Marcy Multifunction Steel Home Gym 150lb Weight Stack Machine

I hesitated only a little before giving this equipment 5 stars. The slight hesitation was because of the limited range of motion for the butterfly and a slightly crooked bar for the quad raises, but in the end, I decided it wasn’t enough to take a full star away.I’ll structure the review with the full order lifecycle:Reviews: Reviews and questions/answers on Amazon are quite comprehensive and helpful. You need to read multiple reviews in order to set your expectations. In the end, I decided to take a chance. And I was glad I did.Ordering: Uh, click “Add to Cart.”Delivery: 0 stars to Amazon for a disastrous delivery, despite this being touted as a Prime-eligible product (which mysteriously disappeared from the product page… sometimes). From the day I placed the order to the day the item was delivered in its entirety was 11 days. The item comes in 3 boxes – 1 for the components and 2 for the weights. I got the components one day before the weights. I placed the order so that even in the worst case, I would be able to assemble it over the Memorial Day weekend. Instead, I had to wait for another weekend thereafter. To this day, I can’t tell if the equipment is Prime eligible or not. This experience was stressful enough for me to discontinue my Prime membership.Packaging: Sturdy packaging. No damage to anything in the boxes.Equipment Quality: The quality is acceptable. The stacked weights are made of concrete with a vinyl coating. At this time, I don’t have any reason to believe that they will somehow stop being heavy or will break down with use. So, I’ll let this one pass. Suffice it to say that had I not read in other reviews and question/answers that the weights were vinyl, I would have been disappointed. You kind of expect weights to be made of cast iron. The framing members appear to be of acceptable quality. Fasteners, pulleys, and cables appear to be well-built. When everything is put together, the equipment is smooth and noiseless. The padded bar over which you do quad raises is crooked on one side.Assembly: It took me a little over 4 hours to put this thing together. I had a brief period of about a half hour where I had some help. But I don’t think it affected the overall time for assembly. I would rate myself as mechanically inclined, and I used power tools unabashedly, especially when it came to the fasteners. That speeded up the time of assembly. Instructions are adequate, albeit at times cryptic. There is not one word of written instructions – it is entirely schematic. The good thing is you don’t need anything translated. You have to use your imagination at times, especially when it comes to putting together the suspended pulleys in the back of the seat. During the assembly, pay special attention to where it says to fully tighten the fasteners. If you overlook that, it will be hard to go back – you might have to take apart some of the assembly in order to go back and tighten. The number of fasteners provided is exactly what you need to put the equipment together. Kudos to the inventory folks at Impex for the tight control. On the flip side, if you lose one washer, you will be short by one washer. There are no extras. Not one. For me the toughest part of the assembly was sliding the padded butterfly sleeve all the way up the arm. Ironically the second toughest part was installing the weight stack cover, which in my opinion, is optional and purely an esthetic piece (some might say for safety, but I’d argue).Exercising: I’m 5’ 9” and in relatively OK condition. The operation is pretty much like any gym equipment I’ve used at various vacation resorts over the years. It is smooth and noiseless. I bought an additional straight bar for bicep curls, but I feel as if I could have done without it. I also bought a single D-handle cable attachment, which I have yet to use. Overall, the curl bar that comes with the equipment is adequate for everything. One irritating thing is that it’s impossible to tell the plate number where you’re inserting the weight selector pin, because of the parallax between the weight cover and the holes. You have to either sit down level with the hole, or you have to count the holes top to bottom before inserting the pin. Or you can do what I did, and paste the plate numbers directly on the plate (I had to print out the numbers and tape them to each plate). I also had to copy the plate-to-weight chart from the manual and paste it on the weight stack cover. Otherwise, it’s not intuitive to remember the plate number and the resistance it offers for different exercises.I was pleasantly surprised to note that the bench press weight rating is actually more conservative than I had expected. For example, pressing 135 lbs on this equipment feels a lot harder than pressing 135 lbs on a bar. Why? One, because maybe the resistance is more than 135. Or two, because you’re starting the move by pushing the press arm up, as opposed to letting it come down on you, as with a standard bar. My 21-year old son could barely go up to 200 on this (he presses 225 on a bar). In other words, the 200 lb max appears to be plenty for me. If you’re currently pressing 225, you’ll be happy with what this equipment offers at the 200 lb “rating.” For all other exercises, the top resistance is 150 lb.The constant resistance of the stacked weight system is obvious in everything you do. I use the machine for bicep curls (mostly over the preacher station), tricep curls, lat pulldowns, butterfly, quad raises, hamstring raises, and the occasional bench press. The constant resistance is quite evident for quad/hammy raises as well as tricep curls. You can’t cheat here – there are no free or partial-weight movements, as there are with free weights, especially for those moves. The initial resistance in bicep curls is another thing you can’t easily achieve with dumbbells. The equipment is worth the expense, the assembly, and the extra space it occupies in my basement, just for these 4 exercises. As for the lat pulldowns, it has completely replaced the equivalent exercise I used to do with dumbbells, and it has saved me around 3 minutes in the morning (an eternity, considering that I need to leave home at 6 in the morning).For the bench press, I still stick with dumbbell press. For the butterfly, the equipment gives what you can never achieve with dumbbells – resistance at the end of the fly move (when you’re pulling your arms close together). However, the movement starts too late, i.e., your arms can’t get back far enough. But I compensate for that by putting an additional seat back (from another piece of equipment) over the equipment’s seat back, thereby pushing me further up and letting my arms start from further back. I wish that the seat back was adjustable, as I’ve seen in professional gym equipment, but it’s wishful thinking at this price range. So, I still end up doing dumbbell flies because of that initial resistance.The resistance with the pin in the first hole is too high for me for any kind of ligament warm-up. The weight selector pin dangles awkwardly, and potentially harmfully (to the equipment) when not engaged to at least some weight. So, I still have to use my light dumbbells and the Weider resistance-bar equipment for that. I wish I could have gotten rid of the resistance equipment.I have no intention of using the equipment for squats, though one can, based on what I’ve seen on product videos. I might start using it for front deltoid raises after my shoulder heals. But other than that, I don’t see myself using it for anything more than I currently use it for.Conclusion: In summary, I’m very happy with the purchase. This is a great addition to the free weights and other equipment I already have. The product is priced pretty aggressively for everything it offers. In my opinion, if you’re looking for a stacked weight system to supplement what you already have, you simply can’t go wrong with Marcy’s MWM 988. For making it your only weight equipment, you need to make sure that you’ll be comfortable doing squats and calf raises on this, as well as lateral deltoid raises, none of which this equipment natively supports.

