The $800 Pendulum Squat Machine: GMWD Plate Loaded PS01 Review

Hey guys, this is Michael with the Jungle Gym Reviews. Today we're reviewing the GMWD PS01 Pendulum Squat. This is a plate-loaded pendulum squat, fully bolt-together option, meaning that it is both cost-effective, but still retains a lot of the same features and quality of life that most people need. It's fairly compact, great range of motion, and best of all, affordable. So let's see what I think about spending $800 on a standalone plate-loaded pendulum squat machine.

Let's check it out. So pendulum squat machines are always a pretty hard ask for home gyms, although they're one of my personal favorite leg machines, strictly because they allow you to get a really deep range of motion, and it's a lot less linear than, let's say, like a hack squat or leg press, which only goes in one plane of motion. So it takes some of that spinal load off and allows you to get kind of down on this arched path rather than just linear. Now, before I get into the video, if you could quickly hit that subscribe button below, if you haven't already, it's going to continue to help us grow the channel and make sure you get notified when we post two times a week reviews throughout the rest of 2025 and next year. As always, if you're interested in this after the review, please check out the affiliate link in the description below.

I've reviewed other pieces of equipment from GMWD on their channel. They're an import company that specializes particularly in plate-loaded equipment, A, but B, it's all bolt together, meaning two things. One, it's cost-effective because they can ship it in smaller packages.

I think this one came in like three big boxes, which means you save on shipping, which means they can keep the overall cost lower. And because it's not welded, it's technically maybe a little bit less stable. But I would argue for most people, that's actually a pro again because of the fact you can take it inside because you can assemble it kind of wherever in the gym. And they've made this very much for a specific audience. And I would say not so much people who are going to be massing it out with weight plates, but for home gym owners, people like me who want an added leg accessory and don't want to break the bank. And that's really what their whole brand is geared towards. We've reviewed their best option for the leg press and hack squad.

I think it's called the LHL1 in the past. It was okay. It's decent. That one, I don't know if I particularly thought was worth it for the price compared to others. However, this one, there are less options for pendulum squats.

I think this is one of the best value, if not the best value one that exists right now. But I'm going to go into what exactly that means and kind of qualify and quantify that as the review goes on. So how this works, there's an open face side just like this. You get in, use this little rubber grip both as a entry to hold on to to get in. What it does is there's a little latch and locking mechanism here that this rotates on. So it rotates, I don't know, maybe about 10 or 15 degrees.

And this little hook is what locks the entire arm or unlocks it for when you're ready to do the movement. Two stopper heights, stopper height one, twist the handle, come down, stopper height two. Now I'm six foot two, so I definitely use stopper height one. And it would actually probably even prefer stopper height three up here if it were a little taller. I'll take this just fine.

So this is the starting position. Again, you kind of lift a little bit of the tension up, twist the rubber handle. And now you are freely unlocked to move because it moves in the arc, the pendulum, a little bit down and back and in. And I'm able to get this like super deep range of motion. And I'm not very, what I would say like flexible and like my ankles or anything, but I literally can come down here to my butt is touching my heels. And I think that is like the super benefit of this machine is the most comfortable range of motion, especially for people like me who are a little bit taller and lengthier. But honestly, for most people, because it kind of just naturally goes with your spine curve and how your butt and your knees and your legs all kind of tuck and fold together.

So this like down and back and in feels really good. And all you have to do then is basically just dial in the foot plate, which we'll talk about here in a second. It's an adjustable angle foot plate. You just dial that into like the right angle for you.

And you're good to go. This is about what I like. For me, as far as again, range of motion, it's comfortable on my ankles, comfortable on my knees. This is one of the few leg machines that does not hurt ankles, knees, anything like that. It just feels very natural and very smooth. The strength curve feels very natural and very smooth. I find that's the case on most pendulum squats, but I can attest the fact that this one feels just as good here.

