Body Champ BRM3671 Cardio Dual Trainer Review

This site may contain links to affiliate websites, and we receive an affiliate commission for any purchases made by you on the affiliate website using such links. Read Our Disclosures

The Body Champ BRM3671 Cardio Dual Trainer provides many of the benefits of an elliptical and exercise bike in the same machine. This not only saves you money, but also space, compared to buying the two machines separately.

In this review we take a look at some of the design features that have made this machine so popular. We’ll also guide you through the workout programs, customer reviews, and even assembly instructions, to help determine whether the BRM3671 is the best home elliptical for you.

Design features

The rising popularity of dual function trainers over the past few years has led to them featuring in the lists of top 10 bestselling fitness equipment for both elliptical trainers and exercise bikes.

Many designs, such as the Body Champ BRM3671 have amassed hundreds of reviews and continue to prove a popular choice for home gyms across the country.

Part of the reason for its popularity is the collection of preset workout programs that are already pre-loaded into the console. There’s no need to download anything or connect the console via Wi-Fi, just step on the machine and start your training.

The seat is also adjustable both horizontally and vertically.

This makes it easier to maintain a natural posture that avoids placing strain on your lower back during longer workouts.

In terms of the handle design, the shorter set feature built-in heart rate sensors that transmit your heart rate back to the receiver, which is then displayed back to you via the LCD screen.

The longer set is better suited to your elliptical workouts, with a stride length that’s suitable for walking and jogging.

For your running workouts, the shorter 14 inch stride length isn’t really suitable for taller users (5ft 10″+), but this tends to be typical of any elliptical at this price range, and isn’t due to the machine being a dual trainer.

Display console functions

One of the biggest improvements that the Body Champ BRM3671 has over their earlier BRM2600 model and the equally popular Body Rider BRD2000, is the design of the display console.

Whereas the other two machines simply provide a screen for tracking your workout stats and a button for scrolling through the feedback, the BRM3671 feels much more like what we’d expect from a mid-range elliptical or bike.

The display screen itself is larger, with clearly defined sections for showing your distance, rpm, pulse, time, and current workout program profile.

There’s even space for a profile diagram for each of the 12 preset workout programs.

It wasn’t just that this was missing from the console of machines like the Body Rider BRD2000, but the fact that it didn’t have any workout programs to offer at all.

So the 12 that are available with this design from Body Champ certainly represent better value for money in terms of the quality of workout experience.

To give you some idea of what you can expect to achieve with these programs, we’ve put together a quick guide which you’ll find below.

Preset workout programs

As well as the various preset workout programs that are available, you also have the option to create your own.

The console has a specially created ‘User’ mode that lets you create a custom workout by manually adjusting the resistance level for each of the 16 profile units.

The profile units are the vertical bars that you see in the grid section of the display screen, which you can adjust simply by pressing the ‘up’ and ‘down’ labelled arrows on the console.

With your own workout program created, you can even set your own specific training goals for your current session.

This can be how long you want to workout for, total distance you want to run / cycle, number of calories you want to burn, and heart rate level.

As with most cardio equipment at this price range, the feedback for the heart rate and calories burned does tend to be slightly inaccurate at times.

This is to be expected, and is due to not being able to enter some important information needed for the calculations, such as weight and age.

Some of the high-end ellipticals and bikes do provide accurate feedback and allow you to enter this information, but you can expect to have to pay 2 to 3 times the price of the Body Champ.

Ease of assembly

As with most of our fitness product reviews, we also wanted to include a section based around the user manual, specifically the quality of the assembly instructions.

Unless you move house or want to make it easier to move the machine between rooms, you’re probably only going to set it up once, but it can still be nice to know what to expect.

The Body Champ BRM3671 does come with a user manual, which includes a detailed step-by-step walkthrough of how to put everything together.

The steps themselves are easy enough to follow, with a full textual explanation, exploded drawing of how the parts fit together, list of tools required, and drawings of the parts you need for each stage.

In terms of how easy the instructions are to follow, there’s really only one improvement that we would like to see made, and that’s relating to the part references.

Near the beginning of the manual you have an exploded diagram of the entire bike. This is where the part references are pulled from, which leads to many more reference numbers than there are parts in the box, due to much of the assembly already having been done for you at the factory.

If Body Champ only assigned reference numbers to the parts that you actually needed to put together, it would make the part reference list and assembly steps much easier to follow.

If you wanted to take a look for yourself, feel free to download your own copy of the Body Champ BRM3671 user manual.

Is there a limit to the benefits of a multi function trainer?

A quick search on many of the larger ecommerce sites will show that the Body Champ BRM3671 isn’t the only dual function trainer available.

It might also show that having 2 functions built into the same piece of cardiovascular fitness equipment isn’t the most options you can have.

In fact, the Body Rider 3-in-1 is described as a ‘Trio-Trainer’, and claims to combine the training benefits of a recumbent bike, elliptical, and upright exercise bike all in the same machine.

Despite not reaching the same wide audience that the Body Champ design has, there is still no shortage of highly rated customer reviews, proving that people do find this design useful and effective.

In truth, the multi function trainers are not without their limitations. Unless companies find a way to adjust the foot pedal motion (ProForm have done a good job of this with their Hybrid Trainer), you will usually be limited to a shorter stride on the elliptical than what you would get on a conventional crosstrainer.

But if you’re not looking for a stride length much longer than 14 inches, then they can be an excellent way to make the most of the space and budget you have available.

Customer reviews

As well as providing our own opinion on the quality and features of the Body Champ BRM3671, we also wanted to take a look at the opinions of other reviewers who have already tested this machine in their own homes.

With over 300 reviews and a number of answered questions, we’ve chosen Amazon as our source for information.

We expected there to be a more varied collection of ratings compared to a conventional elliptical or exercise bike, but the vast majority still rate this machine at 4 or 5 stars.

To provide an insight into the reasons behind these ratings (both the good and the bad), we’ve put together the following lists of pros and cons.

These are based on the actual points mentioned most frequently throughout the reviews on Amazon.

Pros:

Cons:

• Handles are slightly too far forward from the seat when cycling for users shorter than 5′ 4″
• Stride length is too short for taller users (5′ 10″+) to build up to a full running motion
• Does require you to position the machine near a power outlet due to the shorter cord length
• Positioning of the foot pedals can require you to place your feet further back, to prevent any risk of your knees hitting the pivot points for the moveable arms
• No attachments for storing a water bottle or TV remote

The only real difficulty with dual trainers is that the distance between your seated position and the handles isn’t always practical.

If you think this might be an issue, then it can certainly be worthwhile to take a look at the bikes that offer another set of handles right next to the seat.

Two models that we recommend for this are the Body Rider 3-in-1 machine that we mentioned earlier, and the ProForm Hybrid Trainer (does cost around $100 more than the Body Champ).

The ProForm Hybrid has the added benefit of foot pedals that have multiple locking positions, to better suit your choice of exercise (elliptical running or recumbent cycling).

What’s covered by the warranty?

It’s worth mentioning that this warranty applies to the original purchaser only and is not transferable.