Apex AX-859 / Marcy Classic MD 859 Review

So I “upgraded” to this bench a while back. In Canada, it is known as the Apex AX-859 and in the USA, Marcy Classic MD 859. The setup can be purchased from a wide variety of retailers in the US (Walmart, Amazon.com to name a few) and in Canada, it is available at Canadian Tire.



The features of this bench include, flat/incline/decline bench, preacher curl, leg extensions, leg curls and possibly the biggest selling point is the stand-alone barbell rack which enables you to do squats. All for the price of around $200. It can be had for significantly lower in the US, as low as $150. In Canada, you’ll have to wait until it goes on sale to have it for $200, but don’t worry it goes on sale quite frequently.

Let’s start with this. Getting it home. The box isn’t too big, it barely fit into the back seat of compact car (Honda Civic). So there’s wasn’t a need to open the box and load it piece by piece or have it for delivery if you have a small car. Having two people carrying this is a must, it’s heavy. Upon opening the box (as far as I can remember), all the pieces were covered in plastic bags and all the small pieces (nuts, bolts, washers) were secured to a cardboard piece with a layer of plasic glued over top. No complaints, standard affair. The instructions were garbage, but hey there’s pictures…there were a few mishaps but nothing impossible to do.

Construction/Cosmetics

Looking at the picture, it looks pretty nice right? Wrong, this thing is butt ugly! When I went to the store, they didn’t have any on display but I had set my sights on buying this thing and I didn’t care. While it does have a nice powder coat finish, it was poorly done in some areas. Mainly the small nooks and crannys because there was already rust in a bunch of spots. So brand new item but pretty sure it has been sitting in a warehouse somwhere. Constuction is solid, if everything is secured the way it should be, there shouldn’t really be any issues. I did have a few concerns in the beginning due to the design. but after using it a while, I do feel comfortable using it. The two issues are as follows. The incline/decline is like a fin design. There are one fin on each side of the middle beam, and a pole/rod from the bench rest on the fins. No problems with this, but the pole could be 2 cm longer as sometimes it does tend to rest on one fin, and if you fidget around on the bench trying to get a comfy position, it may go onto one fin too. Second is the barbell stand, the thing can get wobbly, just wish there was a support between the pole and the base of the stand


Functionality

Bench - The bench for me sits a bit high, I’m used to benching without shoes. With this one, I need to wear shoes to really plant my feet onto the ground. Probably need to add something extra to the floor to get a solid plant. I am 5’8” and I feel that I have fairly long legs.

Leg Attachment – Nothing really to say here, run of the mill stuff. When using it, it’s more quiet than my old one. I prefer to have it off, but hate putting it back on when I need to use it.

Preacher Curl – There are 3 settings you can use to customize the height of the padding. Well padded. Works as should be.

Squat rack /barbell stand - The Catchs are height adjustable. No safeties. The squat rack is really a gimmicky feature for this, while it works, the design needs to be better, it can get wobbly. Feels like I always have to set bar down in at least a semi-controlled manner, otherwise it’s might tip over. So it kinda restricts me from trying to go heavy or even try 1 rep maxes just from a safety point of view. Also, this accommodates a 6 or 7 foot bar. It is recommended to go with a 7 feet. With a 6 foot bar, there’s approximately one inch of clearance on each side from where the catch is and where the first plate on the bar. This goes back to the first though, gotta set the bar down controlled and kinda stops you from going heavy. 1 more inch on each side would have been nice.

At the end of the day though, this is a case of you get what you paid for. If you are starting out, and this’ll be your first bench, by all means, get this, it’ll last you a while. If you already have a basic bench and looking up upgrade, I suggest you try it out first and see if you like it, I didn’t have the opportunity to do that. If I did, I probably woulda just bought a bench & a power rack separately. I trust it right now with the current weight I’m pushing, but when it really starts to get heavy, I’m not so sure.

 Edit:  January 26, 2013.  I've used this bench/rack combo for over a year now and will be updating the review in the next day.

Edit April 11 2013.

A Year down the road and here are some thoughts, to provide more insight if this bench is right for you.

The bench height is 20.5 inch.  I really had difficulty planting my feet while doing flat bench because of the height of the bench as well as the seat flaring out around the butt pad or I would have to really stretch and put legs into an awkward position and it felt uncomfortable.  Too compensate, i would use a 25lbs plate and wear shoes to try to plant, but it never really felt firm.  I have since purchased a flat bench that is lower at around 18.5inch and have no difficulty planting feet using barefoot.  I still use the bench to do incline stuff, no issue there.

Bench is bulky with the leg attachment on,  it adds atleast another foot to the length.  If you have limited space, this can be an issue if you have to move the bench around to give you room to do squats.

Leg attachment peg is rated for max 90lbs.

Stand doesn't feel sturdy, preacher curl & leg attachment is wobbly.

Lack of safeties.  May be a non-issue for some, but your near the end of your set and you not sure if you can squeeze that one last rep out but still go for it anyways?  Too many times (atleast recently), have I had to do the roll of shame or break form on squat to power out it to get the bar back up (just kills my lower back).

Pretty much this thing would have lasted about a year with me.  I don't use the leg attachment or the preacher curl pad anymore (probably only used it the first 3 months), I already bought a new bench and if I had the money, I would have replaced the current rack with a squat rack as well.  If you can afford it buy something else but for the price range, it is a good pick up.