Force USA Tandem Tower Review: Single Stack Cable Tower w/ Dual Articulating Arms

Hey guys, this is Michael with the Jungle Gym Reviews. Today we're reviewing the brand new Force USA tandem tower. Single column, single weight stack, dual arm, dual pulley functional trainer, two to one pulley ratio on each functional trainer arm. But then when you use them together, it is a one to one. It looks sleek. It looks mean, but it's extremely functional. And we're going to dive into some of the specifics here.

So let's check it out. I'm here at the Force USA HQ checking out their brand new tandem tower, which is a single stack cable tower, 200 pound weight stack, upgradeable to 300 pounds. It also has dual articulating functional trainer arms, which allow you to adjust the height up and down, in and out, unilateral movements, or connect the two together to do things like heavy lap hold downs and low rows.

I know it has kind of a lot going on here. This is actually two different tandem towers in tandem shown here. So if you see a cross member going to another tower, just know that we're speaking to one single tower.

You can do them in this more functional trainer configuration down the road. But right now, again, our focus is one tower. The tower is the single uprights.

You might have seen in some of the B roll or some of the footage here, because it's connected in this functional trainer configuration, they don't need the standard V bracing feet. When you get yours, the single tower, it will come obviously bolted. It'll look just like this.

So this is how it will fit into your room. And the benefit of this single stack, obviously saving on price because it's only one weight stack, but you still have these two arms in the front that you can move up and down individually, just like they're articulating arms that we've seen on the C20. And FTR has a simple pop pin mechanism that allows it to slide up and down the uprights. Simply grab the pop pin. As I've mentioned, some of the other reviews, because these arms create a little sort of torque lever arm moment here on the uprights, you want to grab two hands and it slides up very effortlessly. On the outside of each, you'll see it actually has a little window so you can see the exact height.

Make sure that both your trolleys on the left and right side match as far as height goes. The fact that the paint on here is not even like a textured flat paint. It's a very matte, actually very smooth, allows for the plastic lining of the cable trolleys to slide a lot smoother up and down the uprights. So whether you want to quickly slide it all the way to the bottom or move it back up to the top, it moves very easily. These articulating arms are excellent because unlike just a single exit point functional trainer trolley, obviously it's got dual trolleys, but you can adjust it laterally. There are five adjustment points in to out and then on the arms themselves, there's four points to adjust the height. In this utmost configuration, you'll see things like lat pull downs and stuff. This is very helpful for when you want to create simply the highest pulling point and this creates, especially for me at six foot two, the tallest exit point for the cables that allows me to do full range of motion because it has two different cable exit points then the expectation is when you do a one to one ratio, you are connecting then via some sort of banana clip adapter, something similar. I've seen other brands have similar versions.

This is forced USA's current version. Basically, you remove the individual handles and now you've taken the two to one ratio on each side. Since you've connected them, this one center pulling point is now a one to one ratio. Great for things like lat pull downs, great for things like low rows, which is actually what this machine is really geared towards because unlike a functional trainer, this allows you to unlock the entire weight stack in a one to one ratio. Speaking to the weight stack, it's 200 pound standard. So 200 pound standard, when you connect this via this banana clip, you are getting 200 pounds, meaning you can do a lat pull downs with 200 pounds. They offer weight stack upgrades. This one is shown with 250 pound weight stack, which is a 50 pound upgrade over the standard 200 pound weight stack. And you can also go all the way up to 300 pound weight stack. Now, that means you can do 300 pound lat pull downs if you're strong enough, belt squats, low rows, it has the low row integrated plate. This single stack cable column is geared specifically towards the heavy single center movements.

The low row foot plate is really nice because it has a couple of different options here. This is really cool because you'll see how far it extends here. It has a bunch of different options so that they know this will accommodate the range of motion for these arms all the way down and accounting for the actual length of the arms in this position, you still get a full range of motion from where your feet are sitting. And now it's not encroaching into your working space for that exercise. And if you don't want to use the low row foot plate or it's in your way for things like lat pull downs or something else, take it off. They include this little storage peg on the back.

