Okay, so I finally convinced the gym owner to buy a rack, and as always, he gets ssweet talked by the salemen into spending way too much money on something totally ridiculous. He tells me yesterday evening that he’s looking at a $3000 model because of it’s stability.
I expressed my disbelief and said that I was under the impression that racks usually go for 500-600 bucks, possibly 1000 if it’s a seriously heavy duty construction. We don’t need any extra bells or whistles, no places to put plates, no extra lat pulldowns attachments,… nothing, just a sturdy as hell frame. I looked up a few models, all between 500-800 dollars, most with weight capacities of 800 - 1000 lbs. Any suggestions.
Oh, and if you know actual figures (weight capacity etc), it would help a lot. I’m sure most kids will just try doing curls in it, but we have a couple of guys I can imagine doing rack deads with well some sizable loads and making a hell of a lot of noise -lol.
Just about every sturdy power rack will handle loads up to 1000lbs. Most are made from 2-3" tubing and is more than enough for heavy lifting. The thicker the better. 11 gauge is usually the thickest used for steel tubing (about 3mm thick). I think what makes the biggest difference is the supports at all the 90 degree angles (e.g. bottom of the tubing/feet)…stops rocking. But aside from that, you’d need a hell of a weight and speed to break the thing…
Just be glad he’d rather over pay than be stingy lol
Can easily get the most sturdy ones for under $1000 though.
Doug- that’s one of the ones I printed out last night. I found sveeral, ranging from $400 to $900. Not all of them listed the max load capacity, and I just wanted to have all my ducks in a row before presenting options.
Just make sure the rack’s hooks aren’t those annoying ones that have four different hooks on a single hunk of steel - if I want the hook at the right place for a heavy squat, I unrack into the hook above it. Completely throws me.
Stu, please PM me your email. I have just purhased a rack , did a lot of research and walked off with the best deal I think I could ever get. I’m in class at the moment so I can only be brief but when I get home I’ll give you the info. The rack is on my YouTube channel, you can check my profile for the link. Honestly the best purchase I have ever made.
[quote]austin_bicep wrote:
Stu, please PM me your email. I have just purhased a rack , did a lot of research and walked off with the best deal I think I could ever get. I’m in class at the moment so I can only be brief but when I get home I’ll give you the info. The rack is on my YouTube channel, you can check my profile for the link. Honestly the best purchase I have ever made. [/quote]
Can you also PM me the info? I’ve been looking into power racks and I could use some guidance.
OKay, here’s the update,… After hearing from all sides that he should just listen to my advice instead of the salesman, the owner tosses me his credit card when I walked in the other night, and tells me to get what I want -lol. So I got a very simple, 1000 lb capacity rack, for under $500, shipping included
Now I just have to worry about keeping the young kids from curling in ‘my’ power rack -lol
If you’re in NY and on a budget I would have suggested these guys as probably the cheapest option:
I would always recommend EliteFTS hands down. My old training partner had the standard rack (Econo), had so many hole choices, thing could handle a shit ton of weight (and band tension), the safety bars had 965 come crashing down on them one time didn’t even budge. He has upgraded it with a Monolift attachment as of a few years ago, might as well called it a Timex! It’s that good.
I work for Berry’s Barbell in Columbus, Ohio and this is our specialty. We can drop ship a Body Solid Power Rack to you guys for $599. We also carry equipment from Legend Fitness if you need a super serious rack. If you want to check them out the websites are bodysolid.com and legendfitness.com. Hope this helps.
[quote]The Mighty Stu wrote:
OKay, here’s the update,… After hearing from all sides that he should just listen to my advice instead of the salesman, the owner tosses me his credit card when I walked in the other night, and tells me to get what I want -lol. So I got a very simple, 1000 lb capacity rack, for under $500, shipping included
Now I just have to worry about keeping the young kids from curling in ‘my’ power rack -lol
