The Best Budget Compact Power Rack Build? (REP PR-5000 + Lat Pulldown + Titan Fitness Titan Series)

Introduction

I’ve spent the last 4 years carefully curating what I think is one of the best power rack configurations considering footprint, functionality, and of course, price. Since this rack contains components from a handful of different companies, primarily Titan Fitness and REP Fitness, I frequently get questions about what this rack is, how I made it, cross brand compatibility, and why I chose this setup. Today, I am going to walk through the current configuration as this is my 4th and longest standing home gym power rack, which has now been the centerpiece of my gym for almost 2 years and was even featured in recent Garage Gym Reviews video, due to my built-in walk-in dumbbell stand for my REP and Pepin Fast Series dumbbells. I’ll go through the details of the rack, the attachments, and some of the things you should consider when building your own or a similar rack. Let’s check it out!

Hey guys this is Michael with the Jungle Gym Reviews, today we are reviewing my personal, semi-custom 6 post Power rack made primarily from off the shelf REP Fitness and Titan Fitness and other manufacturer parts. This is what I consider to be the most affordable and best bang for buck power rack configurations, especially if you are looking to minimize overall footprint and maximize overall potential functionality and storage space.

Now a quick note before I get started, Power Racks for home gyms are an endlessly complex product category because so much of it comes down to the individual’s space, needs, budget, even geographical location for shipping costs, etc. so this is not a comprehensive power rack options and comparison, but just highlighting the select ones I am using, some of the alternatives, the specs, and why I chose these parts specifically over some of the others. For all the products I will use today, I will link in the description below so you can compare specs and cost for each if you want to build a similar rack or improve on any these ideas for yours.

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Main Rack Specs

So at it’s core, as you can see this is a 6 post rack with 3x3 uprights, 1 inch holes, 2 inch upright hole spacing, and 11 gauge steel, and those are all fairly universal industry standard power rack specs but we will get into specifics later. Again this rack was sourced with different off the shelf parts from different manufacturers which many of them also sell 5/8 version of these rack parts as well.

Why 6 Post

The question you may ask is if space is the main concern, why a 6 post rack? Well as you can see here I went a very compact 6 post rack instead of a more open, longer 4 post mainly because I wanted the additional uprights for plate storage and attachment storage as you can never have too much rack storage options in my opinion. By doing this 6 post configuration I have 2 extra uprights worth of holes which so now I can use 4 total uprights and the additional crossmembers for storage however I see fit. I personally like having the plate storage integrated to the rack as it makes it more secure, especially for use with thing like spotter arms or lever arms, and additionally since the plates right next to the barbell I don’t have to go far to rack and unrack the weights and I eliminate the needs for a plate tree elsewhere taking up room wherever that would be.

Uprights

So the uprights for this rack are the Titan Fitness Titan Series 100 inch uprights. I chose these over other brands for handful of reasons.

1.     You can order these a la carte, meaning the uprights by themselves without ordering and paying for a entire rack package including cross members, safetys, pull up bars,  jcups etc. Just know you can’t do this on directly from their website, you will have to use their chat and/or email function to talk to a person directly for a quote and placing the individual item order.

2.     Reason 2, I am 6ft2 and when I purchased this, Titan had the cheapest upright per equivalent height of every major manufacturer, again this one being 100 inch version. At that time, Bells of Steel hadn’t yet come out with their 3x3, 1 inch version rack the Manticore, which they now have 108inch height option which you can buy a la carte as well. Otherwise, I probably would have opted for that version dependent on direct price comparison if it would be tallest version I could buy for the price with shipping to me here in Michigan.

3.    Last I went with the Titan rack because I wanted the keyhole side holes for the uprights which means you can use 1 inch attachments or 5/8 inch attachments in the same hole slot, the 1 inch attachment will sit on top and the 5/8 will sit in the bottom narrower part of the keyhole slot, so just add more versatility than simply the 1 inch hole options.

Crossmembers

For the crossmembers I chose the REP Fitness PR5000 16inch crossmembers. These REP  crossmembers were the shortest, non-custom option I could buy and these also these also can be ordered on their own from REP outside of any full rack package.

