MAXUM Fitness X1 Functional Trainer Review: Power Rack with Articulating Arms + XSA Smith Machine

Hey guys, this is Michael with the Jungle Gym reviews. Today we're reviewing one of the most capable narrow profile budget friendly all-in-one racks with articulating arms. This is the Maxum Fitness X1 functional trainer. This rack is part of Maxum 3x3 series and this of course is a 3x3 rack with 1 inch holes and 11 gauge steel. And besides coming with more attachments than you could ever need the main feature of this rack is the patented articulating functional trainer arms which allow you to lock the arms in nine different angle positions left to right. Can be configured narrow, wide and independently and the arms themselves are mounted on roller trolleys.

So they slide up and down the front stainless steel uprights with ease. The dual 220 pound weight stacks can be used individually in a two to one ratio or combined for a one to one ratio. And even has integrated weight loading horns on top of each stack so you can load additional weight after maxing them out. They also have optional attachments like the XSA Smith machine that we'll show here. And there's just so much more you can do with a rack like this as a centerpiece to your gym. So let's check it out.

This is one you've been waiting for. Articulating arms Maxum X1 functional trainer power rack. This is going to be the main feature and this concept these arms ever since GetRxd popularized them recently with the GetRxd tornado arms. If you're interested in that review on our channel, we've done one six months back.

I'll link it in the description below. Maxum now has their own patented version of these articulating arms. They're a little bit different in a couple ways. First and foremost, there's actually nine different positions rather than just seven, I believe on the GetRxd. So you can go in some smaller increments all the way around. The arms are a little bit longer as well.

They're about 22 inches from the center of the uprights to the end here. Whereas GetRxd is somewhere in the 16, 17 inch range, which basically just means this can extend farther towards the center of the rack to get a closer grip slash pulling point when these are both configured together. And then obviously when you're in the widest position it makes for even the widest functional trainer that you can potentially have. So in this configuration you can see I am six foot two. So wing spans them around 74 inches. From end to end is about 96 inches out here. So that is pretty darn wide and pretty much as wide as you can possibly get for a rack to almost double its width.

Actually literally double its width because this is a 43 inch rack interior. And oh, did I mention 11 gauge steel? This is metric uprights though. They did do some kind of weird things on the uprights 43 inches.

So that's typical for rogue or bells of steel, which is usually typical for imperial racks. But I actually measured with the caliper. It's 2.95, which is 75 by 75 centimeters. So this rack width is actually metric, but the holes and hole spacing is imperial. The holes themselves are one inch holes and true one inch imperial holes.

We'll talk about that in a second. There might actually be a slight issue with the holes and the hole spacing itself is imperial as well. So the tubing is metric.

The holes, hole spacing is imperial. The other difference with these versus the tornado arms is these only move laterally, whereas the tornado arms can also be adjusted up and down angle wise as well. I will say I really like the GetRxd tornado arms for that reason because let's say I move it out here to this angle with the GetRxd tornado arms. I can actually decide I want this a little higher. Oh, I want this a little lower and I can quickly move that up and down with this. You do have to actually get on the side, unlock the whole trolley to move it up or down.

It's not really ever a problem, but it is just slightly more convenient to have the up, down, pop, in as well. But again, patents, intellectual property, not everything can be the exact same. So I do just want you to know kind of the difference beforehand. The other main difference about this rack and one of the things that is very nice about the articulating arms is the fact that these have rollers in the trolley. So you might be able to see it here, especially when we move it down, but there's a pop pin on the side and there's rollers in this. So I have just one hand on it right now.

There's four rollers on all four corners to help this glide up and down those stainless uprights. So I'm just doing this one-handed, which is, just goes to show how easy it can be. Obviously, it's still heavy. I typically still move it with two hands just because it is kind of large and awkward.

But in theory, you have this handle here, the little like grip padding, pull the pop pin. Again, rollers help it go down and up, which is very important because this is a functional trainer slash functional trainer rack. So you're going to be moving these a lot.

So the fact it does have rollers, the fact it's easy to move is very nice. I typically just keep them again all the way in this fully upright position, which is plenty high out of the way. Speaking of height, this is the 88 inch version rack, actually to the top because of the pulleys and some of the clearances. It's actually 88 and a half inches. So just know that for your height clearances. They do also offer a 82 inch or a shorter version of this, which ends up being probably then 82 and a half inches. So for those of you that are basement dwellers, just know those are two height options. Now the front to back the depth of this, you can see it's a four post configuration and they've packed in a lot in a small profile.

