Powerline by Body-Solid (PGM200X) Glute Master - Isolation Glute Machine for Targeted Booty & Leg Workouts at Home

Received this last Wednesday – it was well packed, no damage to the box or parts inside. Based on mixed reviews, I knew I wanted a professional to put this together or, at least, someone who knew what they were doing. It was assembled Thursday by a handyman off the thumbtack app, and today – Saturday – was the first day I used it.First off, I work out in my living room. I have a barbell, bench, plates and a Roman chair, some assorted kettlebells. I’m by no means a serious lifter – yet. I’m working my way up. I’m also an EDNOS battler. At one point my weight was down in the double digits and in my sock feet I’m just shy of 5’7”. So, I basically started off with zero muscle. I made the decision to begin weightlifting after I wrenched hell outta my piriformis muscle simply walking on flat ground. My main goal right now is strengthening my glutes and hips so this doesn’t happen again. Right now my hips are still pretty weak - I’m all over the place when I try to do even banded donkey kicks, let alone weighted ones. I was hoping this machine would help my stability issues.It does. Not so much as a wiggle. I’m able to keep my back and hips neutral even when my leg is fully extended back. For the first time I was able to do kickbacks without feeling any pain in my lower back during or afterward (I have lordosis, too, an abnormal spinal curvature). As a bonus: if I place my weight bench over the torso pad it’s the perfect height to do fire hydrants, as well. I need a pad because the edge of the foot plate digs into my outer thigh, but otherwise it works like a charm. I’m very excited about that because I’ve really been wanting a hip abductor machine. Unfortunately, the only ones I can find are out of my price range for now. I thought I was settling when I got this machine instead, but no – with a lil jury rigging I can thoroughly work out my abductors with something more than resistance bands.The machine itself: because someone who knew what they were doing assembled it (in an hour) it’s as sound as I could hope for. Is it gym-grade quality? No, but it’s not designed for dozens of people to be using it everyday. It’s lightweight enough that I can easily drag it or lift an end and move it. It doesn’t sit exactly flush on the floor when unoccupied, but when I’m using it there’s no problem with it teetering or rocking. The foot pads move smoothly and quietly, no lubricant needed – at least for now that’s not an issue.Only cons: I wish the foot pads were a lil higher up. When lowering the weight I sometimes mis-gauged the distance and brought the weight fully down, thus killing my time under tension. But this is a simple learning curve and over time I’ll adapt. Secondly, the loading dock is geared for one inch plates and mine are two inch. Fine for now, but once I’m strong enough to add plates over ten pounds (or load up more than two plates at a time) I’ll have to buy an Olympic adapter sleeve. Not a big deal. For all the pros this machine has, I’ll settle for a couple of cons.And those who wonder if you can use this as a leg press, too? No. The way the foot pads are angled back all the tension will be on the balls of your feet – no way to place your feet flat. I tried it anyway and felt zero pull in my quads. However, it might actually help with working on my nonexistent calves👍🏻If looking to improve your home gym and you’re a beginner (or even intermediate) user you really can’t go wrong with this machine, especially for the price. It’s going to be perfect in helping me strengthen my glutes, hips and hamstrings.

It wasn’t hard to put together and I have had no issues with the bearings to date. It slides smooth on the rails. The only, what I would call a product design flaw, is that the inside of your knee on the leg you are exercising can hit the base of the rail system if you are not careful. You must practice good form and keep your leg aligned so your knee does not wander toward the middle. I wish it allowed for your leg to compress a little bit lower at the bottom of the exercise but it hits the stops. It’s not bad, just annother design parameter I would want if designing one from scratch. Other than those nit-picking critiques, it is a great addition to my gym.I also ordered a sleeve to hold Olympic plates. Olympic plates just fit on the machine.Overall, I would definitely order this again and can recommend it to you.

I bought this machine seven years ago. After the second time I used it I realized that it was injuring my hips. If you watch the video ad for this machine in the description column you will see that you are exercising one glute muscle at a time. In order to do this, you are balancing yourself on one knee while you are pushing upward with the opposite leg to strengthen one glute. What I experienced while performing this exercise is the balancing on my knee forced my supporting hip joint to bend outward as my opposite leg pushed upward. It seemed to me that my supporting hip joint was simply not strong enough to remain straight and stable while I performed this exercise. The muscles my hip were using had quickly become fatigued, which created a dangerous situation for me, in my opinion. Admittedly, at the time I did not feel any pain in my hip, but when I stood up there was some pain and difficulty walking normally. It was as though my hip joint had become misaligned. In the days that followed I felt some pain in the hip joint. I stopped using the machine all-together for fear that I might permanently damage my hips and/or cause them to become permanently arthritic, as I know that can happen if you repeatedly stress out a joint. From my personal experience with this machine I believe it is potentially dangerous because any unnatural stress or strain placed on the hip joints could lead to bigger problems down the road. I ended up retrofitting this machine so that I could lie down flat on a bench surface and lift both legs and glutes at the same time. In this way all the stress was evenly distributed throughout my torso and not directly placed on my hips. I would hope that this machine could be redesigned in a way that I retrofitted mine because I believe that would make it safe and effective to use.

I love the way I feel when kicking back my legs. It’s a lil hard and the direction putting it together is step by step but at the end very last part is where I do not understand. Which when I kick back it hard and I end up havring to stop to get the screws back on. Makes my legs feel good though.

Reviews for this machine are very divided, and now I see why. There is a trick to getting the rail components lined up and tightened properly to work smoothly with the rollers. Having read many of the one star reviews over the issue with the rollers, I proceeded with caution because, let's face it, this is really the only option currently on the market for a glute kickback machine. I took my time, jiggered some things unconventionally near the boring holes, and used lots of lube before ever setting a weight on it. I see the bullet I dodged, but it works great. I'd tell ANYONE nervous about this machine who is seriously in the market to find a professional equipment installer and they can easily assemble to avoid the chronic pitfalls for about $50 to $75, assembly time in under an hour. Definitely worth it given the machine is very inexpensive to begin with, and you'll have something as good as the local gym. An experienced hand will have no problem assembling this thing to work smooth as butter.