I had a sliding board thing several years ago- Bayou fitness, I think. I liked it; more importantly, I used it. Unfortunately, it died. After checking prices and doing fairly extensive research on this and the Total Gym, I was pretty sure I needed a Gr8flex. Out of the box, the only issue I had was changing the incline. I had a towel and a small pry bar that released the jam. I'm quite pleased with the purchase, have used it daily since its arrival, and am a fan. Customer service is very responsive- have emailed twice. It comes with ALL the attachments. I start on the lower level and raise the incline as I progress through sets. Changing resistance for a new exercise is very easy, especially compared to my Bowflex Revolution, and the footprint is smaller.

Here are the minor cons. The users manual is"¦ scant? There is no image showing how to connect the leg harness. The exercises shown in the manual, the last three under abs are all labeled as single leg something"¦ when they aren't. There was a bit of rust or dirt on the tower part, but it wiped away easily. The plastic protecting the seat is a pain to remove. Max resistance is 47.5% of body weight plus 50 pounds ( though I am not currently at risk of topping out, AND you can fix one hand, for example, and curl with the other, or wear a weighted vest. A YouTuber also shows adding a separate large resistance band around the squat stand and around the top of the slide board, but I'm pretty sure he's stronger than I am.)

None of the cons should be a warning against purchasing this device. There are multiple videos on YouTube, some for the Gr8flex, which are more helpful than the manual, in my opinion, and some other videos from Total Gym. They are a great resource for additional exercises. The built in resistance bands are awesome. Overall, very well-built product, and I would buy it again. Buyers remorse for this purchase was that I didn't get it sooner.

I'm moving toward getting back in shape as one of my priorities this year, and this is just what I needed.

I've had a Total Gym for years and loved it. After reading/watching many reviews, I made the switch to GR8 Flex, and I am so glad I did. The GR8 Flex is well built and well accessorized to meet every need. I highly recommend the GR8 Flex.

I have been holding off writing this review:

UNBOXING: So when I got the unit; the first thing that I found opening the box was pieces of broken black plastic. These came from the plastic caps that cover ends of various metal tubes and what not of the equipment. After further unboxing it became evident this was a shipping carrier issue not a product issue. Although I do have significant bending of one end of the leg tubes where a cap was broken completely off in shipping; it really has no effect on how the equipment works thus far.

INITIAL SET-UP: I have owned a piece of similar equipment of a certain name brand 20 years ago; I initially was going to spend about $1400 on said name brand until I came across the GR8FLEX while looking for similar types of equipment. Therefore I had some carnal knowledge of how to set this thing up. So being the man that I am; I didn't need no stinking instructions! After about 10 minutes of pondering I was able to unfold and set this thing up in proper fashion without succumbing to the website for help. Although a single sheet or 2 of written instructions would have been nice after unboxing.

FIRST USE: Big Problem! So out of the box the actual noise the seat / slide made was loud. And the ride was less glide and more bumpy. After a week of use I didn't want to use it anymore while my daughter was in her room trying to sleep a floor up and 2 rooms away. That's how loud it got. Plus the bumpiness made laying on the seat unpleasant and annoying to use. That being said; I contacted the seller right away about the seat and caps. Initially they were going to basically replace the whole unit. I told them I was fine with getting some new caps. After further review of the seat/ slide; the rollers seemed to be the main culprit. I contacted the seller again and the put the caps and rollers in the mail ASAP.

WEEK 2: So I haven't used the thing much this week due to the noise and bumpiness. I received the caps and rollers today and promptly installed the new rollers. However; after removing the rollers and discovering that it seems to me (and I am no engineer by any means) that the actual bearings aren't taking most of the load. It appears the bushing between the bearings in the rubber roller is riding on the bolt. This is causing major wear on the pressure side of the bolt. So I ran to the hardware store and bought new bolts and replaced the metal bushings with nylon bushings (which are sloppy but so were the metal ones). I also added a washer at the bolt head to help it spin if necessary in hopes the bolt doesn't wear so quickly. I am happy to say the noise level is down about 90% and the bumpiness is down about 70% thus far only a few exercises in after the roller replacement.

OVERALL: I like the unit with all it's accessories. To be fair; I am a BIG guy and my one concern is the roller assembly is just not quite beefy enough and I will need to replace them again sooner than I want too. I would like to see the rollers re-engineered with beefier bolts and less slop between the bearings / bushings and rubber. I think one beefy bearing with a rubber coating and a thick bolt would be better than the current design (again, I am no engineer).

The exercises are good; if you've used any similar piece of equipment I would say you would be quite happy with this unit in functionality- if you like the other one. For $1000 less and great customer support this far; I think it is well worth the money at this point. To be continued....

While this is a "hefty" piece of equipment, it went together relatively easy (some muscling required and look for the taped holes).
Operates smoothly and seems to be well put together with heavy duty metal and connections.
Good piece of exercise equipment and equal to the nearest competitor at a great price.

Lugging this thing in the house is not very easy. Use a dolly if you can or have another person there to help It's 114 pounds but the box was surprising compact. Setting it up is fairly straightforward with the added hassle of the plastic around the sliding bench that pretty much everyone here has mentioned. I think I used a size 5 allen key wrench to take off the bolts and a #1 screw driver to take off the screws that hold the decorative guard on the bench.
One of the reviews has pictures of mold or something extra under the plastic on the back of the bench and unfortunately mine had the same. There wasn't any scuffed paint or damage to the frame but damn was I disappointed that there was some sort of mold or residue inside the plastic bag. I put on some gloves, a mask, got some vinegar and water and a sponge and slowly wiped it away. I didn't notice a smell other than the new plastic smell and the sponge got 98% of it off. I wiped it again and sprayed some lysol all over the back and wiped the front with some clorox wipes. I'm not an expert and this could be extremely dangerous to do if it is in fact some sort of toxic mold but I haven't suffered any ill effects of doing this and so far it hasn't resurfaced.

Also that plastic guard that also attaches to the bottom of the bench to make it look 'neater' is some of the cheapest plastic I've ever seen. It's really bad. It might look okay but I left it off as it's not adding any support and 'is a possible pinch point'. There is also a plastic film to protect it from being scratched but it might as well be part of the plastic because man is it hard to get off. Not worth it in my opinion. It's going in the trash with the rest of the plastic bags that come with it.

For the actual set up and use of the machine. It's pretty straight forward. It's very sturdy. It's longer when laid out and took up more floor space than I anticipated but nothing a little re-arranging can't fix. It glides smoothly and feels pretty comfortable using it. The cables and handles appear to be a very good quality and I haven't had any issues with adjusting the height or folding it up. I used to have that other brand of machine a long time ago and missed using it and this is definitely worth the price for what you get. The squat pad is massive! The little booklet that has examples of workouts is fine. There's a handful of exercises but not a lot but you can totally find more examples online. There's also a couple that are mislabeled; a 'leg workout' that is clearly a oblique exercise.

All in all I'm pretty pleased with the product and am excited to use it and you pay almost 1/10th of the price you'd pay for the equivalent of the other brand. If anyone can identify the mysterious growth in my picture that would be pretty cool too. I haven't seen any responses from the seller/manufacturer here and couldn't really find anything substantial on google. Just because I didn't get sick (yet) from it doesn't mean someone else won't.