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The Bowflex Blaze Home Gym is an upgrade from the popular PR1000 and PR3000, with over 60 exercises available and 2 resistance upgrades providing up to 410 lb of resistance.
But even as one of the best home gyms on the market, how does this compare to other Bowflex Home Gyms? Such as the PR1000 and PR3000?
This is one of the questions we’ll answer in our review.
We’ve taken a closer look at the design features, exercise options, and customer review feedback, to help you decide if this is the best equipment for your own home workouts.
Design features

As with the PR1000 and PR3000 home gyms, the Bowflex Blaze generates all the resistance you need through a collection of power rods at the back of the machine.
But one of the areas where the Blaze sets itself apart from the other 2 models is in the maximum amount of resistance.
While the PR1000 is limited to a maximum of 210 pounds, the PR3000 can be loaded up to 310 pounds, and the Blaze upgraded to a much more challenging 410 pounds.
Although the standard setup is only shipped with 210 lbs of power rods, upgrades can be purchased separately to get to the higher 310 lb and 410 lb limits.
Other than the impressive maximum resistance, the Bowflex Blaze also has a lot to offer in terms of both functionality and exercise options.
Two of the best examples of this can be found in its folding design, and additional set of padded foam rollers for performing lying leg curls, helping to isolate your hamstrings.
In terms of the size when folded, it’s essentially the main support rail that folds from horizontal to vertical. This means that the grey base plate is a good indication of the floor space you’ll need if you are looking to store this multi gym away in between workouts.
Before finding out what other customers who purchased the Bowflex Blaze thought of it, it can also be useful to know the various exercises that are possible for both upper and lower body training.
Bowflex Blaze Home Gym – Features Summary
- Home gym with more than 60 gym-quality exercises for all muscle groups
- Lower pulley/squat station for working glutes, hamstrings, and quads
- Lat tower with angled lat bar helps build back and shoulder muscles
- 210 pounds of Power Rod Technology resistance (upgradable to 310 or 410 pounds)
- Leg extension/leg curl attachment
- Sliding seat rail allows you to perform aerobic rowing and leg presses
- Triple function hand-grip/ankle cuffs
- Multiple cable/pulley positions enable custom workouts
Upper body workouts

With over 60 exercises available, it would be difficult to remember them all each time you were thinking about putting together a new workout routine.
But through a combination of the workout placard attached to the actual frame and the high quality instruction manual, Bowflex have made it quick and easy to find new variations to try.
In terms of upper body exercises, the pair of both low and high cable pulleys makes it possible to work every major muscle group, from forearms to traps.
Listed below is just a small selection of these exercises to give an idea about just how versatile the Bowflex Blaze is.
- Seated row
- Chest fly
- Decline bench press
- Incline bench press
- Rear deltoid rows
- Standing lateral raises
- Seated shoulder press
- Front deltoid raises
- Standing shrugs
- Lying bicep curls
- Reverse fly
- Shoulder cuff rotations
Lower body workouts
An important part of developing a well balanced physique is to train your lower body with the same intensity and exercise variation as your upper body.
The Bowflex Blaze provides possibly the best range of leg exercises of any other home gym in the Bowflex range, thanks to its leg developer, low cable pulleys, and squat bar.
After removing the back support pad for the bench, this allows you to perform a range of lower body exercises to target your hamstrings, quads, glutes, and hips.
Lower body exercise options:
- Standing hip extension
- Standing hip abduction
- Leg extensions
- Leg curls
- Squats
- Standing leg kickbacks
- Leg press
- Ankle inversions
Customer reviews
One of the great things about researching a product from Bowflex is that you can almost guarantee there will be a large number of customers, due to their worldwide popularity.
Fortunately there are plenty of reviews on Amazon, reporting on everything from the quality of assembly instructions to the smoothness of the resistance.
While we would always recommend reading through these reviews in full, we’ve also provided a quick summary of the main pros and cons in the lists below.
Pros:
- Very easy to switch to different exercises.
- Easier to transport compared to the weight plates associated with most multi gyms
- Smooth resistance created by the tension rods
- Folds out of the way when not in use to help make the best use of limited space
- Clear and easy to follow instructions
- Solid and stable frame design
- Easy to install the upgrades to the 310 lb and 410 lb maximum resistance levels if required
- Wider variety of exercises compared to the PR1000 and PR3000
Cons:
- Bars tend to lose some of their tension if not strapped up in between workouts
- Best to setup in a room inside the house or where the temperature is consistent, due to the temperature having a slight effect on the level of resistance
While we did find a couple of reviews under 3 stars, the vast majority (90% +) were rated either 4 or the full 5 stars.
The only real issues seemed to stem from the actual treatment of the machine once setup, rather than issues with the functionality or quality.
As long as the Bowflex Blaze is kept in a room with a stable temperature and the rods are wrapped between workouts, there really shouldn’t be any problems.
Professional home gym assembly
When ordering a new home gym system, you might be wondering how easy will it be to setup? Most will include some form of manual, but the quality of assembly instructions can differ greatly between the different models and manufacturers.
One option is to hire a professional – someone who has experience setting up this type of home fitness equipment. So who can you trust to get the job done?
Amazon have recently introduced a number of home assembly services, for ellipticals, treadmills, and now home gyms. Simply enter your zip code in the form above to check the options for your location.
You can even find hundreds of highly rated reviews from customers who have already taken advantage of Amazon’s professional home gym assembly service.
With all the necessary tools and experience, and a typical assembly time of just 3 hours, it’s often the quickest way to get started with your new weight training workouts.
Review Overview
Overall Review Rating
4.5 / 5
With an assembly time of between 2 to 3 hours, the Bowflex Blaze Home Gym with Power Rod Technology is built to last, providing over 60 gym-quality exercises that work all major muscle groups.
The lat tower with angled lat bar helps build back and shoulder muscles quickly, with the lower pulley/squat station allowing you to include squats in your workouts for building your glutes, hamstrings and quads.
Having the option to adjust the back support, remove it completely for leg exercises, or fold it away for storage is just another of the reasons why this home gym has proved so popular.
The resistance upgrades also offer plenty of room for improvements in strength, without requiring additional stacks of weight plates.
Product dimensions: 90" (L) x 38" (W) x 83" (H) Folded dimensions: 52" (L) x 38" (W) x 83" (H)
USA Home Gym gives in-depth insights into gym equipment, supplements, and fitness training methods. The motivation behind USA Home Gym is to provide you with information that goes beyond what you can find in any user manual, customer review, or other online review sites.
We go to great lengths to ensure that our reviews are completely comprehensive, usually covering everything from the design features to the warranty coverage and exercise options. This is all to help guide you towards the home gym equipment that’s best suited to your goals and budget, whilst also being the highest quality option in your chosen price range.