Our fitness center closed due to the COVID-19 pandemic, so we got model MWM-988 to work out at home. I had no choice but to assemble it myself—my husband is not handy and we didn’t want to have someone come to our house to assemble it. I am a 58 year old woman under 5 feet tall—I read and followed the instructions and put the whole thing together in two evenings —about 4.5 hours total. That does not include all the trips my husband made carrying the parts to our basement. He helped me hold some of the parts but otherwise I assembled it myself.The instructions are fairly clear but there is a lot of different screws, washers, nuts etc, so you need to pay attention. Everything is labeled with assembly diagrams and all the parts fit together nicely. No issues with screw threads being off or stripped. I cannot imagine successfully putting this together by ignoring the instructions. Several times I had to stop and really study the diagrams—but it was possible. I just took my time.Like other reviewers commented, the sheet metal cover to the weight stack came all banged up. But the user manual has an email address and phone number to request replacements for damaged or missing parts and guarantees 100% satisfaction. There was no answer to the phone, so I emailed the part number, my Amazon order number, and my address—and within only a few hours they replied to say that a replacement part was being shipped. To me—that is very good service. (But I do think that they should pack this better so it arrives undamaged). The sheet metal cover is held on by 8 screws—we were able to assemble the entire gym with the damaged cover and use the gym while we wait for the replacement part to arrive. We will be able to swap out that part without needing to remove any other parts.This home gym is good for the price we paid. It offers a lot of different exercises. The 150 pound weight stack on Model 988 that we got is enough weight for my husband. The online description is accurate. The equipment works well, and the pulleys operate smoothly. The sheet metal weight stack cover has a big sticker on it that displays all the ways to use the equipment. That’s very handy.The only exercises that don’t work excellently are the standing leg pulls (with the lower pulley and the ankle strap). The pulley is designed to pull UP, but when standing, with the ankle strap on, you are pulling OUT more straight from the wheel. The design of the equipment means that each time you pull OUT with your ankle, it also brings the swinging black leg bar out with it a little bit, and then after a few inches, that swinging leg bar (which you are not using) drops and bangs back against the gym. The exercise works fine, but that banging of the swinging black leg bar while you’re using the pulley is a little annoying. They should have added a pin to hold this firmly in place while using the leg pulley. All other exercises work great.Our set came with two carabiner clips but as far as I can tell. this set needs 3 so that you can do all the exercises without having to remove and “borrow” one of those clips. The lat bar needs both clips—one for each end of the chain. But the ankle strap also needs one. I had a spare carabiner clip at home that we are using for the ankle strap.Overall I do recommend this home gym. We are pleased with it.Although it doesn’t say that it needs a mat, we did purchase one (separately) because we have hard wood floors. We are using a 36” x 78” basic treadmill mat and it fits fine—it could have been several inches shorter and still would have been fine.If my review was helpful, please let Amazon know by clicking “helpful”. Thanks.IMPORTANT UPDATE: I failed to adjust the tension (of the pulley cables) correctly at assembly, so two weeks into using this gym, one of the pulley cables “jumped the track” and came out of its wheel. This stripped part of the rubber coating off of the pulley cable. Please read this to avoid my mistake:Two booklets come with the gym: (1) the Assembly Manual and (2) the Owners Manual. The Assembly Manual has all the step by step instructions for assembly. BUT the Owners Manual has important “please read before assembly” information including (on page 7) how to properly adjust the tension of the cable. READ THE OWNERS MANUAL BEFORE assembly (I wish I had). Then, when assembling the gym, please not the following clarifications to the Assembly Manual:1. Parts 30 (pages 3 and 23 ) have 4 different sets of holes for adjusting the pulley cable tension. After you are all finished assembling the entire gym, go back to part 30 (page 23) and make sure that you use the hole that makes the cable comfortably snug.2. Double check that you have both parts 74 placed correctly (there are two). Part 74 is shown on pages 4, 20, and 23. It is a metal “L” shaped guide which keeps the pulley cable inside the tracks of the two wheels attached to part 30 (see #1 above). Parts 74 should be positioned so that when you operate the gym, they do not abrade (rub up against) the rubber coating of the pulley cable.3. Double check that parts 12 (pages 2 and 17) swing freely (are not too tight). When you operate the gym, they should be able to move in order to stay aligned with the pulley wheels directly behind them (those pulley wheels are installed on page 21). Those two pulley wheels are attached to part 14 (page 21) and ALSO should swing freely to stay aligned with parts 12 while you operate the gym.I hope this is helpful to you. If it is, please let Amazon know by clicking “helpful”. Thanks.