Although the front foot is 50, about 53 inches, I think, from the back to the front. So rather than a typical four post configuration, this has the extended front foot. So it's a little more like half rack style. I think I would like to see them just offer a normal four post style. But the reason they did this is to allow some of their additional attachments, things like a low row foot plate that will show.

So basically, rather than making you buy your own little mini feet or something for stabilization, they've just said, hey, this is a narrow profile rack, 23 inch depth in between the cross members. Let's make it like a half wrap configuration. Let's put square tubing on there.

And now you can kind of figure out what you want to use that for. They also have a center mounting post. This goes in between and you can lock it on those front feet and then put attachments here on the center. So whether it's on the ground, you can do that. I've done it, again, higher on the uprights on the back posts like this, you can put things like a lat seat here and attach it to be able to sit when you do lap pull downs. So just this concept of, hey, you want a center mounted attachment post, we got you. By the way, they include this with the rack along with what I consider literally a million attachments besides the ones here on the floor, which I have to end up putting them on the floor because there's not enough place to put them on the rack because of the arms and how I want to move them.

It's a good problem to have. I promise I'm not knocking them for that, but it comes with spotter arms, comes with J cups, and then it comes with a ton of other things. There's a lap bar, there's a curl bar, there's a landmine, there's a closed grip row, there's a low row foot plate, tricep rope, barbell collars, different length leg holder, lat holder things.

There's one long version. When you do lap pull downs, this gets you a little more out underneath the pulling point, or they have a little shorter version. So just know they include a ton of different attachments, but then you got to figure out somewhere to store them. Again, to me, the articulating arms are the most valuable thing on this rack.

They completely change the game as far as functional trainer racks because you can put it independently up and down. One can be, let's say low, if you want to use one of these arms for something like bicep curls, and it does go plenty low enough, by the way, to be able to get a full range of motion on curls. And then the same thing goes on the other side, if you want to turn around and do tricep push downs, tricep extensions, plenty hide to get a full range of motion here, no issues whatsoever.

They also have one nice feature about these arms. There's a secondary lock. So there's a one inch hole slot in the middle of this trolley, and they give you a ton of hitch pins.

Another thing they give you one million of. So you can put the hitch pin here, and now you have like a safety, especially when you go to do things like heavy single-sided pull downs or rows, which is nice just for the peace of mind that you're not just relying on one single poppin. In order to do heavy single-sided movements, comes with a 220 pound weight stack, which is a very equipped, pretty heavy weight stack. It's a two to one ratio, meaning that on each side, depending on the weight you have selected, if you're doing a single-sided movement, the perceived weight is half of the selected weight. So 220 pound weight stacks, that means you can get up to 110 pounds of feel individually from each side. Obviously, when you connect the arms together, so whether it's with some sort of joiner bracket, and or if you just are using the arms individually, you put 200 pounds on both sides, you're pulling in a one to one ratio, you are perceiving 200 pounds.

So when you connect the arms together, it's a one to one ratio, meaning you get 220 pounds if you have both stacks maxed out. One of the nice things you'll see here is these integrated weight horns. They basically allow you to add your own weight in the form of weight plates to the weight stack after you've maxed it out. So depending on really how much you can load here, three Olympic plates on each side, so six times 45, quick math, Michael, 270, my audience can check me on that. You can add that much more weight to an existing 220 pound weight stack. So even if you did have the weight stack maxed out at 220 pounds, and you added six Olympic weight plates to that at 270 pounds, that is 490 pounds of weight divided by two, 245 pounds that you got in this, 245 pound that pull downs, 245 pound low rows.

I really hope my math is right. You get the point, it can be really heavy and capable single sided. And that's what's nice about the weight horns. Now, in order to do that, you do have to use some of the attachments they offered. For example, the leg holder for lat pull downs, pull up a bench, put the bench here, sit on the bench, put your knees on here, move this down to the height of your choosing. This is adjustable with a pop pin. Throw on your lap pull down attachment up top and now you have pretty full range of motion lap holdouts.