As I mentioned, the adjustable foot plate is kind of what makes this suitable to you, your needs. It's going to be kind of a little bit difficult to see here. There's like a locking and threaded pop in here. So you have to unthread it quite a bit.

I'm trying to do this while I can't see you pull it out. And so you have a couple of different heights. There's a little stopper.

So we'll actually let it go any more than that. There's 30 degrees. Next one up, 35. Next one up, 40.

I like it at 40, which is the most high position. And after you get it in the height you want, you really want to thread it in. It's got like maybe 10 turns of threads, and then it should be like rock solid.

So now you know, there's a pop pin in there, and then you thread it all the way down. It's not going anywhere. The one thing about this compared to more expensive options, the foot plate does not move front to back or slide at all. Just the angle. So you get three different angles, and that's it. However, I find that's more than adequate to actually use because rather than the footboard sliding in and out, all you do is just change where your foot position is higher or lower on the platform. So you can go a little bit higher if you want it farther away. Like this one, my knees are almost completely locked out, which is a little bit too high for me. So I personally, somewhere around here is like where I can engage my core.

It feels just like just the same as if I were to like be, you know, getting a bar off that rack, that little slight knee bend. And that's good enough for me. And I'm 6'2", so I imagine taller people could, you know, walk up the pad a little more if they want. So I think there's plenty of room for users of different heights. Now, the other thing, adjustment wise is going to be the safety stopper in the back. This is nice so that you don't ever get stuck completely down at the bottom.

Same as the front footboard, this threaded pop pin. You can adjust the different heights. I honestly, this goes really low. You saw how deep I was squatting. I barely touched this at the bottom of the hole. So just know you have, what was that, three more positions, one, two, three, that you can even go lower.

Definitely suitable for users of all heights. We're gonna leave that there in my favorite position. Now, in order to kind of counterbalance this whole thing, to make sure you don't get stuck, they have these springs that they have a little cover for, which I actually think I can pick up here. There's just some springs, which is like a counterbalance or like a counter load to the actual pendulum. So it's a little bit of an assistive measure to basically not have your entire weight, kind of be like a one-sided seesaw over here and you never be able to get up. So that's what those springs are for.

The actual like construction and weight of everything, the steel itself, I'm not sure of the gauge, but it's definitely thick enough to feel safe and supportive. I will say though, this machine in general has like a higher center of gravity. So, you know, over here, where you're far away from all the brackets and braces, you're obviously gonna get a little more wobble, especially now when you're unloaded. When you have plates on, everything's a little bit centered. So as far as the loading then, how you load it is these two weight horns here on the back.

They're only about nine, nine and a half inches long. On their website, it says the weight capacity of this thing is 800 pounds. I don't know that I'd recommend 800 pounds on here, but to be quite frank, if you're squatting 800 pounds and or looking to pendulum squat 800 pounds, you want the safety and stability of something more expensive. This machine actually makes it really challenging. So you don't have to load a whole lot of weight on here for it to be effective. Because of the range of motion, I think, like the range of motion increase compared to a squat, the fact you can go really deep. And just because of gravity and how that works with the pendulum of this machine, I load this way less than I would for a bar for squats and certainly, certainly way less than like leg press. I find this akin more to hack squats, but actually maybe a little even harder.

So I really don't have to load this at all. So if you were loading this with like three plates aside, four plates aside, you are a very, very strong individual squatting somewhere, four or five, maybe even more than that. I would not recommend this for people squatting more than that though. So again, nine inches of weight horn, you know, you can realistically fit with like rubber Olympic coated plates and or bumpers, like three to four plates on here. That's about as far as I would go. I would definitely not recommend loading this to 800 pounds.

If you want to do something like that, go with something a little bit bigger, a little bit thicker, something with a welded frame. This is not for those kinds of people. This is the people a little more like me who want to use it as an accessory. Maybe it's not like a main singular, super heavy low rep movement. I like to do higher reps on here, full range of motion, et cetera.

