Gorilla Bow - Travel Resistance Training Kit - Black

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The vast majority of our reviews come from verified purchases. Reviews from customers may include My Best Buy members, employees, and Tech Insider Network members (as tagged). Select reviewers may receive discounted products, promotional considerations or entries into drawings for honest, helpful reviews.

• Rated 5 out of 5 stars

  High Quality Home Workout in a Small Package

  • Top 500 Contributor
  • Tech Insider Network Member

  At home workouts have always been something that interests a lot of people. It's nice to be able to live a healthy lifestyle and get your exercise in from the comfort of your own home. The Gorilla Bow comes in to be the next must have item for at home or on the go workouts and it mostly succeeds. WHAT WORKS WELL: - The design of the bow is very appealing! It is a nice matte black with a texture on it so you can easily grip it anywhere, it also has some definite weight and strength to it which is promising to know it will withstand your workouts. - Resistance bands based cables really are something that can give you a great workout and its very beneficial for using at home and on the go. They don't require a lot of space but yet still give you the same burn that lifting weight at the gym would. - Taking apart and setting up the Gorilla Bow is truly simple. The Bow is divided into three parts which easily attach together and then hooking in cables is very easy. Once set up you are good to go! I also really like how you can attach up to two cables at a time in case you want different weights that you can't obtain with just one cable. - Let me say this - the Gorilla bow will give you a great workout but it is not intended for heavy power lifters - the max you can do is 180 lbs (90lbs x 2 cables). But that is standard for at home workouts like this. That being said, this is still a great workout! You can get a great burn and do a few reps or light reps and there is a lot of different muscles you can work out which are all available on their website. WHAT NEEDS WORK: - There are still some workouts that are a bit awkward to do in the sense that you have to position the cables on your body in the right way, make sure the cables don’t fall off of you, and the bow is long. I get that this was the only way to do this design, but there still feels like there are limitations. - This model of the Bow is advertised to be portable and you can take it on the go. Yet it does not come with some sort of bag to transport everything together. There is a bag for the cables but not for the three parts of the bows. This is a miss to me although I think you can buy that separately. BOTTOM LINE: - If you want a home workout item that will give you a great burn, workout many different muscle groups, and still be able to hide away in your closet - then this is it for you! Products like this are really what are in right now, which is to do high intensity workouts that make you use your core and balance to work your muscles as opposed to a stationary machine. This truly is a great compliment to your fitness routine.

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  Posted 6 years ago by Njuice

• Rated 4 out of 5 stars

  Resistance bands like free weights

  • Tech Insider Network Member
  • Top 25 Contributor

  Pros Bow is made of thick metal Finish feels durable Bow can be broken down into 3 parts Doesn’t require connecting to a door Feels more like free weights Allows more traditional movements like free weights Allows a lot more weight than traditional bands Cons Can be heavy for some Still large when broken down Travel bag not included even though it’s a travel kit Instructional videos are separated and mostly repetitive intro Instructional videos often have poor audio quality Include bands only go up to 110 pounds Design The bow is made of heavy gauge aluminum and feels very sturdy. Two buttons used to lock the ends of the bow in place. When the ends are locked in the, the bow feels like it is a single piece. Unlike cheaper products, this feels like it was built to last. One thing to keep in mind is if you want to take a flight with the bow and put it in your check-in baggage. Expect to dedicate nearly 6 pounds of your luggage weight to the bow. Included are four bands with max out at 110 pounds total. If you typically exercise with more weight, your going to need to purchase additional bands. Although this model is called the travel bow, a carrying case is not included but is available for purchase. For exercises where you need wrap the bands around your body, a sleeve is included so you don’t have to worry about pinching yourself. The sleeve can also be used to protect the bands when you stand on them. Usage If you have exercised with free weights before, the bow design can be a bonus as it is far more straightforward on how free weight movements translate to bands. An example is you can duplicate a bench press by putting the bands behind your back and pushing away from your body with the bow. Much simpler than a band setup that mounts to a door. It also feels much more natural and closer to free weights, including requiring you to pay attention to form and left/right balance. Although the progressive nature of the bands has a different feel, it’s still nice to have a relatively compact package mimic free weights much closer. The resistance ramp-up seems much quicker than traditional bands, possibly because they are shorter, leading to a more natural feel. From a hardware standpoint, the Gorilla Bow is well built. The website also appears well designed. If there is any criticism to levy against the Gorilla Bow, it would be the video tutorials. There are a small number of workouts for beginners on their YouTube channel, but the majority is dedicated to single exercises. This would seem helpful for more experience people just looking for a quick tutorial on form, but the issue is each video spends about three quarters of the time explaining who the person is and what they are going to demonstrate. Instead of forcing experienced people to fast forward through, the videos should either quickly get to the technique or just put all of them in one video. Where the channel really comes up short is workout routines for beginners. Another issue with the videos is often the speech is recorded with the built-in microphone on the camera making them hard to understand. This issue is made worse by the fact that the background music further drowns out what they are trying to say. Thankfully, the instructional booklet on their website has a workout routine for beginners and quick explanation for experienced people. Final Thoughts Overall, the Gorilla Bow is well built. YouTube video issues aside, the Travel Gorilla bow is a solid product that blends the advantages of two different types of workout equipment into a small package. Whether you are new to exercise or have been using free weights for years, the Gorilla Travel Bow can serve you well.

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  Posted 6 years ago by CraigB

• Rated 5 out of 5 stars

  Simply Effective

  • Tech Insider Network Member
  • Top 1000 Contributor

  The Gorilla Bow seems so simple in design and elegance, you'll wonder why you haven't seen or used it before. Its a basic resistance band design that uses one of the oldest, strongest and most lethal forms in human history, the Bow to increase resistance while maintaining structural strength. The implementation is simple, you can add up to 4 resistance bands which have a knob to secure it into one of two claw slots with a max of two bands per claw slot. Using basic positions and your feet, back, chest or neck as counter-pressure, you can workout a variety of different muscle groups. Gorillabow provides a number of online instruction videos for different workouts for you to check out and add to the basic core workouts. Some things to note, because this is the travel edition, there is a little give where the joints lock in. However the portability and ability to break it down and stow it away or travel with it is well worth it. Also, while doing workouts that rotate your grip, you'll want to keep your hands a little loose so the bar can roll in your hand. Alternatively, it would be cool if Gorillabow designed some grips that would "roll" your wrists while still giving you a secure grip. For weights, you can get by with lighter exercise groups like curls, triceps, traps, etc. with the standard kit, but for stronger muscle groups like shoulder, chest, legs you will definitely want to add some of the higher end bands. I was able to put on a total of 272lbs and it is enough to give a decent squat workout with the bow over your neck like a yolk and the bands under your feet. I'm wondering if there's some accessories to store the Bow or hang it or even rest it in some kind of stand. Its cool enough to double as art and would certainly be a conversation piece for any visitors. For the price, there's clearly a lot of marketing and R&D behind the price, but for the form and functionality its probably worth it. The quality is great but its a pretty simple design and material. Overall this will be a good workout kit to keep in the family room to get some quick workouts in watching TV. For those with smaller spaces and apartments, I can't imagine a better workout mechanism that can easily stow away.

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  Posted 6 years ago by TechBuyer