Marcy Smith Cage Machine with Workout Bench and Weight Bar Home Gym Equipment SM-4008

Perfect.
One of the greatest investments I have made in several years. I conducted a fair amount of research on home gyms before deciding on this one. In addition, Amazon is the cheapest price I found. We have had it in the garage for about 6 months now, and it is used almost every day. It is holding up perfect. I like the versatility of the unit. Several exercises can be performed on this unit. The construction probability won’t hold up for those who are attempting to be power-lifters but is perfect for everybody else, which keeps the cost down. There are two versions. This one appears to be able to handle less weight while the other is heavier construction, has a preacher curl on the bench, and a little more expensive. We choose this one because we already have a preacher curl and I felt like the heavier construction was an extra we didn’t need.After reading all the reviews about how hard it was to assemble, I was torn between having someone assemble it or do it myself. I decided to assemble it myself. I grew up turning wrenches and am pretty good with written instructions and putting things together. I also have a huge variety of tools I have built up over the years. This thing took me over 8 hours continuous to put together. The instructions were fair, not too hard to understand or too basic that it made it difficult.I don’t like the design of the way the weights slide up and down on the back. I keep it lubed with silicone spray. That helps a lot. I don’t like how much room it takes in my garage. I don’t like how long it took to put together. I don’t like that I had to look for weights separately. But that as a plus, it gave me the opportunity to customize it or get the weights I wanted instead settling with what it came with.If you are thinking about a home gym that does the most exercises, built tough, and is easy to use then this is the one. I highly recommend getting this.

