to help you perform the supported activities properly.
The supported exercises include:
- Triceps pushdowns of several types
- Triceps extensions
- Rope pushdowns
- Biceps curls of many types
- Triceps kickbacks of several types
- Wrist curls and extensions
- Opposition push-pulls
- Resisted dips
- Seated abdominal and oblique abdominal crunches
- Trunk rotations
- Rear dealt rows of both bent crossover varieties
- Law pulldowns
- Low back extensions from the standing position
- Crossover pulldowns
- Seated lat tows
- Reverse grip pulldowns
- Bench presses
- Chest and incline chest flies
- Leg extensions
- Calf raises
- Squats
- Hip extensions and abductions
- Leg kickbacks
- Hip flexions
- Scapular depressions and for attractions
- Shoulder extensions and shrugs
- Shoulder presses and raises
- Reverse and crossover reverse flies
- Shoulder internal and external rotator cuffs
- Lateral shoulder and forearm raises
- And many more…
The above exercises are just a taste of what the Bowflex Xceed can offer. In terms of sheer exercise variety and whole-body fitness boosting potential, few home gym machines can compete.
Warranty
Finally, the Xceed comes with a seven-year warranty for its overall frame and a lifetime warranty for the power rods. This provides great value for money since the frame and rods are likely to be the two parts of the home gym that will face the most stress or direct use.
The frame warranty covers flaws on the part of the manufacturer or accidental failure. The rod warranty will replace the resistance rods throughout the gym’s lifetime, provided you don’t destroy them on purpose.
Pros
- Very sturdy and durable
- The pulleys and stainless-steel ball bearings are durable
- The handles and seat are all comfortable
- The seat’s upholstery is perfect for sweaty backs
- You can upgrade the total weight resistance
- The included exercise guide is nice
- Easy enough to assemble and bring inside
- Doesn’t make lots of noise
- The included warranties are fantastic
- The number of exercises possible is phenomenal
Cons
- You need to bring some of your own tools to complete assembly
- Not possible to bolt the machine down to the ground
Bottom Line
Overall, our Bowflex Xceed review only confirms the truth we suspected: it’s a phenomenal home gym machine that offers lots of weight resistance options for exercisers of all kinds of experience.
It’s a comparable machine to use and works just as well inside your home as it does in your garage. The ability to upgrade its weight resistance means it’ll be a great machine to continue using as you grow in strength and technique.
Anyone interested in a whole-body home gym should check out the Bowflex Xceed. You won’t be disappointed.
Jason
Jason was a former bodybuilder who dedicated a significant part of his life to the sport. Although now retired from the competitive bodybuilding World, he still coaches a select few clients and is a full-time health advocate to the readers here at Fitness Equipment Reviews!
