Are cable towers useful?

[hector]

I was leaning toward the RX3, but I saw a YouTube review that said it wasn’t good for tall people or people with long arms. I am both.

Company has no guidance on user height compatibility. Will wait for another YouTube review.

What movements are you wondering about and how tall are you? I can do pretty much everything on the BoS towers which are shorter than the RX3 but I'm only 5'11" and I did have to make a modification to do pulldowns.

Gluck talks about it around 10:40 in his review:

[hector]

I was leaning toward the RX3, but I saw a YouTube review that said it wasn’t good for tall people or people with long arms. I am both.

Company has no guidance on user height compatibility. Will wait for another YouTube review.

What movements are you wondering about and how tall are you? I can do pretty much everything on the BoS towers which are shorter than the RX3 but I'm only 5'11" and I did have to make a modification to do pulldowns.

Gluck talks about it around 10:40 in his review:

That said, I’m still strongly considering buying it.

Just waiting for some more reviews to come out.

[murphyreedus]

Gluck's review of the RX3 Tornado is enough to keep me away for v1, especially since none of their "central" attachments are out yet.




I was looking at getting their Smith attachment and putting it on my current rack (should bolt on perfectly), but that's the one thing they seemed to like the least about the RX3.

https://www.getrxd.com/rx3-smith-machine.html

[hector]

Gluck's review of the RX3 Tornado is enough to keep me away for v1, especially since none of their "central" attachments are out yet.




I was looking at getting their Smith attachment and putting it on my current rack (should bolt on perfectly), but that's the one thing they seemed to like the least about the RX3.

https://www.getrxd.com/rx3-smith-machine.html

I haven’t watched this review yet, but I saw the tornado arm and thought the engineering was cool, however was unsure if it actually solved any problem.

Will watch it! Thanks for the link.

[hector]

@TimK ,

Have seen some competitors pop out, mimicking the BoS and GetRXD.
This one is from French Fitness. Before reading the specs I liked it. Similar to the GetRXD, but with an optional 250lb stack. But then, unlike GetRXD, there’s no second handle! So you can never have the 1:1 ratio. I guess you could always use one of those weight pins and hand a 45 off the side, but I don’t know how that will impact the machine over years.

https://www.fitnesssuperstore.com/Frenc ... d_source=1

XMark also makes one. It costs significantly more then GetRXD or French Fitmess, and also lacks a second handle. Weirdly, while it uses a 1:1 ratio for pull-down, it uses a 2:1 for the low row, which is probably the exercise where people could go heaviest and would least want the 2:1 ratio.

https://a.co/d/fL17FZP

[TimK]

@TimK ,

Have seen some competitors pop out, mimicking the BoS and GetRXD.
This one is from French Fitness. Before reading the specs I liked it. Similar to the GetRXD, but with an optional 250lb stack. But then, unlike GetRXD, there’s no second handle! So you can never have the 1:1 ratio. I guess you could always use one of those weight pins and hand a 45 off the side, but I don’t know how that will impact the machine over years.

https://www.fitnesssuperstore.com/Frenc ... d_source=1

XMark also makes one. It costs significantly more then GetRXD or French Fitmess, and also lacks a second handle. Weirdly, while it uses a 1:1 ratio for pull-down, it uses a 2:1 for the low row, which is probably the exercise where people could go heaviest and would least want the 2:1 ratio.

https://a.co/d/fL17FZP

Yeah 2:1 only would be a dealbreaker for me, even with a 250lb stack you're only getting 125. Yeah you can add weight with a gympin but still you're only getting half of what you add, so you would need to load an extra 150lbs of weight on the gympin to get up to 200lbs of resistance. At that point probably going to bend the guide rods and it's just an impractical PITA even if it didn't damage the machine.

The Xmark looks like they were trying to copy the Prime cable tower which also has 2:1 moveable pulley and 1:1 up top. Also not good IMO as you noted since people need just as much weight if not more for cable rows as for pulldowns.

Of course there's a lot of stuff you can do with cables using 125lbs of resistance but if you only have space or budget for a single unit I can't see going with one that doesn't have a dual cable design like BoS or GetRXD. For someone that already has a standalone lat pulldown/low row, then maybe. But even then one of my favorite movements is high angle rows with the cables somewhere in the middle and I definitely need 1:1 ratio for that.

[hector]

@TimK ,

Have seen some competitors pop out, mimicking the BoS and GetRXD.
This one is from French Fitness. Before reading the specs I liked it. Similar to the GetRXD, but with an optional 250lb stack. But then, unlike GetRXD, there’s no second handle! So you can never have the 1:1 ratio. I guess you could always use one of those weight pins and hand a 45 off the side, but I don’t know how that will impact the machine over years.

https://www.fitnesssuperstore.com/Frenc ... d_source=1

XMark also makes one. It costs significantly more then GetRXD or French Fitmess, and also lacks a second handle. Weirdly, while it uses a 1:1 ratio for pull-down, it uses a 2:1 for the low row, which is probably the exercise where people could go heaviest and would least want the 2:1 ratio.

https://a.co/d/fL17FZP

Yeah 2:1 only would be a dealbreaker for me, even with a 250lb stack you're only getting 125. Yeah you can add weight with a gympin but still you're only getting half of what you add, so you would need to load an extra 150lbs of weight on the gympin to get up to 200lbs of resistance. At that point probably going to bend the guide rods and it's just an impractical PITA even if it didn't damage the machine.

The Xmark looks like they were trying to copy the Prime cable tower which also has 2:1 moveable pulley and 1:1 up top. Also not good IMO as you noted since people need just as much weight if not more for cable rows as for pulldowns.

Of course there's a lot of stuff you can do with cables using 125lbs of resistance but if you only have space or budget for a single unit I can't see going with one that doesn't have a dual cable design like BoS or GetRXD. For someone that already has a standalone lat pulldown/low row, then maybe. But even then one of my favorite movements is high angle rows with the cables somewhere in the middle and I definitely need 1:1 ratio for that.

Agreed on all points!

I saw a Rogue CT-1X2 cable tower for sale on marketplace.
The owner wanted 3k, which is beyond my price range, but said they were “open to offers.”

I was debating making an offer. But even if they accepted, it looks like it would be a bear (if not impossible) to move. Also, I’m a fan of having a 3x3/1-inch-hole in the front for attachments, which Rogue doesn’t. Get RXd and BoS def have the edge there.

Once things settle down, I think the GetRXD remains the best option.

[TimK]

Those Rogue towers are monsters and I believe they ship fully assembled which is probably why they never took off in the home gym space. I think they have a new 3x3 version of it coming but I heard it was delayed because they’re still trying to catch up on the production of their Ares-style racks that came out last year (whatever those are called, I can never remember Rogue’s obscure product names).

[hector]

Those Rogue towers are monsters and I believe they ship fully assembled which is probably why they never took off in the home gym space. I think they have a new 3x3 version of it coming but I heard it was delayed because they’re still trying to catch up on the production of their Ares-style racks that came out last year (whatever those are called, I can never remember Rogue’s obscure product names).

Yes!
The rogue CTM-1 functional tower. Delayed for exactly the reason you mention.
It only had 1 handle for the functional trainer, but it looks super nice. The functional trainer is 2:1, the lat pull-down and low-row are both 1:1. So, it mitigates issues with some of the other competitors. And the price is a little higher, but if you’re spending that much anyway then this seems a better deal.

I think this would be an awesome option, but might opt to sub out the seat with something like the Rep Pegasus, bc the rogue detachable seat looks super skinny.


https://www.roguefitness.com/rogue-ctm- ... OiXVYYBvzJ