By
M. Choi (Los Angeles, CA United States) - reviews
(REAL NAME)
Amazon Verified
Purchase(What's this?)
This review is from: Body Solid Powerline BSG10X Home Gym Plus BSGLP Leg Press Attachment (Misc.)
This is the same as the other BSG10X home gyms but is bundled with the optional leg press (in a separate box) that is usually sold separately. This was the best price I found for both of them together.
The gym itself is solid for home use (but not quite as sturdy as you would find in a pro gym) with a wide variety of possible exercises. Installation was mostly straightforward and the instructions were not bad - it took me and a friend about 3 hours to install, working at a relaxed pace.
The negative of the leg press attachment is that you are sacrificing both the leg extension and the curl bar (it requires use of the same pulley thing that those both use). However, it is nice to have the leg press on the same machine because it doesn't make it any bigger, whereas other machines have the leg press as a separate machine with its own footprint, which would take up a lot more space.
I installed it yesterday and have only used it once, but it is as expected and I am happy with it. I gave it only 4 stars because of the exercises that you are giving up when you install the leg press.
Great machine, December 20, 2010
By
Terry Crock (Massillon, Ohio USA)
This review is from: BodyCraft Xpress Pro Home Gym (Sports)
I have a older model of this (2003 or maybe 2004, if I remember
correctly), and this machine is great. However, things aren't perfect
when you are 6'3". For example, the horizontal handles for the bench
press are a little low. This shouldn't be as big a problem on the new
one, though, as I noticed there are two sets of horizontal handles. The
higher one may take care of the problem. So that only matters if you
are buying an older, used model. But on my machine, the seat does not go
low enough (or the press bar and origin point of the cables does not go
high enough) to really do bench press maneuvers the way I would really
like to do them, either with the bar or the cables. With the cables, I
am always pushing partially up instead of just straight out because they
do not adjust high enough. With the bar, I am pushing slightly down
instead of straight out. This, however, may not affect you at all
depending upon your height. And again, the new press bar with the
higher mount horizontal handle may take care of that on the press bar.
The handles on the press bar could be a little closer together also.
Anyway, even with the height problem, the best thing to me is the
"outrigger" cables (what BodyCraft calls "cable station arms"). These
pivot around to many angles and allow a whole new group of exercises.
Even with normal functions, like bench presses, these cables allow you a
new way to do the exercise. Basically, you get your normal workout
machine plus a whole other set of exercises you can do with the cable
outriggers.
When putting this machine together, it is probably handy to find a
picture on the internet (the BodyCraft website has a 360 spinning view
you can use--at least when I wrote this) to look at while assembling the
frame parts. The assembly manual is actually pretty good, but it is
nice to look at a picture of an assembled machine. The cable stringing
is not really difficult. The line drawings in the directions aren't
masterpieces, but are decent enough to understand. I think if the
cables were shown as MUCH thicker lines in the drawings, it would have
been easier to follow the cable routing. I would suggest putting
EVERYTHING together with all the bolts loose before finishing tightening
anything. Anyway, it only took a couple of hours to put together,
which wasn't bad at all, I thought.
Kind of pricey though, but probably cheaper than lesser
alternatives. I think just about all exercise equipment seems too
expensive. Other than the problem I have because of my height, this
machine is excellent. Well, now that I think of it, I bought a
different straight bar (arm curl bar)--one that could rotate, because
the grips kept spinning off the one that came with the machine and it
became very annoying. A tricep rope is a good addition also. Also, and
this is a problem with all cable machines I know of, it would be nice
if there was a way to add just 5 pounds to a weight stack (instead of 10
because that is what each plate weighs)--like maybe a 5 pounds weight
that could be put securely on top of the stack. 10 pounds is quite a
bit when you are trying to hit your maximum, especially when doing one
arm exercises. It seems a bit strange, too, that BodyCraft would put
the seat bottom adjuster pin and the press bar adjuster pin on one side
of the machine and the seat back adjuster pin on the opposite side of
the machine. What's that all about? It would be handier to be able to
adjust all pins from one side of the machine, so one does not have to
reach around to the other side when setting things up. This really is
not a big deal at all, but it is a refinement that could be made in the
future.
Other good stuff:
1. It looks nice. The weight stack covers help tremendously in this.
2. It takes up very little space for all that it does.
3. It is heavy duty: larger cross-sectional tubes than many home gyms, big pulleys, etc.
4. It is very stable on the floor. Nothing I do makes it tilt or move or slide around (I am 6'3" and 245 pounds).
5. The cable system is very well thought out.
6. The exercise chart is good.
Also, after I recently broke my wrist and had my right arm go very
weak due to my arm being immobilized for so long waiting for my wrist to
heal, the cable system helped quite a bit because I could separate
movement to my weak arm, instead of having my strong arm compensate for
my weak one by having strengthening movements tied together to both arms
(that might not make sense unless you think about it awhile--it sounded
better in my head than it came out written).
Maybe a problem stuff:
1. If you have a very low ceiling in your basement like me, you
could have a problem. I cut a section out of a ceiling tile so this gym
would fit. Note, however that my basement ceiling is lower than
normal, so you probably won't have a problem.
Other stuff:
1. You do not get the same weight feel with this as you do with
dumbbells. In fact, you get a different feel depending upon which cable
you pull on. For instance, the bottom cable at 50 pounds feels like a
different weight than one of the out-rigger cables set at the same 50
pounds, and both feel different than a 50 pound dumbbell. This isn't
really a problem, you just should be aware that 50 pounds of weights
sliding on a rail with a cable winding around multiple pulleys means you
might not necessarily have exactly 50 pounds when you are pulling on
it.
2. The set-up for rigging the 2-1 doubler for the press bar is shown here:
bodycraftXXXX/pdfs/brochures/gyms/XpressBrochureNew09.pdf (replace the XXXX with .com and scroll down to page 2)
My older model did not come with the little connector cables or the
hookup points on the press bar to rig this up. However, with a little
bit of effort, I am sure I can rig this up. I would assume the new
models come with this set-up. If it does not, then maybe it is not the
newest model and you need to ask to make sure you get the newest set-up.
Anyway, I would not trade this machine for any machine without the
"cable station arms". With them, you more than double the exercises
you can do. So, really, maybe I shouldn't have complained about the
price!