I will say I am pretty close to maxing this out range of motion wise. If I were a little bit taller, I probably would not be able to do this. I would say like if you're 6'5", I got about two inches on there. You're probably going to be close to hitting this 6'4", but for me at 6'2", you can see where I'm at full range of motion lap holdouts, which is absolutely fantastic. When you want to switch to low rows from lap holdouts, that is in my opinion one slight downside and is always a slight deterrent for me in actually doing low rows because you actually have to add an additional attachment.

They include this cable and they include this pulley. In order to do low rows, you really have to keep the arm at the top, put on this additional secondary pulley, move it down to the starting point here, wherever that is, go get the low row foot plate attachment and some sort of rowing handle and now you can do low rows. So again, low row setup takes a little bit more and for me then it's a deterrent because this arm is so long. If you moved it down, you're going to not be able to have a long enough range of motion.

So this allows you to get a full range of motion in and out and actually because it is so far back on the rack, you get huge stretch. The height of this is really good. It's a little higher.

It's not right in between your feet or legs. So this feels honestly fantastic. One thing I haven't mentioned, the cables on here, they feel very smooth. I am very happy and very impressed by the cable feel. I would say a good solid 8 out of 10, definitely not the exact best cables I've ever felt in my life, but these are good. They're good quality, they're smooth and that actually can make or break a lot of functional trainers.

So Maxon did a good job with the pulleys, with the cables, with the routing, all that good stuff. If you wanted to try to do low rows based on, let's say, the arm itself, the arm is not centered. So that is one thing I forgot to mention with lap pull downs. The arm is not centered in the middle to operate. This allows for the pros, which allows it to go wider and then allows to go narrow and not hit itself. So that's both a pro and a con here that when you want to do these single-sided movements, you're ever so slightly off-center.

Everything here from a fit mitt standpoint, you look at it, they have the little brackets to make sure the cables don't come off. If you even look up close on this side, it might be a little hard to catch on camera. You can see they did a good job with how everything is stacked and staggered. Same thing with the smith machine just fitting naturally in the few holes that were in front of the weight stack and everything.

So I definitely have to give them props for coming up with creative solutions. I did mention I would like to see a padding upgrade. For example, like with this integrated pull-up bar, feels a little bit cheap. I'd prefer if this were just all normal, even if it was just powder coated, not knurled.

So that can be an improvement. Same thing on the actual trolley handles here. The handle itself, that's got that light rubber. I would like to see just this B metal, even because over time, this is potentially going to wear. The other thing I would like to see is if they could pretty much do none of the attachments, maybe just give me a couple of D handles, because then two things. Then by default, I don't have a ton of things like this that I have to store somewhere. Two, I'd rather them lower the price of it by like $200 or whatever the associated cost is with those.

Then they would be exactly on par with something like GetRX. Maxim's just decides to throw it all on there for you because they think you want all of those things. For most people, I think they do, but I'd like to have the option to purchase 100 or 200 or $300 cheaper and source my own attachments, whether that's the leg roller, whether that's the lat seat, whether that's just the cheap lat bar, lat handles, curl bar, stuff like that. I would personally just like the option to choose between the two instead of just having to pay baked in and getting everything no matter what. I did also want to give you a preview of their new XSA Smith machine attachment.

This does not come with the rack, but it is optional add-on. I think it's around $7 or $800. At the top, actually, you'll see on the outside, hopefully with the articulating arm out of the way, there's this red hitch pin. These actually mount to the hitch pins. If you put the hitch pins, let's say at a set height, that is your new starting stopping point. These latch into the hitch pins.

This by itself, you pretty much just pick where you want it to stop a start, which can be a nice feature. I always leave those hitch pins at the top for my fully upright storage up out of the way. It does not get in the way of the articulating arms, which is fantastic. Again, six foot two.

I still have a couple inches of clearance, so I'm not at all worried about hitting my head. The other cool thing is their locking little J-CUPs slash attachment latch, which basically pick a height, kind of like you would a J-CUP. Now you have one, two, three, four, five different height options in all in the same general area to mount your Smith machine to. Rather than just using hitch pins, you would put this here. I know it's a little awkward to line up, but I store these on the backposts to keep them out of the way so that the trolleys can remain clear. Now our Smith machine has multiple different height adjustments we can use.

