I bought the hack squat machine from the Flex NZ online store, but since they don’t have a review system, I’m sharing my thoughts here on the Flex Aus website. The package arrived on a huge pallet in just over a week, and I’m still figuring out what to do with the pallet since I can’t find anywhere to dispose of it.
As for assembly, it was pretty straightforward. There’s a useful YouTube video that walks you through the steps, and I mainly used the instruction manual to match up the screws. I put it together by myself in about 4.5 hours. If you’re doing it solo, you’ll definitely need a couple of chairs to help support the diagonal sled arms, as the trickiest part is lifting the heavy sled and sliding it onto those arms.
The machine is really versatile, letting me do all my leg day exercises. I’ve used it for hack squats, leg presses, standing and seated calf raises, and good mornings (RDLs). I’m 175 cm tall, and I found I couldn’t get a full range of motion with the hack squat, but using a barbell pad between my shoulders and the pads made a big difference. I can almost reach full range with the leg presses.
It has a relatively small footprint, so it fits nicely in my 12 sqm room along with my functional trainer and a small treadmill. The quality is great overall, though it did come with some minor paint chips on the frames. The rollers aren’t linear bearings as advertised, but they run smoothly.
A couple of downsides: I wish there were more stoppers on the safety arms to accommodate different heights, and the foot plates could be a bit larger. The shoulder pads could also be longer for exercises like good mornings or RDLs. The weight horns don’t allow for too many plates, which might be an issue if you’re trying to load up for heavy leg presses.
Overall it's a good machine but may be a little overpriced for an outdated machine with roller bearings.