In my opinion a 16inch crossmember is the best depth for people really looking to save overall footprint and space as long as you don’t mind lifting from the front posts of the rack rather than inside. Because the front to back spacing between the uprights is so narrow, you have to do your barbell lifts on the front posts of the rack using spotter arms rather than inside the rack with some form of rack safeties, especially when it comes to squatting, but I am sure there are some people that make it work.

The 16inch depth is also great because it gives you enough space that you put plate storage on the middle uprights and it will not interfere with hitting the plates loaded on the bar in the front uprights in any scenario, with a couple inches to spare. This way then, your entire front to back depth for a 3x3 6 post rack is only a 41 inch overall depth which is packing a lot of punch is an overall relatively small footprint.

Footprint

Speaking of the footprint, the overall footprint is 41 inches deep by 48 inches wide before attachments. With the integrated weight stack lat pulldown on here, more details on that in a second, it adds a few more inches to the depth making is 50 inches deep in total since it extends past the rear uprights by about 9 inches.

PR 5000 Selectorized Lat and Low Row

As I mentioned this rack has Titan uprights, REP crossmembers, but I also have added this REP PR5000, 93 inch, 200LB selectorized lat pulldown and low row attachment with the Rear Base Stabilizer crossmember that is needed for it to attach to. I may do a review strictly on the lat and low row in the future, but for now, know it is very smooth, you can attach cables to it for more dynamics resistance profile, and while the low row placement doesn’t feel the best compared to a commercial machine, it does get the job done and I highly recommend it for a singular center-mounted selectorized low and high pulley option.

One thing you may also ask is why I chose this over a side mounted weight stack option and the answer is simple – I had friends workout with me for a majority of the last few years so I kept a dual sided selectorized functional trainer separate from the rack so that people could use the dual cables and the rack separately for difference exercises. Now that it’s mostly me these days, I would actually opt for a dual sided selectorized functional trainer option rather than a single center mounted option. I will be reviewing some options in the next couple months, so stary tuned for that.

One other thing I want to mention again on the topic of integrated weight stacked that is for this PR5000 lat pulldown and low row attachment it does extend past the rear of the rack by 8.5 inches. I have seen some people, including Basement Brandon in a video a few years ago that turn the RBS around to save some of that depth but then you lose your ability to incline bench off the front posts because now the curved portion of the RBS would be in your active lifting or at least bench space for sure. But I did want to mention this as an option in case the extra ~9 inches made a difference for someone and they were willing to largely lose the ability to incline barbell press.

Pull Up Bar/Lateral Crossmember?

Speaking to the width and lateral crossmembers REP’s racks are 41 inch interior width in this case the rear base stabilizer for the lat pulldown and low row, is also that 41 inch width. I had a 6 post 80 inch PR5000 build in my basement gym a few years back, and the 41 inch width of the REP rack was too narrow for me with long lanky arms so when I was wide grip benching, my elbows would graze the outside of the rack or my safeties. So in this case I have the 42 inch Titan crossmembers at the back and middle of my rack which means I need to add a few washers to bridge the gap at the side of the REP RBS. For my front crossmember I used to have the single 1.25inch pull up bar on the front but recently swapped to adjustable handle rack mounted pull up bar which I will be releasing a review on next month.

Titan and REP Rack Compatibility

So now that you know some washers can make the side to side versions compatible between REP and Titan, I then also had to consider whether the 93 inch height of the REP PR5000 lat and low row attachment would align with the upright holes of the 100 inch Titan series uprights.

 These are both metric racks meaning that although they are listed as being 3x3 inch with 1 inch holes and 2 inch upright hole spacing, they actually are using metric equivalences of those imperial dimensions so they are really 75x75 mm with 25mm hole size or 2.95 x 2.95 inches with 0.98 inch hole size with 50mm or 1.96 inch hole spacing along the uprights.

That was a bunch of numbers you don’t really need to remember just know this means these two manufacturers have the same uprights hole side and spacing so you can seamlessly use attachments between the two, in this case the entire drop in lat pulldown low row attachment from REP lines up perfectly to the Titan uprights as expected.

Built in REP x Pepin Fast Series Dumbbell Stand

Now the most unique feature I am most proud of for this rack is a semi DIY built in, walk in, rack mounted dumbbells stand for my REP and Pepin Fast Series dumbbells, I have actually used this for the original Pepin Fast Series made in Canada version so this is something I have used for the whole life of this rack and not just recently when the REP version came out.

