If you’ve been shopping for a treadmill this spring, you might have noticed a discontinuation of products offered by BowFlex. According to news reports issued in mid-April, the BowFlex company received approval from the U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the District of New Jersey for the sale of assets to Johnson Health Tech Retail, Inc., which happens to be the manufacturer of rival brands like Horizon, Matrix, and Vision Fitness. According to the reports, the sale included all acquired assets for $37.5 million.
For fitness fans such as myself, this is as big a deal as if Coke and Pepsi were to merge. As I scroll through the Bowflex lineup online, I see new orders are on pause while the deals are worked out. That includes the Bowflex Treadmill 22, Treadmill 10, and BXT8J. Meanwhile, the most units in the Horizon lineup remain on sale as their numbers remain strong. A couple favorites right off the bat include the Horizon 7.0 AT and 7.4 AT.
Editors Brian Boyce and Jessica Jones visit a Johnson Fitness and Wellness Store to check out the gear.
As a reviewer of these products over the years, I’ve noticed a very different philosophy manifest in the design of these respective machines, and while in my opinion they were equal, they were also quite distinct. The Horizon family of products, whether ellipticals or treadmills, tend to come with smaller screens and are built to work with multiple apps or even built-in workouts. Meanwhile, the Bowflex lineup from treadmills to dumbbells are designed to work with their own proprietary fitness app, JRNY, which costs about $19.99 per month. Granted, like their other rivals NordicTrack and ProForm – who also incorporate a built-in paid app called iFit – you can technically use the machines without paying for the monthly app. But, the screens just go into a manual mode and you really lose a lot of the value in them. It’s long been a question of mine, if you’re not going to pay for the app, why not just buy a less expensive machine with built-in workouts? Like Horizon or Sole.
I’ve traveled to the Johnson Health Tech corporate showroom for test runs on their equipment and have never failed to be impressed. Above you’ll see a photo of us at one of their stores checking out their gear. They typically offer lifetime warranties on their motors and frames whereas Bowflex machines were more in the five- to 15-year range. The big question I have going forward is whether the Johnson organization will maintain Bowflex as a separate brand, like Matrix and Horizon, or whether they’ll cherry-pick products to incorporate into those brands. There’s no question Bowflex made a good machine and the JRNY Fitness App did everything but the workout for you, at a lower cost than its rivals.
In the meantime, I’d wager you’ll wind up seeing some great deals on all the above for the remainer of 2024 as Johnson Health Tech has to mark down some prices to move equipment and be able to afford the purchase of Bowflex. They may well wind up discounting the stockpile of Bowflex products too. That means good things for those shopping for a deal this year to buy a treadmill. Irrespective of the corporate ownership, it’s hard to beat a good home treadmill when it comes to losing weight and building muscle. If you happen to be shopping for a treadmill, check out our Five Point Buyer’s Guide which offers excellent pointers and information you can use.