Force USA C20: All-In-One Functional Trainer Review (NEXT-GEN Power Rack)

Hey guys, this is Michael with the Jungle Gym Reviews. We're gonna take an up-close look with the C20 Functional Trainer all-in-one Power Rack from ForceUSA. This is a brand new designed 3x3 Rack.

The industry standard 11 gauge steel. It's a Power Rack. It's a functional trainer cable system and it's a lot more than that. Articulating arms, Smith machine, 1 to 1 cable ratio, 2 to 1 cable ratio, all sorts of unique spotter arms, J cups, all nice touch, aesthetic design, functionality.

They didn't skip out on anything and we're gonna take a deep dive, so let's check it out. This is meant to be the top of the line all-in-one solution for your home gym needs and they didn't spare pretty much any expense and any design decision. Their goal with the rack, with the system, with this design is that it is a cornerstone of your gym, meaning that this is the centerpiece, this is what you start with and everything else comes from there. The thing that really makes this unique and this is very, I would say modern up-to-date with the way the industry is going with the functional trainers is these articulating arms. What this basically is is it's a functional trainer mounted to a Power Rack, meaning that just like a functional trainer, it has a trolley, it has a cable system attached to it. What makes this unique is that it is articulating, meaning that it can move up and down in and out.

So there's a pop in here that allows the up and down adjustments and as I mentioned in to out, they have one, two, three, four, five angle adjustments left to right, four angle adjustments up and down. For simulating things like a functional trainer that has a wider profile than a typical just Power Rack does, but now you have a full-width functional trainer which completely changes the feel versus just a typical Power Rack trolley system. Articulating arms, really cool. Again, you can put them to the inside completely if you wanted to use cables to do things like, you know, center-mounted individual lat pulldowns or when you move these arms all the way to the bottom, you can use them in a like a closed grip row configuration or stand over it and do curls. So there's just a lot of unique possibilities that the articulating arms, the left to right just gives you, you know, you want it a little higher, you want it to start a movement to start super high, a little bit outside the Power Rack width, you have that opportunity to do so.

When you want to work out with multiple people, people can use different stations, do different exercises, start high, start low, depending on their height, depending on their preference, depending on the movement that they're doing. The other thing about this is this pop pin right here. So this obviously is the pop pin that changes the locking from in to out, but if you get real close, you'll see there's a little detent that I noticed at home gym con.

This basically keeps the pop pin from fully locking. Now, this is a free motion 180 degree left to right articulating arm. So now you can do like dynamic style movements. I personally don't do too many of these in my training, so don't make fun of me. But if you want to do something where you're doing like a some sort of twist is literally just scratching the surface of basically what these can do and what you can then do with these in your training.

And if you don't care about that, lock it in normally and this functions just as well as any of the other articulating arms on the market right now. First, you'll see the laser cut numbers and a little cutout showing you what height you're at so that you can match both sides together. Also, this handle is on the inside. I personally like them on the inside because then I can, you know, adjust one down to the height I want, turn around, do the other one right here. However, depending on what you're doing, that could potentially get in the way.

If you have these too low, you're trying to do things like barbell bench or Smith machine. So they do have the option that this can basically, when you first install this, be mounted 180 degrees. So outside for the handles or inside for the handles, the actual sliding mechanism, it's just a some sort of plastic sleeve, which I have zero problem with. And eventually over time, what you'll see is a little bit of wear and tear on the rack. It slides pretty effortlessly up and down.

The arms aren't as heavy as some of the other options I've tried, like the GetRx tornado arms, but you still do have to use two hands when you move these because of physics, friction, gravity. So you can do it like this. I wouldn't recommend that because you're basically kind of torquing this mounting bracket against the rack. So what you should do is take both hands, grab the arm, slide it up and down, and it's very simple. Again, grab one side all the way down. You want to move it in and out, up and down for any cables, rows, anything you want to do.

Same thing, then it goes again, both hands all the way up out of the way. So each articulating arm has its own separate weight stack that you'll see in the back behind this nice shroud. The weight stack shown here is 300 pounds, but by default it will come with a 200 pound weight stack and have additions, options to upgrade another 50 pounds and another 50 pounds. So you can do the base 200 pounds, you can do 250 or 300 depending on the package you get.

