CORTEX SM-25 6-In-1 Power Rack With Smith & Cable Machine

Shipping was brilliant. The gentleman was wonderful and very helpful in getting it off. My husband assembled it, and everything worked and looked great.

Recieved the pack last weekend, 2 half days for a single person yo put it together, between meetings and mum duties, only needed a 2nd person for one part of the build. I section for the fully was a little off and required to ve widened to get the wheel in. Quality of the parts is fantastic for a home gym, it really elevates the space it's in.

SM25 6 in 1 power rack Review and Assembly tips I was quoted $600 to assemble the machine, but I declined thinking I could do it myself as long as the instructions made sense. Although most of the instructions was ok, certain parts were frustratingly vague. I can only say thank you to David from the Boronia outlet for being patient with me and giving me a few tips along the way. Assembly took me 2 weeks to do (working full time with a family stuff slotted in between). If I was to do it again, I could probably finish it in 2 days knowing what I know now. Here are some tips that hopefully would help others in a similar situation. 1. Download the latest manual from their website. You will find it at the bottom of the product information page. Do not Google it, it might end up with a manual for a different version. It might look the same, but it isn't. Trust me. 2. Assembly is a 2 person job for certain parts. I really am amazed if David can do it by himself, but for certain steps it would be a lot easier and maybe safer if someone was holding part A steady whilst you are trying to fix on part B and C etc... 3. Think of the best position to put the machine in the room. It is important you don't have it too close to a wall, as a final part requires you to slip on a sleeve to the end of the smith bar and you could find yourself like me where you don't have enough room to slip it on and the machine is already loaded up so it is not easy to reposition! I had to reverse a few steps to partially remove the smith bar in order to put on the sleeve. 3. There are a lot of bolts to tighten. Best to have a good socket wrench set rather than relying on the included basic tools. 4. When installing the feet to the back beam, make sure everything is square and equal distance. Measure the distance between the front of the legs and the back of the legs to make sure they are the same. It will become very hard to adjust later when loaded with weights. I found I couldn't install the front top beam later because the bottom feet were not in a perfectly square position. 5. There is an earlier step where you rest the weight stack rods onto the bottom legs. They kind of dangle there as they fit loosely and there is nothing securing them at the top yet. You load the weights on the rods and hope it balances without tipping over. If it tips, you can expect to see some deformation in the hole where the rod slots into. Later you are meant to slot the other ends of these rods into the beam at the top. I was surprised to see that the rods were 30mm too short to slot in at the top. I was told you have to lift up the rods so they are not actually touching the base anymore in order to slot them in at the top. You then tighten the grub **** at the top so the rods are essentially hanging from the top. 6. The part involves fitting the smith bar gave me the most trouble and I was stuck on this for over a week. The instructions need a lot of improvement. For a start, Part 27 "Smith Slider" are 2 different parts. They are not the same. one has a little stopper arm on it and needs to be fitted differently to the other. The stopper arms needs to be at the top. It will not work if the slider is fitted upside down and the stopper is at the bottom. 7. There is no guidance on how far in the smith slider should be positioned on the smith bar. This initially caused an issue where one hook never sat flush to the peg. You have to centre the sliders until they both roughly sit equally on the peg. Also later steps like putting on the front top beam might also help square things up and help the hooks sit better. Overall I am happy with the machine for the price. I guess if I paid for a similar set up costing 5 times as much I would might had had less problems. Who know... I am deducting one star for the bad instructions and not every part being numbered. Some were numbered and some where not...surely not that hard to put a number sticker on the remaining parts. 2 of the upper steel boards came with scratches to them and one of the pins had rust on the end. I am still deliberating whether to raise a warranty claim to get these parts replaced. Probably not at this stage as I need to get on with other things. Hope this is helps others.

Amazing product. Works perfectly and it looks great.

The set is great and was pretty straightforward to put together. Our only problem was the screws werent labeled for sizing so we had to measure them before using to make sure we were using the correct ones when building initially. Some of the photos in the manual showed the incorrect orientation of parts, so was a little bit of messing around. Only needed 2 tools for the whole build

Just assembled this for my son . The instructions are pathetic. The images are blurry and the same instructions where doubled up . Parts where not labelled and some where labelled incorrectly. The parts that where plasma cutted where not deburred before powder coating. Some parts where not welded together straight some parts where not bent straight. Some parts should be made out of a better grade if steel to last. Pulleys are very cheap and I cannot see them lasting extended period of time. I have evaluated this as a metal fabrication point of view. I can see how I can repair these items in the future being a fabricator buy trade. A consumer should never have to plan how to repair a brand new item in this case I have. The proportions of this item are small but due to my son's height of 178 cm it works good . For taller people I think they may be disappointed. The function does as described. I think if they spent $250 more on the materials and charged accordingly the product would be perfect.

Its pretty good, no legitimate complaints. I was worried for the price it would be a little flimsy but so far so good. I had a nut that didnt **** and they sent me a replacement reasonably quickly. Made a couple of mistakes assembling it, the instructions could be a little better and some numbering and quantities on the screws would have been really helpful, but overall it wasnt particularly difficult. The weight isnt enough for seated rows or pull downs, so Im doing bent over rows with the smith machine and single arm pull downs. The smith machine seems fine, doing the leg press in reverse as the angle on the foot attachment doesnt feel quite right to control heavy weight. Overall absolutely no regrets, particularly for the price, and very satisfied with the quick response to a part issue

Firstly can I say, lifespan customise service and product are to a good standard I would recommend these products to other people. BUT, the instructions that are provided are very poor, they are hard to read, nothing in the boxes are labelled, it felt like that all the parts where just dumped in with little care. If I could recommend that lifespan have another look at the instructions and see it from a customer point of view. Thanks

Easy to set up. Solid build. But need few changes to it such as when I sit to do the bench press, my elbows touches the side metal. Due to that I have to always make sure my elbows are abit more in. Can't do wide bench presses. Also purchased the chest fly upgrade and had to return it back as while purchasing there weren't any proper picture or instructions on how much more space needed to attach it. When took it out the box then only realised needed that extra space which I didn't have. But overall customer service was good and manage to return back the item.

Ok, seriously impressed with this. Wasn't expecting a whole lot for the price to be fair, but the quality of the build and ease of putting this together makes it not just excellent value for money but a fantastic piece of equipment in it's own right. Went together so easy (yes I'm a little handy, instructions aren't great but diagrams are pretty good). What I really like is that I feel like I can use it with full confidence. Everything works, everything fits, its smooth and its stable. 10/10 would recommend.