assembly was a bear but is generally a pretty good setup, especially for beginners
This was my reward to myself for selling my condo (freeing up a considerable amount of money!). I am trying to get in shape this year and I have no experience working with weight machines but this seemed like it offered a lot of different exercises for a home user.I have it in a basement room. While the room is carpeted, I did put this on some of those interlocking puzzle tile mats. I ended up having to buy three sets of puzzle tiles (each set had six 2 by 2 panels) but only used 16 of the tiles. I used the tiles to avoid damaging the carpet and to provide a more stable surface. They look to be doing the trick. So anyway, this whole assembled device, including the bench, needs at least an 8 by 8 area. This gives you enough space to put a big weight plate (say 45 pounds) on the back part without hitting a wall as well as enough room to put plates on the bar and take them off again. It also should give you enough room for placing the bench with all the supports on the tile mat, though you could go with 20 tiles (or an 8 by 10 area) and have a little more room for the bench. You will also need a ceiling that is at least 8 feet high.This does not come with any weights; you will need a set of Olympic plates. (I found one on closeout at a local sporting goods store.) It does have a bar that holds Olympic plates, but it is not a true Olympic bar. I am not sure of the exact weight of the bar but it is definitely much less than 45 pounds. (This is good for me as I am a small-framed woman who is new to lifting…) The *length* of the bar is the same as an Olympic bar, however.This also does not come with a lat pulldown bar, but I just bought one on Amazon and it works fine with this machine. You do get the attachments/handles shown in the photo. You also get a poster illustrating the various exercises that are possible to do with this machine. I find this useful since I am not a gym rat. (I am sure there are more variations, but the poster is useful for a beginner.)Regarding assembly, this took two adults (with PhDs in STEM fields…) about 9 and a half hours to put together. We took over a month, only working an hour or two a weekend. Some notes on assembly:(1) The person who said to put the hardware into cups had the right idea. We had some paper bowls we used, and we marked them with a Sharpie, and that really helped a lot. Because although all of the hardware packs were sealed with their contents intact, the contents had come loose from the backing in a few of the packs and were all mixed together. I would strongly suggest having a ruler handy for measuring the lengths of bolts in case things get mixed up. There are two parts lists, one for the Smith machine part and one for the bench. Those are useful if you are counting washers or something. We had EXACTLY the right amount of items. Nothing missing and not a single extra bit.(2) The brackets for the chin-up bar look like they are angled at 90 degrees in the manual. They are not. You are probably not missing these pieces, they just have a much larger angle than 90 degrees. At the time you are supposed to install these, there are still a lot of parts left you haven’t put on, so it may be difficult to recognize these among all the rest of the items.(3) When you are putting the plate on the bottom for attaching the chain to do rows, and the back part where there will be multiple pulleys and some weight plates, it helps to put a book (maybe 1/2 inch thick) under the base that’s perpendicular to the plate, until such time as you tighten the bolts. Otherwise it does not stay in the right position.(4) As others have said, the diagrams and instructions for stringing the cables around the pulleys are not so good. We were able to figure it out, but it took at least two assembly sessions and also we had to refer frequently to the exercise chart, which shows some more photos of the assembled machine. There are cable guides that go with the pulleys and they have little plastic washer-shaped parts that are supposed to go in them before you put the bolts through them. The little plastic washers fall out all the time, but they were all there. They will stay in place just fine once the cable guides are attached to the pulleys, it is just tough getting them to stay there beforehand. Also, the cables all have different ends so you don’t actually have to measure them to figure out which is which.(5) An extra note with regards to the cables — don’t tighten any nuts until you are done stringing each cable. Because sometimes there are missing bits in the directions or the order is wrong and you may find you have to remove a part to string a cable or something. You do get two sets of Allen wrenches (one in the bench hardware pack and one in the Smith machine hardware pack) so two people can work on tightening at the same time.(6) Things it is useful to have during installation that are not provided: at least two adjustable wrenches, a rubber mallet, a tape measure.If you find you have to move this after it is assembled (even just a foot or two from the wall so you can install the bar), get some of those furniture moving sliders. This is really too heavy and awkward for two adults to lift, but if you lift the far edge up and put a couple of furniture moving sliders under the supports, two adults can easily push it or pull it. Also, please know that unless you have extra wide doors, once you assemble this, it is staying put in whatever room you put it in. It is too wide to maneuver through a standard doorway. If you move, you will have to take it apart and possibly buy a bunch of replacement aircraft nuts, so keep track of the manual.In terms of operation, everything seems good. If you are short, you may need a stool to change out the handles for pulldowns. If you are short (I am only 5’5″), it is kind of difficult to reach the pull-up bar, too. The machine seems adequate for people from 5’5″ to 6’1″ (based on the two people who have used it thus far) and who are under 160 pounds. I can’t speak as to how it would behave with someone heavier because I don’t have anyone else to test it. (My dad is coming to town next month. He’s 260+ pounds so I will have him try it out too and update the review with his comments.)The lower body attachment to the bench wobbles a bit but is better when there are actual weights on it. Everything else seems quite sturdy. (We have not put more than 100 lbs of weights at any one spot other than the storage bars.) If you do a pulldown of any sort without weights on the back part, it probably won’t return to position when you let go. Same with the leg attachment on the bench.Everything moves smoothly. We have not had to use any WD40 yet although we have some on hand if we need it. There’s no weird squeaking or vibrating, all the pieces were machined correctly, and all the plastic parts were in good shape. There were a few scratches on various parts of the metal, but this is an aesthetic concern only and didn’t affect operation of the device.

Excelente producto, de verdad por meses buscaba un equipo como este pero todos muy caros. Este está a un precio muy bueno y te permite trabajar todo tu cuerpo. Quizás batallen un poco con el armado, yo contrate a una persona que da mantenimiento en gimnasios para que lo armara

È molto ben fatto, curato nei particolari.È robusto si possono usare i pesi con foro da 2.5 quindi posso usare tutti i dischi in ghisa che avevo senza dover comprare i dischi olimpionici da 5.1Il montaggio è stato facile, il manuale con le istruzioni è molto dettagliato e bulloni, viti e rondelle sono numerati, quindi non si sbaglia… ci vuole solo un po di manualità.Sono soddisfatto dell acquisto .Ora lo utilizzo, poi mi riservo di cambiare recensione qualora notassi qualche cosa da segnalare.Arrivato 10 giorni prima del tempo previsto . Ottimi.. consigliato in tutto.