Everything here from these magnetic weight selector pins with the F Force USA logo to everything else will show here. Again, I mentioned is either well designed aesthetically just for looks because this is their new top of the line or it's very functional. You'll see a lot of storage and stuff. There's actually storage pegs built into the shroud, but you can move around and basically choose how you want to move some of the storage and attachments. And then as you move to the center, you'll see this additional keyhole pegboard storage. So between the shrouds and this, you can store attachments, you can store collars, and it's just really well thought out with the shelves, the storage for space they already are using as far as the frame. And that's really their whole thing here is like design with a purpose. And you could definitely see that in almost every single aspect that they're doing here.

As an engineer, I really, really appreciate some of the attention to detail and everything that goes into it. Now the weight stacks themselves for each side are a two to one cable ratio. If you want to go in between the 10 pound weight plates, this is the half slash five pound adder weight. So it's like I've reviewed in the past on the wrap areas has something similar and you'll see this on other systems where basically just locks this at the top out of the way so you don't have a separate five pound plate laying around that you have to store. So now it has five pounds engaged. So you don't want that five pound adder weight.

All you do is just slide it back to the top, lock it in. And now you're just at the 10 pound increments. The functional trainers front trolleys here are two to one.

So if I have 50 pounds selected, I'll feel 25 pounds here. Same goes for both sides. Up top here, you will see two more cable exits connected to each side of the functional trainer.

Right side, left side. These are how you do lat pull downs, center round on top, and the low rows, you'll see with the low row foot plate, there's a little banana connector. Put this in lap bar attachment. And now you are doing lap pull downs combining the weight of both weight stacks. On the bottom, as we mentioned, low row foot plate, you'll see this low row foot plate is angled. I actually really like this design, because then you could do flat seated rows from the ground or use this higher angle if you want to pull up a bench and make it feel more like the low rows that you see at the gym where your feet are actually a little bit lower than where your butt is sitting.

Obviously, it adjusts front to back in and out. Now the one thing to know about connectors like this, this banana clip connector effectively drops the height of this pulley carabiners by anywhere from three to four inches. So if you want, if you're taller and want that full stretch at the top, you might need to find a way to either take this banana clip off, which is what I did. And now I've saved myself three or four inches of height, which then allows me to get a full range of motion. I talked to Forest USA, they said they're working on something exactly for this, four taller people.

So I'm guessing that people up to six, four, six, five will have no problem once they come up with a little bit better solution to mitigate some of the height lost here. One of my other favorite things here is this blackout Smith bar. The knurling on here is what I consider pretty perfect for a Smith bar. Now I don't have a caliper and I don't think they've released specs yet, but this is pretty much a normal power bar diameter. So I'm guessing either 28.5, actually it doesn't feel like 20.5. It feels like a 29 millimeter power bar.

I would say medium volcano knurling, but it's not super peaky. So it just gives you a very solid grip. It's not as like passive as a traditional Smith bar. And it's not as big as like a commercial Smith bar, but I really liked it.

I think their goal was to make it feel like a barbell. The cool thing about this is the latching locking system is actually integrated into the exact same profile as the three by three posts. That way you don't lose any interior clearance, locking position pretty much every like two and a half, three inches. And because it goes the full length of the three by three posts, you can go all the way to the top, six, two. I have clearance to stand in here and not hit my head, which is a complaint of mine almost for every other Smith machine with the little latching hook mechanism.

The other cool thing they've thought of are the integrated safety spotters. Again, into this square ish profile that's got ball bearings, linear bearings inside. So it slides.

This had a little metal knurled knob here, which both serves as the grip. Also, as you move it up, is exactly how you latch it into position. And what happens is when the Smith trolley slides all the way down, it will rest on those bumpers.

We'll hit this rubber stopper and now your Smith bar can't go any lower. It's low profile. So when you move it all the way down to the ground, then you can get a pretty good low range of motion, which is always the other issue with integrated Smith bars as well.

Very close to what a barbell position would be, maybe an inch or so higher on me, meaning that I can almost deadlift on here with the exact same as I would a barbell from the floor. Same thing then goes for RDLs and rows. I can get a full range of motion all the way down, prevent over rows.

And then same thing with RDLs or something similar. The other big cool brand cornerstone features you'll see here are the spotter arms with these very lightly knurled integrated locking knobs. You'll see that there's actually an internal groove there. And basically what this does is once you put this through the three by three post and one inch hole, that groove is now holding onto the bottom lip of this plate so that this actually can't jump out or twist out left to right at all. So it's basically like its own secondary locking mechanism without having to do anything extra. And you actually have to remember, okay, nope, I got to lift a little bit of weight off.