What this dumbbell rack is made of, is set of Crandall Fitness dumbbells spotters, mounted to a an extra Titan crossmember I had and simply just cut in half. Those Titan cut in half posts are mounted vertically to set of REP PR5000 16 inch crossmembers horizontally connected to the main uprights of the rack. I will link a YouTube shorts video I made a few months back that shows this up close as well.

I will also try to get some good footage for you here, but this semi DIY stand is my way I came up with to get these Crandall fitness dumbbell spotters pushed inside the rack to be able to sit at whichever height and side to side spacing I choose, so that I can just walk in, slightly bend down to grab the dumbbells, then just standup and walkout to begin using them. I’ve had this dumbbell setup over a year and dialed in the positioning so that it doesn’t get in the way of my lat pulldowns, doesn’t get in the way of incline benching or any other movements, and it is the perfect height to be able to rack and unrack the dumbbells regardless of how heavy the weight is.

One thing to note about this setup is that the Crandall fitness dumbbell spotters only come with a 5/8 hole mounting hole size so you will need to get a set of 5/8 to 1 inch adapters sleeves, which I recommend getting a set screw version so they don’t wiggle off over time. 

Plate Storage

So again, since this is a 6 post power rack I wanted to have plate storage, but because I am limited on side to side space here in my single car garage gym, and I don’t have bumper plates, I opted for short weight horns. I bought 2 of the REP Fitness PR 5000 weight horn storage sets so then I had in 6 pairs of 6 inch horns and 6 pairs of 12 inch horns. Since I really only wanted the 6 inch length ones, I sold the all the long ones, leaving me with 6 short weight horns on each side for my 2.5, 5, 10, 25, 35, and 45 LB plates.

Barbell Storage

For barbell storage I originally went with a separate vertical 9 bar holder that was in the corner of the room because I had quite a few bars and safety squat bars in rotation. Now that I have slimmed down to a handful or bars I can store them on the rack comfortably.

For rack mounted barbell storage there are basically two options, vertical storage like I have here or horizontal storage like the Darko Lifting barbell anchor. I love the idea of freeing up the sides of your rack by using the barbell anchor but again since I have side to side space restrictions here I had opt for vertical storage in my rack. Ironically I would assume most people have the opposite problem so I think many people opt for the barbell anchor or similar equivalents to store the bars safely above your head and out of the way.

So have 4 vertical bar holders, but only 3 currently mounted on the rack. One pair mounted to the crossmembers, and one pair mounted to the uprights. Just know they do make different versions depending if you want to mount them to uprights or crossmembers, but I will link both below. 

I chose these Titan ones mainly again due to price compared to others, and they fact they could be spaced anywhere so can customize the positioning a bit more especially with my Bells of Steel SS4 safety squat bar needing a little more room than my Bare Steel Equipment barbells – full reviews for all of these bars also coming soon.

These Titan barbell holders here also feature plastic inserts so they don’t scratch your bar, but I did have to purchase a set of ABMAT barbell pillows to put at the bottom of the holders tubing to protect the ends of the bar. I don’t know why they didn’t add plastic at the bottom and it is just metal plating. So the the plastic inner tubing of the barbell holders protects the sleeve sides and the ABMAT pillows protect the ends.

Spotter Arms

So I can’t go into detail for all the goodies and attachments I’ve ever had on here and for the sake of this review I have removed alot of them here just so things don’t look even more busy and to highlight the core components of the rack.

I did, however want to mention two of the staples that I think people should have for their rack, especially one that you need to do barbell work outside the rack for as is the case here for me in this compact 6 post configuration.

The spotter arms I choose for this rack are the low profile Surplus Strength stealth spotters. These were ordered as part of their first batch early in 2023 and I have enjoyed using them since. The biggest features of these is the fact they are low profile, so don’t take up much space, common theme here, and they fit both metric and imperial 3x3 racks due to their rear universal locking slot, and they have 1 inch holes along the entire sides, meaning you can add  attachments as desired.

