Bowflex

Many people have seen those common Bowflex infomercials where celebrities swear by the effectiveness of their Bowflex. But there’s more to Bowflex than those sometimes annoying commercials. It’s actually a superbly designed piece of exercise equipment that grew from a patent first created by Tessema Dosho Shifferaw, an Ethiopian engineering student studying in San Francisco. In 1986 Bowflex came to the market in the form of the Bowflex 2000X. Thirteen years later in 1999, the company changed its name to Direct Focus Inc., and later bought Nautilus Corporation, Schwinn Fitness and Stairmaster Fitness. In 2002 the company underwent another changed and renamed itself The Nautilus Group. The Nautilus Group markets Bowflex along with numerous other brands. The Bowflex is unique in that it doesn’t strengthen the muscles with a conventional pulley system and weights. The very first Bowflex used polymer rods to create a constant tension that provided enough resistance to tone muscles. The unique selling angle of these machines was that they took up a whole lot less space than conventional weight machines. In 2006 the Bowflex heavily invested in new resistance technology and launched the first adjustable dumbbell system: Bowflex SelectTech Dumbbell are easier to use and have more adjustments since they use circular plates with coiled straps that can interlock. This translates into a very versatile fitness product easily modified to accommodate different exercises and routines.