I got to pull this out. They want the tolerance tight. They want it secure, but this secondary locking mechanism, it's so simple, but it's so functional. The J-Cups have the exact same secondary locking mechanism. So that way your J-Cups don't swing in and out, depending on when you're putting on plates or moving the barbell left to right at all.

It has the same integrated knurled knob. So you have to lift up. UHMW or something similar on all four sides. They have weight horns for weight plates built in here. You can put on the side. You could put on the back or like I'm about to do here, I want these spotter arms a little bit out of my way. So I'm just going to put those on the back of the rack. This is just one of the places you can store them. And that's what's great about three by three racks in general.

Speaking to the outside here, have their magnetic band pegs, which they have the storage for on the bottom. But again, because these are one inch, they can go anywhere on a three by three rack. So if you want to use those as handles, if you want to use those as traditional band pegs, do bands off the front of the rack anywhere else, you can definitely do that. The inside of the rack also has these band pegs mounted on the top weight plate for you to be able to put on bands outside if you want to flip one out and or inside.

This is another one that I told them I would even like to buy separately, which is a 360 degree landmine and two integrated magnets with this magnetic receiver. So when you're not using it, it just hangs out there. Some sort of plastic sleeve on the inside. So doesn't scratch your barbell. These multi-grip pull up bars actually are an attachment themselves that come with knurled knobs that have again, some sort of plastic thermal plastic interior. So doesn't scratch your rack or your attachments, lightly knurled threaded so that you quickly can take this, move it around, wanna move it wider, you can move it wider, wanna move it inside, move it inside. For whatever reason, you wanna get them completely out of the way and store them elsewhere, you can do that.

But everything you see here is included. These really long, I don't know, looks like 16 inch dip handles, 36, no, 38, 40, these are big, these are big dip handles. You can use them for pull ups if you wanna put, you know, both of these knurled ones closer. Hey, I actually wanna use the outside of the rack to do dips on, bring both over and basically use this as a dip station, depending on your weight horn orientation.

Now, one of the other hugely unique, if not potentially one of the most valuable features about this, in addition to the other cool design and or value add features, is going to be this guy. Right here, might wonder what that is, some sort of sleeve receptacle, leg press, hack squat, sliding bench. You can attach their sliding bench to this, there's a leg press plate, hack squat plate that attaches to this. The bench itself is a leg press and hack squat, meaning that you sit on the bench, depending on the ankles of the bench or how you have it configured, using the integrated weight of the weight stacks, connected to the low row cables, which are connected to the sliding bench, and then therefore allows you to do, hack squat, leg press. Now, you have just added a two in one machine to your already multiple in one, power rack and cable system. That is pretty much one of a kind as far as I know, and extremely valuable because, leg press, hack squats are so hard to integrate into a home gym because of the footprint.

So this sliding bench and any future sliding benches will be compatible with the new C20 as well. As far as how well it works, it works extremely well. Everything is very smooth, the center mount and pulleys to the top, to the functional trainer stacks. The Smith machine feels extremely solid, there's no play left or right. The range of motion on the Smith machine is great. Again, the foot plate adjustments here, the built-in storage here, everything is very functional.

Everything works very well as intended. This is definitely an expensive three by three, power rack, functional trainer, all in one Smith machine system. But when you start to think about it and you break that down compared to other similar options as far as functionality and the overall quality, there is not as much as a gap. If any at all that you may think, take a RepAries for example, that I've recently done a review on on the channel, that's about $3,000 for just the Aries system at the cheapest price, plus then add a three by three PR4000 or PR5000 power rack. Now you're talking about at a minimum $4,042, $4,300 or more, depending on your configuration and attachments. Go one further to say, Rep doesn't include a Smith machine with that.

And at a minimum that'll bring it $5,500 or so. Forced USA now allows you to integrate this with their sliding bench. So then you can not only do the same things you can do on any other cable system, now you can actually do leg press in your power rack as well, the head of the game on functionality, but also the overall design, the quality, the aesthetics, everything we've mentioned before, $6,000 for this, pretty much beats anyone on price per value when you factor all of those things in together.

They have purposely set them apart as far as design and obviously the functionality and then therefore the pricing to be the premium, the industry leader option, the top of the line, the one to beat. This is truly the next gen of home gym equipment that we have right now. So guys, that's it for this review and initial impressions of the forced USA C20, all in one functional trainer, power rack and much more. This thing is excellent quality. Michael with the Jumbo Gym Reviews. We'll see you next time. Take it easy, peace.