In my case, because they are low profile, I store them vertically on my lower interior crossmembers, and by doing so I can now use these attachment holes on the spotter arms to attach leg rollers for lat pulldowns. I can then move the leg rollers and spotters as needed to get the both the height and depth positioning for the leg rollers dialed in perfectly to my needs. 

I have used these spotter arms attached to some lever arms, to create more even plate loaded resistance curves, and I currently use these to attach my Darko lifting Thresher pad to do chest supported rows, and obvsiouly besides being extremely function spotter arms to save you from death during glory days PR attempts, you can mount these anywhere, with any orientation, and again to any 3x3 rack with 1 inch holes, so definitely high recommend them.

Landmine

The other main attachment I think everyone should have is a landmine. I have had a few others over the years but for the last year and a half have been using the Kleva built Adroit 2.0, sorry if I butchered the pronunciation. It’s basically a 360 ball bearing landmine attachment with a threaded rack attachment bolt that you can quickly mount and tighten it to any 5/8 or 1 inch hole on your rack. This way you aren’t limited on the landmine motion axes and can use it however you creatively want. For me that is primarily barbell rows, belt squats, standing viking shoulder press, etc. The other cool thing about this landmine attachment is that it has a permanent polycarbonate plastic sleeve inside so your barbell doesn’t get scratched up taking it in or out or during landmine use.

Attachments/Accessories?

The other major consideration with this rack is that I wanted compatibility with all major OEM and aftermarket attachments, hence the selection of the 3x3 rack with 1 inch holes, over the 5/8 in hole equivalents.  

Some of the attachment that have been great on this rack over the years are:

1.     Full loaded lever articulating lever arms: Titan Series lever arms with Vendetta Strength trolley adapters with the Kaizen/Gym Pin swivel adapters.

2.     The Dialed Motion dual Ibex cable system with lat pulldown and belt squat.

3.     Dual Rogue Leg Rollers again for lat pulldowns, lever arm hacks, and of course different types of squats, foot holder for situps, etc.

4.     Bolt Fitness Storm series Lateral Raise attachment for a machine-like rack mounted \ version of chest fly and shoulder fly.

5.     Mutant Metals Handles and JD GYM equipped handles for anything and everything from lever arms, pullups, dips, etc.

6.     Soon I will have in for a review a smith machine attachment for 3x3 racks and even a Pendulum squat attachment for the rack.  

Again, the beauty of these 3x3 racks is that you can just build them out over time with storage and accessories to be as simple or beautifully complex as you want them to be.

Rack Functionality

So I thought it goes without saying with everything I have mentioned until now, but will spell it out here: This rack is extremely functional and I currently have no regrets, other than I wish it was bigger so I could have more attachments, and more things to do, but in this small space I need it to be as relatively small of a footprint as possible while maximizing the storage options and overall functionality for the most reasonably minimal price.

You can incline bench in this rack with 0 problems, I have tried on 4 separate benches now, REP AB5000 zero gap, Rogue Adjustable bench 3.0, XMARK Black Diamond, and the Keppi Weight Bench5000, and a couple of those are very long benches, with still plenty of room to space. I can successfully do full range of motion strict pullups without my feet hitting the ground at 6FT2. I don’t need any sort of front foot extensions for stability even while using fully loaded lever arms due to the the 200LB lat pulldown weight stack, and the weight of the plates on the plate storage posts, this thing isn’t going anywhere if I tried.

My dumbbell storage also doesn’t get in the way of any of the other rack functions, the lat pulldown is more than tall enough for full extensions and the low row footplate can move really far front to back as needed to accommodate taller users, arm lengths, or desired range of motion. The 42 inch interior width of the rack is great for me, the height of the rack is great for me, and the only thing I need to be considerate of is attachments that rely on specific rack widths. Going from a 41 inch REP rear base stabilizer integrated into a 42 inch width Titan rack is pretty easy, but if you wanted to jump to a Rogue or other 43 inch width rack that may take some additional hardware, although 100% possible and really not that difficult in the grand scheme of things.

Signoff and Q&A

So guys that’s it for this review and close up look at what I consider the ultimate functional budget, 6 post, small profile 3x3 rack build. As always, if you have any questions, please comment down below and I will be happy to answer or at least try. Thank you for tuning into The Jungle Gym Reviews, we will see you next time, take it easy, peace.

-Michael @TheJungleGymReviews