Marcy HG5000 Home Gym

I've been looking at various home gyms, as you do, and was split between this and the Marcy HG7000. When the price went down to £321 for this one, it was a no-brainer. Delivery was a bit hit-and-miss with ArrowXL. A garbled message with unintelligable phone number to ring to change a date they chose wasn't the best experience with them, but the delivery guys were great and brought it into my house. This comes in four boxes. A 79kg 2m long box with the chassis and most of the gym, a 1m square flat box with the seat pads and lighter stuff, and two 49kg boxes with the weights in them. I found it much easier to open them up in the house, check the items and take them to the brick shed at the end of my garden a bit at a time. That's a workout without even building anything. Assembly requires a fair bit of space and would be easier with two people, although I managed it by myself in two 2-hour sessions. Once you get to know which bolt/washer combination goes with pulleys, chassis, brackets, etc., it gets much easier. They provide two sizes of allen keys, and you just need an adjustable spanner. A 16mm ratchet socket makes things much quicker for easy-to-reach nuts, although you may still need the adjustable spanner for some harder to reach bits. There are a few places I had to stop and think because the instructions weren't too clear, such as removing the ball from the end of one cable before assembly, or having to feed the cable through a pulley BEFORE you put the bolt through (once in place, the cable is captive). Once built all worked well, with no squeaks or rattles. A bit of silicone spray on moving parts and the weight guides helped I think. Welds look good and it's certainly a solid piece of kit. Without abuse it should last forever. All exercises as shown in the video or the small chart on the web page are easily performed with minimal setup. Until I get used to them all, a chart would have been nice. Watch the video though and you'll get an idea of how to use the equipment, especially the adjustable backrest. I quite like the fact that the cushions on the seat and backrest are very soft as it takes pressure off my spine and backs of my legs. All hand grips (be it metal or foam) are comfortable too. The main Y-shaped bar gives you a chest press or when locked forwards a shoulder press. Lock it back, face the seat back (with it angled towards you) and you can do seated rowing. I find the number of positions to lock it quite coarse though, and bench presses start either just a bit too far back, or too far in front. I can't get it to start right from my chest, as a bar would. The fly attachment is really good, allowing you to choose the exact arc your arms go through. Every bit as good as free weights, although you may need to put the seat a bit lower than normal to get them the correct height to your chest. The lat bar is excellent, and so is the tricep bar. Two chains are supplied to extend the range of the movement, which I otherwise found a bit short, making the weight hit the end-stop at the top before I'd completed my extension. It's easy to perform all types of pull-down with this setup. A cable appearing just above the seat back allows you to do crunches, overhead tricep curls, and a host of arm/abdominal exercises 9watch the video for ideas). The lower pully provides resistance for thigh extensions, as well as seated and upright rowing, two-arm curls, shoulder shrugs, etc. Ankle clips allow more hip and leg exercises too. Apart from the less-than-perfect position for bench presses the only other fault I can think of is the weight increments. The roughly 6.8kg weights provide quite high jumps for most exercises, such as 11, 20, 28, 37, 45, etc. for bench presses. Butterfly's go up in 5kg (for each arm). This is true for all this type of machine though. I like to go up by 0.5kg every week on each exercise but keep the same reps/set. To do this I put smaller weights on the top plate, held on by brackets I glued on. seems to work (so far). To sum up, it's a well constructed gym, of good quality and should provide you with plenty of exercises. If you're new to weights it will be perfect. Hardened body-builders should already know the drawbacks of such a design and will probably need some free weights to better perform rotating arm curls with dumbbells.

This gym is brilliant and exactly what I wanted and it hurts me not to give it 5 stars to be honest but having spent weeks trying to pick the best gym for my needs, if it helps others have the confidence to choose this gym, then being 100% honest is the way forward... some of the pieces arrived scuffed, this is purely aesthetic and has no bearing on how the machine functions and may have been rectified if I had spoken to the supplier but I wanted to build and use it straight away... also, although comprehensive building instructions were provided, there is no details on what exercises can be done with the machine and the manufacturers can't provide one either, but again this isn't a massive issue, if you can't figure that out yourself, maybe you shouldn't own the machine in the first place... lastly the shroud either side of the weights stack is a terrible fit and I'm very seriously considering taking it off, it wobbles and looks awful when in use... but again, this does not effect the performance of the equipment... everything else is 100% positive - it was easy to assemble, I did I on my own and it took about 3 1/2, it's a very attractive piece of kit, is very sturdy and comfortable to use... it's easy to work and very functional... the weight is more than I need and the Pulleys are very smooth... I am very pleased I picked this item and I would recommend it to anyone looking for a serious multi gym for a good price...

