Hey folks, I'm posting this here because I got my weider in the mail today. I had a couple threads on here asking about the vigorfit setup and ultimately ended up buying the weider instead. I am happy with the purchase and I wanted to give everyone my thoughts on the machine.
I'll start off by saying that I am not an authority on anything sports or fitness related, I'm new to the whole thing really. I'm a beginner, so maybe my opinion will change with experience.
Ok, so here's the meat:
There was very little assembly required, there are three bolts to put in and 4 L shaped pins. The bolts come with self threading aircraft nuts and are better quality than I had expected. Although assembly was easy, the instructions lacked just enough detail to make it bothersome. You'll need a half inch wrench, socket & driver or an adjustable wrench to put it together, not that they tell you what size the bolt and nut are. A socket with a short extension made assembly very easy for me, but it wouldn't be much of a chore to do it with a wrench either. The pins were also easy, although the pullup bar seems to have one way that it fits much better than the other.
Setting this thing up and adjusting it was also very simple, and the instructions were also just a tad inadequate. Although the setup is very straightforward and intuitive, the manual doesn't really tell you how to extend the bottom of the machine. There is an extra knob on the bottom of the machine that is pulled out to get the bottom to extend, however, the tubes were so tight that it wouldn't budge without the whole weight of the machine. Since the instructions didn't tell me how to do this, I had to reverse engineer it from the "storing the weight training system" section.
Overall, even with the bits of confusion, this took less than 15 minutes to setup.
This machine is much better built than I thought it would be by looking at the pictures. It has no trouble supporting my weight and I would imagine it can take another 50-75 lbs with no problem. It lists a max weight of 250lbs for anyone interested.
The board glides rather well and is very quiet. The workouts are challenging for someone out of shape like me, even on lower inclines. I tried the bands and I don't think I care for them too much, the workout feels a little strange with them compared to gravity excercises. That being said, however, they could definitely add a bit more challenge to a person's workout.
Situps and crunches with the pullup/situp bar are a little awkward due to gravity working it's magic against the board. Unless there is a trick I've yet to master on the machine, you have to hold the cables while doing inclined situps and crunches to keep the board high enough. Maybe this wouldn't be a problem for Larry Byrd, but for someone 6' or shorter, it's noticeable.
The biggest issue I take with the weider is the pulley positioning. A little more thought (ie money) could have been put into putting the pulleys somewhere where they won't damage the board. If you sit or lay too far down on the board you can pull the board right into the pulleys without getting full extension on an excercise. I have rather long arms, so this might be less obvious to users with shorter arms. The solution to this is simply moving up the board. With the right position, I haven't found an excercise so far that I can't get full extension on. So, careless users beware, you could mess up your board if you don't pay attention.
Ok, there are a lot of nit-picky complaints up there, but in all reality, I didn't expect anywhere near this quality for $100. I've seen so many good reviews of this thing with hardly any emphasis on what people didn't like that I wanted to showcase the problems I did have with it. They are minute enough that I still feel like I made a great choice.
I can't compare the weider to a bayou or vigorfit, but I can say this; If I had it to do over again and I had $400 burning a hole in my pocket, I'd buy the weider and use the extra cash on some other fitness equipment like free weights and a heavy bag.
I hope that helps someone.
**Edit** I can compare it to the $200 and $300 total gyms, as I've used those at the local sporting goods store. The function and quality are not any better or worse on the total gyms, although the pulleys seemed to be in a better position since I never hit the board. This detail isn't worth the price difference to me, especially with all of the quality issues I've read about on the lower total gym models.
I'll start off by saying that I am not an authority on anything sports or fitness related, I'm new to the whole thing really. I'm a beginner, so maybe my opinion will change with experience.
Ok, so here's the meat:
There was very little assembly required, there are three bolts to put in and 4 L shaped pins. The bolts come with self threading aircraft nuts and are better quality than I had expected. Although assembly was easy, the instructions lacked just enough detail to make it bothersome. You'll need a half inch wrench, socket & driver or an adjustable wrench to put it together, not that they tell you what size the bolt and nut are. A socket with a short extension made assembly very easy for me, but it wouldn't be much of a chore to do it with a wrench either. The pins were also easy, although the pullup bar seems to have one way that it fits much better than the other.
Setting this thing up and adjusting it was also very simple, and the instructions were also just a tad inadequate. Although the setup is very straightforward and intuitive, the manual doesn't really tell you how to extend the bottom of the machine. There is an extra knob on the bottom of the machine that is pulled out to get the bottom to extend, however, the tubes were so tight that it wouldn't budge without the whole weight of the machine. Since the instructions didn't tell me how to do this, I had to reverse engineer it from the "storing the weight training system" section.
Overall, even with the bits of confusion, this took less than 15 minutes to setup.
This machine is much better built than I thought it would be by looking at the pictures. It has no trouble supporting my weight and I would imagine it can take another 50-75 lbs with no problem. It lists a max weight of 250lbs for anyone interested.
The board glides rather well and is very quiet. The workouts are challenging for someone out of shape like me, even on lower inclines. I tried the bands and I don't think I care for them too much, the workout feels a little strange with them compared to gravity excercises. That being said, however, they could definitely add a bit more challenge to a person's workout.
Situps and crunches with the pullup/situp bar are a little awkward due to gravity working it's magic against the board. Unless there is a trick I've yet to master on the machine, you have to hold the cables while doing inclined situps and crunches to keep the board high enough. Maybe this wouldn't be a problem for Larry Byrd, but for someone 6' or shorter, it's noticeable.
The biggest issue I take with the weider is the pulley positioning. A little more thought (ie money) could have been put into putting the pulleys somewhere where they won't damage the board. If you sit or lay too far down on the board you can pull the board right into the pulleys without getting full extension on an excercise. I have rather long arms, so this might be less obvious to users with shorter arms. The solution to this is simply moving up the board. With the right position, I haven't found an excercise so far that I can't get full extension on. So, careless users beware, you could mess up your board if you don't pay attention.
Ok, there are a lot of nit-picky complaints up there, but in all reality, I didn't expect anywhere near this quality for $100. I've seen so many good reviews of this thing with hardly any emphasis on what people didn't like that I wanted to showcase the problems I did have with it. They are minute enough that I still feel like I made a great choice.
I can't compare the weider to a bayou or vigorfit, but I can say this; If I had it to do over again and I had $400 burning a hole in my pocket, I'd buy the weider and use the extra cash on some other fitness equipment like free weights and a heavy bag.
I hope that helps someone.
**Edit** I can compare it to the $200 and $300 total gyms, as I've used those at the local sporting goods store. The function and quality are not any better or worse on the total gyms, although the pulleys seemed to be in a better position since I never hit the board. This detail isn't worth the price difference to me, especially with all of the quality issues I've read about on the lower total gym models.
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