Now it has five. If you do something like bench or squat, and you just have a general range you want to be in, this is really cool. Those safety stoppers, all you do is grab a hitch pin, figure out where you want the movement to stop.

Safety stop goes there. You now have a couple different options for starting height. You've set your bottom height, and boom, you have a Smith machine in pretty much no space. The best part about Smith machine attachments like this is the range of motion. Because they don't rely on some pre-installed little latch or peg system, you actually get the rack as the limiting factor, the rack frame, and you really will not find a Smith machine that goes any lower.

The only downside about this Smith machine, the bar itself is honestly could just be a lot better. It has what I consider looks like an earling. It feels like something, but it honestly is almost the texture of the powder coat itself.

You can barely see that there's some sort of light and earling underneath this. It's not an issue. It feels just fine.

It's a Smith machine. It's not really going anywhere in your hands, but I think that could be better quality. The other thing is you'll see there's a little bit too much tolerance in the linear bearing trolleys on the end of where depending on the movement you do, you can get it to wiggle a little bit. I don't love that, but I find once it's loaded, whether it's a first quad or something, you don't typically have that problem so much, but it definitely has a little bit of side to side play that is more noticeable than other Smith machines. For me, I still would way rather have a Smith machine than not have a Smith machine at all. The last thing with the Smith machine, and it's a great idea as they give you this leg press plate.

A lot of companies are offering something similar, and in my mind it's more of just an afterthought. In order to get the latch off, you have to rotate this, which makes it almost unsafe to latch and unlatch. In order to get the latch off the side, you have to push straight up and then rotate quite a bit to get back to be at some comfortable angle. Well, the problem is when you leg press like this, let's say I'm leg pressing and I want to be done and I'm not reaching the latch yet, so I somehow have to position one foot on the back to angle it enough to get that latch over and under. The most I've done on this is one plate on both sides using the leg press plate. Past that, just this concept of lifting off and racking it and unracking it is unreasonable. Now, I will say you could just do this, stop, start it at a height, and then the leg press plate is usable.

It's not their fault. This is true of every single Smith machine leg press attachment that I'm aware of. So just know, will they include that? I don't necessarily think it's the most helpful, but all things considered, having Smith machine, having this overall packaging, 220 pound weight stacks, you can add more weight, the cables are smooth, the arms are super wide or super narrow, the trolleys are smooth, it's got stainless steel uprights. I mean, there's not really a whole lot more you can ask for. The only thing that I can think of as an improvement, which is the holes themselves, as I mentioned, are true one inch holes. Doesn't seem to be a problem. What people don't realize is when we talk about one inch holes on a rack, the holes themselves are actually a little bit bigger than one inch. So every company, whether it's wrap, rogue, get our racks, you name it, even though it's a one inch hole, a metric or imperial one inch hole, the hole itself is bigger than one inch to allow a little more tolerance, just so you're not having an issue with sizing of things.

All attachments pretty much work on here, the exception of a slight few imperial attachments because the holes on here are exactly one inch. So this is, for example, one of rogue's mutant metal handles. You'll see this one ever so slightly fits, just fine. This is a surplus strength magpin for Imperial racks, will not fit in there at all. So does not fit in that hole. This is a rogue detent pin. So should be for rogue racks, again, Imperial one inch. Barely fits in there at all.

A rogue monster attachment post. That's just fine. The prime fitness made for prime prodigy racks, which are imperial, barely ever so slightly fit.

I did find though, it even mattered whole to whole variation though, to complicate things. Let's take it to a random hole on this side. Doesn't fit in that hole, that hole right here that I'm choosing. Let's see if I can get the front, for example, the front, that one barely fits.

Let's go up to the next one. This one, oh my gosh, barely fits. But this one on the side, for example, interior, literally does not fit. This does not fit in there.

I'm going to scratch my attachment. And this one, oh, that one barely fits. So that just goes to show there's even enough tolerance due to manufacturing that it's so close with, again, very select Imperial attachments. So just know if you plan to get this rack and you are concerned about Imperial attachments, be aware that could be a potential problem. I know they're said they're going to fix this and make these bigger on Future Racks, but I do have to at least point it out for now because I have encountered that problem with at least this attachment and definitely some Magpins. So guys, that's it for today's review of the Maxim X1 rack. 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 into the Jungle Gym Reviews. We'll see you next time. Take it easy. Peace.