Weider Flex CTS Home Gym

Perfect quarantine gym bench for an upstairs two bedroom apartment to work out with the resistance bands and I added two small hand weights I’ve got my own home gym membership going on

THE ENTIRE EQUIPMENT IS EXTREMELY WOBBLING AFTER PROPER ASSEMBLY, WASTE OF YOU HARD-EARNED MONEY. USELESS FOR LEG CURLS, THE BASE IS JUST SO UNSTABLE! COULD NOT PERFORM ANY EXERCISE SO IT'S JUST IN MY LIVING ROOM---USELESS.

The asembly instructions gloss over the most difficult part, which is attaching the bench to the tower-requires two persons. The bands provide about 1/2 of their labelled resistance. You can do other exercises not shown in the manual with just a little thought ( sit facing the tower for curls)

I myself am a person who just likes being in shape. I don't have a particular care how it is done. Like many others, I went searching during the quarantine for an exercise item since my gym was closed. I did a little research on it and decided to take a shot because, why not? Anything is better than nothing.I can only speak for myself, but assembly was easy for me. It took me about 90 minutes put it together. I have no craftsman or skilled assembly experience and put it together in my living room. I made some mistakes, but none that were un-rectifiable.Let me start by saying some of the complaints about it are warranted. The less stable you are in your exercise, the less stable the machine is. I noticed this most with the chest press. However, it isn't like the machine is falling apart. The range of motion is limited, but that should be obvious. You are using bands held in place at 2 ends. Any person who uses bands should already know 20-30% of the motion goes to waste whenever you use resistance bands. On exercises like the leg extensions, it is more noticeable, but again should be expected. The machine does have a "band limit" on each exercise, however, I (and probably others) treat this as more of a suggestion than a rule.Assembled, this item is about 90-100 lbs. Not too heavy, but it is a little awkward. The bench folds up to compact the item. If you have a place you can set it and leave it alone, I would recommend that. Myself, I live in an apartment, so I fold it up and take it in and out of my storage closet.For me, I like it more than I don't. Some exercises (shoulder press, chest press, push downs) are better than others (leg curls/extensions, chest flys). And they missed an opportunity to add a little more height to make a lat pulldown exercise. Depending on height you may be able to do some unofficial exercises. I'm taller ( 6'2") so I can do shoulder shrugs on the machine. Depending on how much room you have around the bench you can also do core exercises like leg lifts, sit-ups, windshield wipers, etc. Whatever you can think of.As I mentioned earlier, if you are a beginner or novice in exercising, someone who can create their own workouts, or just a person who has no specific care about the way they apply resistance training (like me), then this will work for you. I got this item for just under 200 at the time which I think is worth it. If you can afford more expensive, then by all means, I recommend you do. But for what I could get for my money at the time in the location I am at, I have no complaints really.BONUS: If you are elderly I definitely recommend this because of the ease of access and little strain on the joints. If you participate in rehab from injury, I recommend this for the same reasons.

I was mainly interested in the bench press and the flies on this machine, I haven't used the leg section of it, as far as the weights, there's enough for me, but the bench press felt more like 40lb when I added 180lb in the bands. I had ordered before a blue band 75-175lb pull up assist band at about $23 on Ebay, I used it on the weider flex cts, by wrapping it under the bench and hooked them onto the bench press, with the 180lb I could hardly move it, when i took off the 180lb black bands, and only used the blue pull up Assist band the excercise felt really good for me as far as the weight goes (still almost too heavy), I also tried my other bands with the handles (also got them for about $15 on Ebay) hooking them into machine underneath, and in the front of the machine, and I was able to do rows, arm curls, punches, sort of like you would see with the total gym, by sitting on the edge of the bench.

The resistance is definitely NOT 200lbs. It only comes with 6 and it costs $99 to get an extra set of 50lbs resistance bands. That's half the cost of the whole product.