GMWD Leg Extension and Curl Machine for Home Gym

5/5 For Me but 4/5 In General
So I did a lot of research looking for an all in one leg extension and curl machine. The reason I chose this one is because of the hundreds of great reviews and videos and now after owning it for a few months, I would mostly agree with what others say about this unit. Positives: it is pretty sturdy, has really fluid motion which I love, actually has quite a bit of adjustability, the ability to do seated leg curls instead of lying leg curls is huge, feels solid to the touch and looks great! Cons: small plate holder (I put two 45lb plates and ran out of room so if you lift heavy, just know you might have to do single leg extensions/curls), the lower leg pad doesnt rotate so as you extend or curl, it is locked to a single spot on your leg instead of being able to roll up and down slightly like at commercial gyms which means if your leg does slide, it rubs on your skin and rips up leg hair and skin…also, I am 6′ and I barely fit so anyone 6’2″ or taller might have issues with hitting their feet on the ground at some point in the movement.If they had put a longer plate holder, had a rolling leg piece and raised the height of the machine a few inches, this would be an easy 5/5. For me, these dont bother me a ton and for the price I would give it a 5/5 FOR ME but I think in general, it gets a 4/5.

An inexpensive, quality piece of equipment
Shipping was very fast. Took about an hour to put together, instructions were very clear. It’s pretty sturdy for the cost, seems pretty well built. The adjustability on it is pretty good, you can adjust to the point where you don’t hit any real dead spots, meaning there is no resistance. It doesn’t take up a whole lot of space either which is a big bonus. Perfect for leg extensions and seated leg curls. I would definitely recommend if you’re trying to build your home gym on a budget but still want good quality.

Better than expected
Is it the greatest and steadiest, no. Is it well made and am I happy, yes! I was expecting cheap Chinese junk for the price that wiggled, was thin metal, etc. but it’s pretty well made. For me the $$, I’m very pleased. It will do the job. Feels like it takes more room than measurements provided though. Would buy again… of course I just hit it and put it together. Let me put through paces and hopefully my review doesn’t change .

No resistance in the beginning of the rep
The design of this machine and others like it, is flawed. You get no resistance in the beginning of the rep and the end of the rep is too hard to complete. This is due to the plate being affected by gravity differently throughout the arc. When it’s at the bottom it’s easy to move and when the arm reaches 90 degrees it’s difficult to move. I would not recommend anyone to purchase this style of plate loaded leg extension/curl machine. You can somewhat compensate by moving the pin so your rep starts with the plate around 40 degrees and ends around 130 degrees. The max resistance is then in the middle, when the plate swings past 90 degrees the resistance starts to decrease. But at least you don’t get to zero resistance. You can compensate again by adding weight and doing partial reps at the long and short end, but that does add time and decrease the joy of working out.With all that being said about the actual design, this particular machine is very sturdy. It was easy for me to build in about 2 hours. The included instructions were easy to follow. The packaging was adequate to protect the machine from any issues and it is free from scratches and dings. It’s definitely overbuilt and solid and I have big arms and I work out wrists and forearms, and none of the hardware felt flimsy or weak when I torqued it down hard during the build.It would have been nice if the design included a couple of wheels and a handle, so this could easily be moved around, similar to a bench. It’s hard to move without the flimsy rubber feet falling off and potentially marking the floor. I just duct taped the rubber feet on lol.The included spike that’s intended to store extra weight plates only has a 1″ tube, no 2″ adapter was included for that. But the main plate loading bar for your reps does include the 2″ adapter. The weight plate storage area is kinda short/small to be useful for anything but small plates, which doesn’t make sense for a leg machine.I tried doing ab crunches but it feels off balance, like it pitches you forward, and the most resistance you get is when you’re fully crunched over. Not ideal since you really want the resistance at the beginning of a crunch rep when you’re fully stretched. So I won’t be using this for crunches either lol.Return freight shipping was going to be $150+ so I decided to keep this leg machine. I might try tinkering around with attaching it to a cable for resistance instead of a plate. I’ll need to add some pulleys and stuff, maybe a bicycle wheel to move the cable through a circular arc. Call it a “fixer upper” DIY project lol.