I managed to get this for £321 on an offer which was an absolute bargain. The build quality is ok. Good and solid. The welds aren't the neatest and the paint is easily scratched but its not a car its a gym and there to be used not looked at. It takes several hours to build and initially is easier with two people while you get the frame up. The fittings are clearly marked and vac sealed on card board. The instructions are clear enough to follow along with the diagrams. It takes some thinking about at times. For example the second cable that is for the leg extension comes in tact with the ball stopper. You have to pull this apart in order to feed it through the machine. It doesn't tell you in the instructions but is obvious when you are building it. There are two occasions where it tells you to use a particular numbered bolt and at the time you have none left. But again you can work out which one you need. On completing the build I had a pulley left over which was a tad concerning as there are no pulley slots left? I triple checked and it works as it should. I used copper slip grease on all the pulleys when building. You can adjust the tension of the cables so that there is little slack in them. I have used it and its a great machine. Is it the same quality as the £5000 ones you use at the local gym, no its not, but its a quality piece of kit for the home and I highly recommend if you can get it for the price I did. *** word of warning regarding delivery***. Arrow XL delivered this for me. They were an absolute nightmare to deal with. I made the massive mistake of changing the delivery day. DON'T DO IT. They failed to deliver it on the day I requested. They promised delivery the next day and failed AGAIN. I finally got it two days later. They had it in the depot for over 10 days. THAT SAID. The two men that delivered it were fantastic and even brought it into the house. I couldn't praise them enough. I have to say I complained to Amazon and they were very good and supportive.

Bought this as an upgrade to my 25 year old, York 2002. Instructions were easy to follow and it took an evening and a morning to erect. (best with two people initially to support the frame whilst bolting together). However, after explaining to my wife the importance of checking and re-checking the orientation of the parts, I realised after I'd built the frame that the rear foot was backwards! (WHAT A P-LONKER!). Anyway, all good now. I must say that my initial thoughts are very positive; the machine is well-built and very sturdy with a reasonably small footprint. Only 4 stars? Well, I wished they'd thrown in an exercise wallchart like I had with my York 2002.

This is an absolutely amazing piece if kit. The instructions are complete, easy to follow, if you follow each step one by one a doddle to build. It is time consuming, took 6 hours in all. You do need 2 people for literally 30 seconds in the very first instance just to balance while you apply 2 bolts and a clamp. Other than that you just take your time. As soon as you see and feel the parts you know it's high quality. I travel with work lots and use the gyms in the hotels, this is as good as some of the kits there IMO. Everything works well, the machine is whisper quiet. So adaptable. Very few parts are labelled, but, its not required as the instructions show you what is what. All the bolts, washers etc are pre packed and identified so sitting counting is not a requirement. It's a beast of a machine. Some reviews say if you are over 6ft, avoid. I'm 6ft 1 and I fit perfectly. If you are taller, buy some smaller chain for the bars, costs nothing I'm sure. Cannot recommend highly enough. Glad I did not buy cheaper. Get a medium socket set, this will shave an hour off at least... go for it, I'm fussy but this is a stellar purchase. More expensive than some rivals, but you get more than what is offered by some more expensive ones.

The HG5000 is a sturdy home gym. It took me 5 hours on my own to put together. Instructions were good and all parts were present. A few bits are scratched and the weight housing a bit bent but overall the quality is ok. Shame Marcy don’t include any exercise chart as for the amount this costs it would be a nice to include this to maximise its use and value.

Boxes had several dents, tears and punctures on. Main weight housing columns were damaged inside - see picture. No re collection available, I now have to rebox 200+kg of equipment using plastic tie straps ive had to cut to open and send back myself In order for any resolution.

Now built, it’s a great machine. Building it was a NIGHTMARE! Only the screws, nuts etc and 2 other parts were actually numbered, which makes following the instructions particularly challenging.