XS Sports Pro Heavy Duty Seated Leg Curl & Extension Machine Quads Hamstrings Press

This is a fantastic piece of kit for the money. Very sturdy and well made. I’ll start off with a negative; yes the assembly instructions are poor, but dear God Almighty it doesn’t take a NASA engineer to figure out where all the nuts and bolts go – I put it together in approx. 30 mins. Have a good look at the photo on Amazon for reference. Simples Now the positives; I just cannot for the life of me figure out why folk are having problems with resistance “for the first foot of movement” when doing leg extensions and that the thing doesn’t exercise the hamstrings. The range of movement whilst performing leg extensions is bang on. I stand 6 foot and it works perfectly for me. I can position the thing at the last hole and my legs are pushed under the seat at the start of the rep. Plenty range of movement and resistance. However, I'm maybe missing something here, but I find plenty of resistance even at the starting position. To exercise the hamstring, take the weights off the bar (to lighten it) and pull out the pin (that’s used to position the shin pads using the circular holed plate) and then move the weights bar right around on itself to the other side of the retainer bar (thing that the weights arm sits on). Then move the leg pad upwards into a position you’re happy/comfortable with, add your weights, and then start curling your legs – instead of the pad on your shin it sits at the other side of your leg on your lower calf. If you’re using a serious amount of weights, then use the padded restraint that gets positioned on top of your thighs. Again simple. The machine isn’t too large either and doesn’t take up too much real-estate – important for all us home gym users. If you’re looking for a fantastic piece of kit for hamstrings, Rectus Femoris, Vastus Medialis and Vastus Lateralis etc etc etc, then this is the machine for you. This machine was supplied by XS Sport. Great guys to deal with and the thing came pretty damned quickly.

Top leg machine Instructions total rubbish

Item arrived well packaged in two boxes. As per other reviewers, instructions are a total nightmare so we assembled based on a combination of the parts list and Amazon pictures. When assembled we noticed the weights arm assembly was very unstable - sent a picture to the seller and they were very helpful - they identified a couple of missing parts which were sent to us very quickly with no quibble. We put these in place and the machine is now fine and working properly. I would say for the serious gym-ers they may encounter issues at heavy loads, but for an amateur like me who wanted a cheap machine for curls and extensions it works just fine and is good value. From a design perspective, if you are a bit on the lardy side like me it can be a bit of a struggle getting into the machine, so I took the arms off and put them back on facing backwards which seemed to work fine. Also, I would have preferred selector pins to screws for adjusting the back rest and leg part just for speed of adjustment but again no major issue. Very pleased so far.

Well made, rather spoilt by the almost complete lack of assembly instructions. However there is a major design flaw. Leg movement lifts weights on an arm. The arm starts from a vertical position, so the initial load is zero, no matter what weight is on the arm. The load rises to a maximum as the rotation reaches 90 deg. This makes the unit useless to develope strength over a range of movement.

Amazing bit of kit. A***

Ok it goes together easy enough though my only complaint is the play experienced in the lower leg bar used to lift the weight lever. It's just not solid and has some wobble. My worry is that this will worsen with use. Also 1 of the seat bolts didn't line up. It does though train quads and hams well performing adequate extensions and curls. A little awkward to get into to be fair, but it does do the job. For the money, it'll work. Especially if you incorporate squats and dead lifts into your leg workout. Could you get better for a few more quid? You could. But for a home gym you won't go far wrong and I feel confident in saying this as ove now been using regularly gor 6 months. I gave it 3 stars due to poor seat quality, wobble in lower leg extension bar, and ability to get on and off the machine which can be a little awkward. To be fair 6 months on, it's still working well and I'll regularly load it up with 60kg. The slight wobble hasn't worsened, and the seats holding up even with only 3 bolts holding it on. Yes its still a little awkward to get off and on when doing leg curls so I'll keep my review as 3 stars and a thumbs up.

Well worth it you can’t go wrong

Easy to put together and solid for the price. If you get creative you can do a few extra exercises, such as calf raises and standing leg curls, even ab crunches if you aren't too tall. Just make sure you counter your weight if you are doing something funky and not sitting on it! My model had a slight problem with the 2" plate sleeve adapter being a tiny bit too thick. I contacted the XS SPORTS and they were more than happy for me to sand off some coating to shave off a mm or two, now it's perfect. I also had a few extra 26mm shim washers which I used to pack out the rotating piece to reduce some lateral movement - not necessary at all, but definitely improves the movement.