BowFlex Max Trainer M6

The machine is great. It fulfills everything I bought it for. It's just a shame that the communication with the contact line regarding service and further advice spoils it all. That would deserve improvement.

I spent some time deliberating over which Max Trainer to get. The M3 was quickly eliminated from consideration—despite its relatively low price—because the limited number of resistance levels was simply too few for me. I ultimately chose the M6 ​​because of its (still) acceptable price. In retrospect, I noticed that the M9, which I briefly tried in the store, has slightly differently shaped handles that are a bit longer at both ends. In hindsight, I probably would have liked those, but not at the significantly higher price. So far, I haven't used the individual programs much, nor the JRNY app, even though I signed up for a year. The videos look quite nice, but since you move rather slowly on the stepper, the area you're "running through" doesn't change much. It's a bit like going for a walk. I haven't used the other sports modes in the app yet. So far, I've mainly used the manual program to be able to adjust the settings more individually during my workouts. As a marathon runner, I'm not really interested in short, intense workouts, but rather longer training sessions with relatively low resistance. It's good that you can incorporate short inclines into the "run" by increasing the resistance. Since I previously used a "normal" cross trainer that broke down, I still need to get used to the different and, in my opinion, more strenuous workout, which is more reminiscent of climbing stairs or hill running than "normal" running. During the manual program, the running clock suddenly stopped twice. At the same time, it was no longer possible to change the resistance. After briefly ending the workout, I was able to restart it without the error recurring. We'll see if this happens more often, which wouldn't be a major issue, but is certainly not desirable with a new device. Unfortunately, there's no direct connection to my Garmin watch. It would be nice if cadence, etc., were automatically transferred so that different workouts could be compared in the Garmin app afterward. This works perfectly fine with my Concept 2 rowing machine, for example. It's a shame that manual training sessions I complete without using the JRNY app aren't logged in the app's logbook. But I always run my Garmin anyway, which records training duration and heart rate. The stepper doesn't track speed or distance, so it might not be ideal for "real" runners who want to log those kinds of workouts. Overall, I'm quite satisfied at the moment because the stepper gets my heart rate up to its limits pretty quickly, and a shorter session is perfectly sufficient for a good workout now and then. By the way, assembly was quite easy for me. I used a YouTube video alongside the instructions. All the screws and other parts are individually labeled, making assembly absolutely foolproof. The device makes a very sturdy and high-quality impression!