K2 Home Gym

I certainly concur with Vance Absher's excellent review of the BodyCraft K2 home gym. This is one serious piece of weight equipment, built with commercial type quality.My machine is about 4 years old and was able to acquire it online including the leg press for about $2,600, so the price has gone up a bit. I also assembled the product myself, and although it seemed at first to be a very daunting task, due to the tremendous amount of equipment, nuts, bolts, pulleys, etc., I found, like Vance that the instructions were easy to understand and everything fit perfectly. I spent about 2 to 3 hours a day during the week and 7 hours on Saturday to finish the work. Believe me, if I could do it anyone who can turn a wrench can do it. It's just time consuming for a novice!Like Vance, I too researched many machines before I made my decision on the K2. It paid off because I have not one bit second guessed my choice. The outstanding quality is evident, everything has a heavy, solid, but smooth feel. You know you have quality when every piece fits perfectly like a jigsaw puzzle.The sheer number of excercises and ways to do many of the excercises is just outstanding. Being able to work the same muscles in different ways is a huge plus. An example would be using the movable arm to do bench presses and then going over to the fixed arm bench press to do the same exercise in a different way. The leg extension is the most comfortable leg extension I've ever used anywhere, including health clubs. This machine will help most anyone reach their fitness goals in a very effective but comfortable way.I can't think of too many downsides, but here are two rather minor nuances: The leather/vinyl cover over the leg extension/squat pads do not fit very well on my machine. They seem to be rather loose fitting, but it does not affect the effectiveness of the exercise. Also, if you use your machine a lot, you will at times have to untangle pulley cables. This may involve taking a pulley off and allowing the cable to untwist. This is similar to a telephone cord getting tangled.In the end, this machine is pure quality through and through. Please, please do not settle for department store stuff, along with gimmicky promotion! I've been through all of that (including bowflex, soloflex, rickety department store gyms) in my 50 years of life. I say save your money and get the best, once!

Let me start by saying that this is an absolute first rate piece of equipment. I'm the type of person who researches a purchase like this to death before actually making it, and I could find no manufacturer of exercise equipment out there with a better reputation than Bodycraft. And get this - when you call their 800 number a HUMAN BEING answers the phone! To me, this is priceless.Also, I put my entire gym together all by myself. My wife did help with discarding the mountain of boxes and plastic packaging that accumulated, but refused to assist with the actual assembly because of her unfounded notion that I'm too much of a perfectionist.Anyway, solo assembly does allow one an intimate familiarity with the unit. Not only was every piece there that was supposed to be there, everything actually fit just like it should. During the whole assembly process (and close examination of each individual part), I could find NO instance where quality appeared to be compromised in any way.I mean - the manufacturer warranties every single piece of the thing for as long as you live, so do the math. And buy it while you're young.So of all the gym's Bodycraft makes, why did I choose the K2? In a word - SQUATS! Everything I've ever learned about fitness tells me that squats are the best single exercise you can do. And that's one exercise that's noticeably absent in most home gyms. Sure, you can do leg curls and extensions, and some even throw in a leg press. But nothing beats squats for total fitness - and this machine allows you to do them to total exhaustion, in total safety.And when you throw in the upper, lower, and mid level cable pulleys - plus the movable arms (an idea borrowed from Bowflex's Revolution), I'd defy anyone to tell me an exercise you can't do on this gym.Okay, now that I've got everything thinking I'm probably a Bodycraft stockholder or something, I'm going to try to pick this thing apart. So here's some bad stuff.First of all, this thing is EXPENSIVE! I know that you get what you pay for, blah blah blah - but $3400 is still a lot of cash to lay out for exercise stuff. That's why you should buy it while you're young so the warranty will be longer, and you'll have more years over which to amortize the cost.Also, it comes in about a gillion boxes - none of which are even remotely light weight or easy to handle. (There's a down side to buying quality stuff - It weighs more.) It could be argued that anyone capable of muscling all these boxes into the assembly area is already in great shape, and probably doesn't need the gym anyway.And if you haven't achieved all your fitness goals getting all the parts in your basement, don't worry. By the time you get everything unpackaged and laid out in some sort of recognizable order, you will have.But alas, the actual assembly process isn't all that bad. The instructions are very concise and easy to follow, and having virtually every piece machined to perfection certainly helps.One word of caution though - leave all the nuts, bolts, washers, etc. that are in labeled bags IN THOSE BAGS! The instructions will reference those parts based on those labels. If you take them out, you'll have to measure each individual bolt to figure out whether or not it's the one you're looking for.Oh... and don't forget to drink lots of fluids.Once assembly is complete though, and you get a little feel for the K2, you'll realize that the lifetime warranty Bodycraft gives you probably isn't ever going to come into play. This is one well built gym!On a somewhat funny side-note, I had ordered Bowflex's DVD a few weeks prior, and they called me about the time I'd finished putting the K2 together to see if I was ready to order a new Bowflex. After explaining that I'd bought a Bodycraft over the Bowflex - because I'd never seen a Bowflex in a commercial gym, etc., the lady thanked my politely and told me whenever I get ready to UPGRADE to a Bowflex, to give them a call.Folks, trust me on this one - If you own this gym, the word "upgrade" isn't even applicable. And if you've endured the assembly process, you ain't gonna be changing nothing for quite awhile!But after living with the K2 for about a month now, I have 3 gripes:1. When you're trying to "guesstimate" the weight you're lifting on the bench press, I don't think they made allowances for the actual weight of the bar assembly you're lifting. For example, 100 lbs. of free weights is considerably lighter than 100 lbs. on the K2.2. I love the isolation of doing "dumbbell presses" on the cable arms, and find the little balls on the ends of the cables that rest against the pulley don't float like they do on cheaper machines. These things seem to want to rake across my arms just north of the elbows causing annoying little bruises.3. There's a little feeder pulley on the end of each movable arm that doesn't seem to be of the same quality of the other pulleys. Hence, when the cable contacts this pulley, it makes a slight noise it doesn't otherwise make. I know that no one other than someone like me would probably even notice this, but it bothers me since it seems to be about the only flaw on an otherwise really well thought out machine.In summary, if you're looking for a commercial quality gym for the home, you've got about 10' X 12' of good solid floor space, and $3,400 to invest in your future health, I can't imagine investing it more wisely.And if you happen to live in the Cincinnati, OH area, check out Exercise & Leisure Co. They're a great bunch of guys, match whatever price you'll find online, and they'll deliver it AND even put it together for you if you don't live too far away.

I researched long & hard before committing to the K2. I don't regret this purchase at all. It has a fluidity to every movement that its competitors could not seem to match. It also is very sturdy and feels like it will last forever. The layout makes it very easy to use. I added a (non-Bodycraft) curling bench to the middle "V", and with this addition the K2 covers every possible exercise. The weight is far more than I could ever lift. For most exercises I don't exceed the first third of the stack. I don't really see a downside to this machine. Well, maybe one: the seated row is not ideal, as you have to sit on the floor and put your feet against the metal plates. But this is only a very minor gripe, and is well worth the intelligent design and quality of the remainder of the machine. By the way, I have had my K2 for about 6 years...I bought it in the first few months it was released, and it has held up very well, including being moved into a new house. It still feels brand new. Thanks Bodycraft!