And it just gets me a crazy pump and a different stimulus than barbell squats or a hack squat or something else. So many other just final things about the construction for the price. Obviously there are going to be trade-offs. Like we talked about maybe the overall stability, maybe the loadability, the metal and everything itself is fine. The padding is just okay.

It's not terrible. And the vinyl is again, just okay. They have this nice little, what's supposed to be like grippy vinyl, but it's not very grippy. I mean, it provides texture. So it's more grippy than just like a flat color, flat texture, but it's not obviously up to the same quality as a top of the line, like grippy vinyl bench sort of thing. But overall, the actual look of it in the gym, it looks very aesthetically pleasing, flat black powder coat. The one thing I will say that I forgot to mention earlier is this diamond grip foot plate is something I don't like both from a look. I think it looks kind of cheap and B from a feel because you can actually feel these little diamonds while you're using it. The little bit of unevenness it creates. I much prefer the more like sandpaper, skateboard top type for whatever reason, the wording escaping me. And it's a little more like that hard durable tape so your feet aren't gonna slide off. That was one of my complaints about their other high squatten like press machine. This is that you can just feel the little bit of unevenness for the price for a little bit over $800, 850 ish, I think I'll take it.

But that is one thing that I think they could improve without spending a whole lot of money and time on cost savings. Now one of the other things I've tried on this that I'm sure someone will ask is can you do calf raises on here? The answer, sort of. So if you have the foot plate in the lowest angle setting, it would give you the most range of motion for calf raises. But I don't think it quite gives you a full stretch here.

So you'd have to like really move your toes up and even then this is about like the stretch I'd want on my calves, but you definitely can't get like a deep stretch or a deep range of motion. The other option is use it almost like this and get some sort of wood little block or board, calf raise pipe. So you could get creative, it just doesn't have a natively like a good way to do that. But that could be considered, you know, like an added feature of this. So this is kind of big and awkward to move it around, but at least it is very square. It doesn't take up that wide of a profile, weighs 287 pounds and the footprint is 62 inches long, 43 inches wide and 62 inches tall.

And again, in case you didn't see that on here, it is Olympic plates only. The starting weight of this is 33 pounds, but as I mentioned, it feels a lot heavier than that to be quite honest. And definitely is a very humbling machine when it comes to loading. Overall, I think this is a very good value for what it is.

Yes, it's only one movement, but as far as a standalone machine that can do heavy compound lifts, take spinal loading out of it, help those who maybe have ankle injuries, knee injuries, or just want a little more isolation for your legs, or just like kind of them squats like I do, this is a perfect option. And I don't think there's any other options that exist at least to my knowledge that do this for this price and or probably as well. The next pricing tier for a machine like this is typically like 2,800 for like a mid tier, things like Temple of Gaines, which has a little more features that will, this one is lacking, but that's a huge price jump. It's almost a 3X, actually more than a 3X price jump.

So for most people who want to spend that money on one or two or three pieces of equipment, this is where exactly this type of products, GMDWDs, both together products come into play. The stability under, I would say, normal moderate loads, completely fine. The foot plate does not wobble at all because of that threading mechanism. You have plenty of range of motion.

You have plenty to load it based on how heavy the weight is perceived, the paddings, just fine. I would much prefer there to be some sort of handles that come out, but this is all you really have to grab when you're doing it. You just kind of grab this and your hands are awkwardly either down by your side or up in front of you. Again, it is what it is. There's going to be trade off. So you're kind of going like this the whole time, which is not a whole lot different than some other options. So this one just has the center bar. Sometimes I find myself trying to grab up here, but it feels a little bit awkward. But overall, I mean, again, for what it is, it's actually a really good value.

That's it. It's a simple machine and it is cheap and it works well. And I think honestly, that's what most people want in their home gym. So guys, that's it for this review of the GMWD PSO-1 Pendulum Squad. As always, if you have any questions or comments, please leave them down below.

I'll be happy to answer at least try. Thanks for tuning in to the Jungle Gym Reviews. We'll see you next time. Take it easy. Peace.