Very neat, very nice, very clean. Now you can do things like pull up a bench, put in some other attachments when you do things like lap pull downs. At the time of the release, they don't have a native attachment for you to be able to do lap pull downs, but if it's not out already, you can expect to see things like a lap pull down attachment for this, whether that's a seat, whether that's some leg holders, something to allow you to be able to brace yourself. Because this is a three by three ecosystem as well, the one inch holes, it's basically adult LEGOs, so you can use any other brand, anything that exists outside of forced USA, whether it's a chest support, whether it's a lat seat, that is one super nice thing about three by three and one of the reasons I typically recommend three by three to people. The ability to customize it to the attachments and to the things that you want that fit your training is super high on my personal value add list, besides being the single stack for lap pull down and low rows.

The nice thing about these arms is two things. Again, it articulates up and down. There's height settings for you to go in and out. So if you want to do things, you can do some like narrow profile chest flies. I like to do biasing cable curls.

So you can get a little bit of width with these. When you put them in the outermost configuration, it's about three feet exactly from cable end to cable end. So again, it's narrower than let's say a functional trainer, which is going to be somewhere in the 41, 42, 43 inches, but you do get at least about three feet here to be able to use for creative ways to suit your needs.

And the footprint is still very narrow. Last thing about these articulating arms that make them unique, all of their new cornerstone series have these articulating arms that you actually can lock via this pop pin, lock in a unlocked mode or what I call a free motion mode, which basically instead of this being now in a fixed position left to right, allows it to move in and out till it hits the little exterior stoppers. The cool thing about this is then you can do more dynamic style movements. I'm pretty traditional as far as my hypertrophy training, but if you want to get creative in ways, you can move this pulleys swivel here at the end due to some interior bearings, but now the actual trolley here swivels in and out, which is nice to be able to kind of customize this to suit your training needs. And if you don't want it to free motion, you can lock it in place.

And that's what's so nice about these articulating arms. You get a more side to side width or you allow the ability to move one to one side for something like upright rows or a tricep roll pull down. While the other one can be at the bottom of the trolley for things like bicep curls or flies, et cetera. So basically you can just use this now as sort of like a functional trainer because you have two different arms, two different pulley systems, even though they're using the same weight stack.

So the concept, the idea is very space and cost efficient. By the way, 2499 for the base unit with the 200 pound weight stack. Because it's a single stack, it doesn't take up a whole lot of space at all. And it's about 57 inches wide at the widest points of the triangle. And front to back depth is about 50 inches. The overall height of the tandem towers, about 88 inches.

But if you put the arms in the highest configuration and store them upright, it's about 87 and a half inches. Now as I've mentioned in my past reviews of some of their other cornerstone pieces, like the C20 new Power Rack on one functional trainer, Smith machine, that's like their top of the line gold standard and the FTR functional trainer rack from them. They're all built on a three by three uprights, three inch by three inch with one inch holes, the standard industry standard 11 gauge steel, the similar three by three laser cut numbers, the arms. They do offer this idea of integrated storage. You'll see here at the top, like you've seen on the other machines, this keyhole slot where you can change the little individual pieces to kind of just customize some storage options for you to store things like bars, store things like handles, store things like those banana clip attachments. And that's a really nice option because then you don't have to store them on the floor, on a wall, something like that. This is just one of the small things they've done to really bring that attention to detail to their entire cornerstone line.

Now all things considered for a single stack functional trainer, 200 pound weight stack, I don't know that it's the best value, but as with their whole line here, they're not going to be the cheapest. They're trying to set the standard, how everything looks, how it feels, the quality of life features, how it performs. Everything from the pulley qualities on these, cable ends, the black anodized end caps, all black aesthetic of the uprights, the low row foot plate having not just flat, it's actually angled, which is a little bit better ergonomically when you're sitting.

So you can do seated rows off the bench, let's say. But again, if you're on a budget, if you're looking for, hey, just what's the best bang for buck? Probably is not the machine for you. And this new cornerstone series from Force USA is probably not the machine for you. That's not to say they're not good. They're just very much focusing on being the actual best in almost everything they're doing, which then comes with a higher increase, a premium price. So guys, that's it for today's review of the Force USA brand new tandem tower. As always, if you have any questions or comments, please leave them down below. I'll be happy to answer at least try.

This is Michael from the Jungle Gym Reviews. We'll see you next time. Take it easy. Peace.