Bowflex Selecttech 552 Adjustable Dumbbells Review
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Are the Bowflex Selecttech 552 Adjustable Dumbbells worth the purchase? I'll answer that in this review. I'll talk about the price, answer if they can really replace a gym, address convenience, then give my verdicton if these are a good buy.
Price
At the time of this writing, the dumbbells themselves with the adjustable weights and base cost $350 (Amazon link). The stand - which you don't need but is designed for convenience - costs $170.
Dumbbells and base on stand
Stand by itself
For the money you get two dumbbells that can be adjusted with this dial from 5 pounds to 52.5 pounds. I'll talk about this adjustment mechanism and durability later in this review. To save money, skipping on the stand is probably the way to go. But let's get into if these dumbbells are even good enough to replace a conventional gym.
Can this dumbbell set replace a gym?
Absolutely, this dumbbell set can replace a gym. Especially when you think about the price. Where I live, a gym membership initiation fee alone is $350. Not including the monthly fee or taxes. Just the initiation fee. That's OD. That's the exact same price as this dumbbell set! I can't believe commercial gyms are still ripping people off like that. I'll make a separate article on the differences of a home workouts vs a gym, but you can absolutely make a complete full body transformation with just dumbbells. Honestly, you don't even need any equipment at all to get started as a beginner. Dumbbells are simply the easiest way to add resistance to your exercies to build muscle. You can do dumbbell presses, squats, deadlifts, curls, calf raises, lunges, and more.
You can do some ab exercises, but using a pull up bar or just going fully calisthenics route for your abs and obliques is probably better and easier than using dumbbells. I have a review of the pull up bar I currently use from Iron Gym on this website. For most exercises, the amount of weight these provide will be sufficient for about a year, but for larger muscle groups like chest and legs, you're gonna probably going to need more resistance after that. Bowflex also offers a 90 pound variant called the Selecttech 1090, but be aware that one only comes with one dumbbell. (Not two like the 552s this review is on) Alternatively you can just get some cheap $20-30 resistance bands of different thicknesses to make these weights feel 30 or 40 pounds heavier and prolong your usage of them by years. I’ve reviewed the Athlean-X Elast-X Resistance bands that I use on this site.
Bowflex Dumbbells + Athlean-X Elast-X Bands
Convenience
Convenience is the main selling point for these dumbbells. You can put them pretty much anywhere in the house. It replaces an entire rack of dumbbells that would cost way more individually and take up more space. You can switch up the weights with the dials on both sides. It starts at 5 pounds and goes up in increments of 2.5 pounds. After you get to 25 it goes up by 5 pound increments until 50. Then you can go to 52.5.
I thought this might be a problem for doing curls since you have to keep making big jumps in weight after 25 pounds. But you can just manually do the same thing by putting the dial to 30 on one side and 25 on the other. It's slightly uneven, but it totals out to 27.5 pounds. The adjustment mechanism is basic, but it works.
Weight dial adjustment mechanism
So far this review has pretty positive, but there are two things I do NOT like about this set: The locking mechanism of the plates and the stand. When you unrack the dumbbells, the remaining plates aren't secured or clicked into place. This means if you accidentally bump one while unracking or reracking, it can just fall over and you won't even know which slot it went into or which direction it was facing. Super annoying design flaw.
The stand also does not help in this department. The base of the dumbbells just kind of sits on top and doesn't attach to anything. You get these weird belts to hold them down, but they still wobble and slide, making it all the more likely to accidentally tip over one of the plates. The stand honestly just takes up a lot of space and is really cumbersome to move around. A warning on durability: do NOT drop these. If you're doing something like dumbbell presses, put some pillows or something on the ground just in case you drop them harder than you want or the plates can get loose. I was lucky not to ruin one of them when I accidentally dropped one when failing to complete a rep. One of the smaller plates got loose and doesn't stay on as well as before, so hopefully this warning helps you avoid that.
Verdict
My verdict is the Bowflex 552 Selecttech adjustable dumbbells are an excellent buy. Skip the stand unless you really think you'll need it, but otherwise these are convenient and perform admirably. You can get completely ripped using just these. No need for a gym.
Rating: 9/10
Bowflex 552 Selecttech Adjustable Dumbbells https://amzn.to/2FUOTXY
Bowflex Selecttech Stand: https://amzn.to/2FZmfoi
