Body-Solid EXM1 Home Gym - Multi Station

My 5 star rating is for the product only. See "assembly" portion of the review for details regarding many problems with the manual as well as tips to help solve them.THE GYM: I'm very happy with the quality of the gym. While not as stout as a commercial product, it is far better than most of the inexpensive home gyms in the lower price ranges. Pulley operation is smooth, without slack. Welds are solid with strong metal construction throughout. The gym is very stable so you can feel confident you are exercising safely. It fits in a surprisingly small amount of space considering all of the exercise options it affords. Unlike other models with optional leg presses, there are no obstructions to get in the way of your workout. I'm 6'3" and have no problems getting into position for any of the exercises. I do suspect that a taller person may have issues with some of the leg & pulldown exercises on the main unit. The only failure in quality was in the plastic end caps that hold the foam rollers in place. One of them broke during assembly (a very tight fit that requires hammering with a rubber mallet). A quick phone call to Body-Solid (only 5 minutes on hold) yielded good customer service and a replacement part is on the way. I have purchased Body-Solid products in the past and have been pleased with those as well.THE ASSEMBLY: What a nightmare! While I was able to finish accurate assembly on my own in a matter of hours, I have to say that the manual was the worst I have ever seen. There are mistakes on almost every page. My advice is to take the assembly procedure very slow, studying the text and illustrations carefully. While all of the hardware was included, bolt substitutions have been made that are not referenced in the manual. This means you have to take your best guess at which bolts you should use at times. Pulley installation is mislabeled at one point, so when you're almost finished you'll find that you are short one small pulley and have one additional large pulley. You then have to go back and remove the small one and substitute the large where they made the mistake. See my photo for the location of the pulley that should be large instead of small. Part numbers sometimes change from illustration to illustration. There are steps in the text that do not appear in the illustration, and steps in the illustration that don't appear in the text. When assembly of the main unit is finished, you may find you are short one bolt with an extra long one in its place. This is not a problem and will make sense as you are nearing completion of the leg press. Bolts, nuts, and small parts are vacuumed wrapped in place on labeled cards. That would be handy if the parts were actually in the correct location. Some parts cover their labels. Others are scattered about on the cards. Almost all parts fit together easily with exception of the very tight fit of the fragile plastic end caps for the foam rollers. Be careful or you will break them. The toughest part of assembly was placing the black base plate at the front of the main unit. It was way too tight of a fit, requiring me to use a hammer with a board as a buffer to bang it in place. It took quite a while, but I can tell you that part is never coming out. Haha! Finally, while the cables can be adjusted to the correct length so there's no slack in the action, there are no instructions provided for how to do this. You'll have to finely adjust the tension by how far you screw in the rubber buffers that keep the arm press, leg press, and leg extension from banging into the gym when returning to rest position. Overall, just use a lot of common sense and go slow. Be patient and you'll be fine.THE DELIVERY: This was a bit problematic. Somewhere in the delivery process my phone number was either lost by the shipping company or not provided to them. It was left to me to track down the delivery to see why it was late and get it on the way again. After an additional delay by the shipping company (Road Runner) the gym finally arrived. The driver was very friendly and brought the pallet of boxes all the way to my garage without extra charge. Be aware, the delivery window can be large. Mine was 9AM to 4PM. They will call to set up the delivery day and will call again about an hour before delivery. Such a large delivery window ended up costing me three days considering the multiple days in delivery. You'll also have a large wooden pallet to dispose of.If you can get the gym to your house and assemble it without losing all of your hair, you'll have a great quality gym with a lot of exercises available to you. Good luck!!

Having gotten older and out of shape, I decided to buy a good quality home gym. This unit is a very sturdy home gym. It took a while to assemble but wasn't intimidating. You MUST follow the instructions carefully. It went together well and is very smooth to operate. I've started with a light workout to get back into it and the machine is solid. I have no regrets with this purchase. (I bought the leg press at the same time.)

My wife and I were looking for a home gym to help us shed a few pounds and get into shape following a long North Dakota winter. The equipment arrived at our house in several boxes but all were easily moved by one person from the driveway to the workout room in our house. I did a pre-assembly inventory and confirmed the gym arrived with all required parts in good working order. Assembly was time consuming and a little tedious. Total assembly took roughly 8 hours by one person but was fairly straight-forward. I suggest having a helper to remove/manage the next parts from the 5 parts cards and hand them to the assembler as needed; this will significantly reduce assembly time. There are several steps required to assemble the gym that are not included in the instructions. This was a little frustrating but I was able to figure them out by looking at the pictures/drawings.The Fitness Factory EXM1 is a well made machine and feels like something used in a hotel or public gym - beefy and solid. The exercise movements are smooth and precise. I really like that there are no adjustments required to switch from one exercise to another, unless the user wants a different weight. Other machines require unhooking cables and then hooking other cables to move from one exercise to another. This pulleys are all inter-connected so the pin placement in the weight stack is the only change necessary. I highly recommend this home gym to anyone looking to have a quality home gym at a reasonable price.

Solid home gym. Able to perform all the weight training that I need. There is strap that comes with machine that gives abs a really good workout, this was a plus because I did not see it in any of the photos prior to purchasing. My only cons are the instructions had me bouncing around from hardware package 1-5 all through the assembly instead of using hardware package one for step 1 etc... I also find that one more weight would of been ideal to allow a bolt that attaches to them to go all the way down. Instructions indicated I only had to go down a minimum of half inch which I was able to do. I still purchased an extra stack of five weights in order to get that one additional. Overall I would definitely recommend this home gym.

Good quailty piece of equipment. Feels sturdy like a piece at your local gym. We bought the leg press attachment and it's totally worth it. The only negative is that it's a long process to build but if you take your time you can do it. Also, we were missing two little bushing pieces but we called the company and they mailed them right out.

Professional quality machine with smooth and precise movements. Prefect for a small gym or home gym.

Hints for anyone buying this unit and assembling it themselves.1. Where ever the directions call for a plastic part these are almost always preassembled. So look on the unit before you go looking through the pile of parts.2. The bracket that sits under the seat of the leg press has a direction. If you can't get the pulley on turn the bracket over.3. Buy the extra weights before assembling. I don't know how you'll add them later without quite a bit of disassembly. They are a cheap add on.4. Assemble all the hardware before starting assembly. Label according to step. This will make the assembly go much smoother. This is also a good time to label all the parts that are preassembled.Hope this helps!