good rowing machine at least if you are not too strong, minor flaws

“good rowing machine at least if you are not too...”

Written on: 24/06/2011 by boombastic

Not being a very strong guy, I have enjoyed many hours of exercise on my Horizon Oxford, which I purchased at the beginning of 2010. It is certainly
a robust machine in relation to the stress I put it under. When pulling, I do
notice a slight upward motion of the front frame. The frame is very rigid,
so this must be due to some flex in the connection between it and the rail
on which the seat is mounted. I have not noticed the flex becoming more pronounced or the connection wearing out. The electronics, in particular
the heart rate monitoring, have been functioning. I find that commendable in and of itself.

Minor snags: 1) The display is clearly lacking a backlight. 2) When assembling the machine, I had to rework the metal plate that holds the footrest. Some hole in this plate did not properly line up with the corresponding hole in the rail -- so that I could not put the screw into place that was to fit into the two holes. I had to enlarge the hole in the
plate by rasping off a little metal. 3) Some unimportant plastic details have come loose over time. 4) When lowering the rail, there is
a danger that the cables running on its inside in between it and the front frame may become trapped. You have to be careful to avoid this.
5) The monitor intermittently seems to reset itself without any apparent reason a few minutes into an exercise session. 6) For several months, the reels underneath the seat gave a cracking noise. Now they run smoothly.

On the whole, I would certainly recommend the machine to those who are not
very athletic to begin with. These people will get good value for the money especially when compared to even more robust but significantly more expensive machines by other manufacturers. You
should probably be prepared to live with minor flaws of the aforementioned kind, though. Then again, they may have been fixed since I
purchased my machine.

Finally: Be very careful to avoid overextending yourself while exercising. I
used to overextend myself by leaning back too much at the end of every
stroke. This pulled one of my muscles due to which I had to stop exercising for several weeks. I never again pulled any of my muscles after
I started following instructions on the right way of pulling that I had
found on Youtube.