Solid, Easy to Use Home Gym
Bought this from a local supplier after talking to several salesmen and doing some test drives. This machine is not the typical, flimsy, entry-level crap you see at chain stores - it is built more like commercial gym equipment (not surprising, as Body Solid is a major commercial gym supplier) Lots of steel square tubing and 1/2" bolts here. All exercises are connected to a single weight stack with the usual weight pin via a clever system of interconnected pulleys and cables. The mechanical advantage provided varies by station, meaning that the weight felt at a given station can be higher or lower than the actual weight stack - meaning that many exercises can offer different weights to different muscle groups without having to change the weight pin. All settings on the machine (seat height, etc) are adjusted via spring-loaded, captured pop-pins, just like commercial equipment. As a nice touch, the seat has an integral gas cylinder that makes height adjustment easy with no wrestling with the machine. Re-configuration between exercises is kept to a minimum, and what little is required can be done in a matter of seconds. This isn't a machine that requires major setup changes between exercises, meaning more time exercising and less time futzing with the machine. As far as exercises go, you get a solid set of basic stations (where, like a dedicated single-use machine) the intended exercise is immediately obvious: chest press, leg extensions/lifts, pectoral flies, pulldowns, forward row, weighted crunches, and a bar that can be used for lifts/bicep curls. There are also a series of secondary uses for each station where the use isn't immediately obvious (and in some cases, a little awkward) but where, admittedly, other muscle groups can be worked. For those looking to establish a good basic weight training regimen, and where you don't have easy access to a full gym, this is a great machine that gets the job done with little to no tradeoffs involved with this being a "home" gym; it really is a very impressive bit of engineering. The one fly in the ointment is the assembly instructions. The instructions as given are clear and comprehensive, and the hardware for assembling the machine is bagged individually per step. But the design of the machine has materially changed several times without the instructions being updated. In some cases, whole parts have been deleted (with the hardware being changed to reflect the change) in others, subassemblies (the main seat) now come pre-assembled but still have the old hardware bags, leaving surplus hardware. I was able to suss it all out - but I also have a mechanical background. I can see how anyone hoping to just follow instructions could wind up hopelessly lost and frustrated in very short order. If you are not particularly mechanically adept, find a friend who is. Overall, I'm very impressed with this product.
