http://www.goingalltheweigh.com

Highly recommend it., October 17, 2011

Summary

Pros:

* Very sturdy and well built;

* Many different exercises;

* The adjustable bench is useful for sit-ups and dumbbells. It is also helpful for my kids to access the pull-up bar.

Cons:

* The push-up handles really should be on the vertical knee raise side so that we do not have to move the bench every time when we want to do push-ups.

* The assembly process was made unnecessarily tedious by putting all the bolts/nuts in one big plastic bag – it would be much easier if the manufacturer separates the five different bolts/nuts into labeled plastic bags, a common practice most manufacturers do. Of course this is only a one time problem when you put it together.

Overall I am extremely happy with the item. I think this will take over the Stamina 50-1690 as the top seller in the category within the next few years, especially if the manufacturer “fixes” the two problems above.

Background

I read through the comments of most of the popular power towers (stand-alone pull-up bars) at Amazon and then decided on this one because of its multi-functionality. I’m a reasonably handy person and have assembled quite some home furniture/equipment (but not handy enough to build my own house).

I usually buy stuff from Amazon. But I bought this item (for a slightly higher price) from a local store in case I wanted to return it if it was not what I had expected – it turns out I do not need that insurance policy after all.

Detailed Comments

The PDF version of the manual is available from the manufacturer web page:

[...]

I encourage you to give it a quick read before your purchase. This will give you a rough idea what to expect.

Stamina 50-1750 is essentially 50-1700 plus the adjustable bench.

The height is about 85 inches. If you have low ceiling, make sure you measure your room. Ideally you want to have at least one head room above the pull-up bar (since your head will stick out above the pull-up bar). This tower takes up more space than Stamina 50-1690. If you live in a small apartment, you may want to buy something smaller.

The adjustable bench is useful to do sit-ups or dumbbells. My kids also use the bench to access the pull-up bar. It wobbles a little when doing sit-ups quickly. I suppose that is not unexpected since the bench is adjustable (so it cannot be completely tied down).

It is solidly built and heavy (a good thing for sturdiness). There are many exercises you can do with it.

In this model you have to move the bench to do push-ups, a major pain. The manufacturer should add two push-up handles on the vertical knee raise side so we do not have to fold the bench every time when we do push-ups. My guess is that this design was inherited from Model 50-1700, in which there is no bench. Adding push-up handles on the VKR side would also give users more head room when doing push-ups so that we do not feel like the our heads will hit the foam support bar because there is a longer distance on the VKR side.

It took me about two or three hours to put it together all by myself (much of the time was wasted on figuring out which bolt was the right one – more on this later). If you have a second person to help you with the extend arms for about five or ten minutes, it helps a lot. But at the time I was by myself and didn’t want to wait.

The assembly process was made unnecessarily tedious by putting all the bolts/nuts in one big plastic bag – it would be much easier if the manufacturer separates the five different bolts/nuts into labeled plastic bags, a common practice most manufacturers do. I constantly had to compare different bolts/nuts to make sure I used the corrrect ones – we shouldn’t have to do that.

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Good Product for Home, August 20, 2011

Built with solid matel. Good quality overall. Assembly instructions and illustrations are not easy to follow. Be careful when assembling same diameters of screws with different lengths. It is very easy to use the shorter ones when in fact the longer ones are needed. You can put it together in about 2-3 hours by yourself. Have a helper could make the assebly quicker.

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