Major Fitness Drone Review: The Cheapest Amazon Power Rack and Functional Trainer...

Introduction

I recently suggested the Major Fitness F22 as a good starter option within the highly saturated, budget, all-in-one functional trainer and power rack category. However today, it looks like Major Fitness is back again and this time competing with themselves with the Drone 1, an Amazon exclusive Major Fitness release, which essentially brings the same functionality of the F22: dual sided functional trainer, landmine, low row, pull up bar, and spotter arms, etc. but this time made a few quality-of-life updates, and this time half the price. It cost only $500 bucks for all this functionality. How does this make sense? Is that even possible? Let’s check it out.

Rack Overview and Attachments

Hey guys this is Michael with The Jungle Gym Reviews. Today we are reviewing the newly released Major Fitness Drone 1, which is part of their Amazon Exclusive product line, so not available on their website. You heard me right earlier, it’s pretty much a half-priced version of their F22 rack that I reviewed in the past, you can check out the link in the description for my previous full review of that product. This Drone retains the same versatility by still using a built-in dual pulley system functional trainer, but instead of individual weight stacks that you have to load on each side separately, this one has a singular center mounted plate loaded weight stack plopped in the back of the rack, which centralized the weight stack in addition to adding rack stability. In addition to the incentivizing price, instead of spotter arms outside of the rack, this rack features flip down safety spotters on the inside so when you are doing your barbell movements, you’re lifting inside the rack like a true power rack or power cage configuration. The other big highlight of this rack is that it is 2x2 with 1-inch holes so it adds even more cross compatibility for aftermarket attachments from other companies. Also out of the box it includes a multi grip pull up bar and a bunch of cable attachments and weightlifting accessories to get you started, all coming together to create a cheap but pretty sweet home-gym package to get your started for sure.

So, this is a 4-post power rack with 2x2 uprights with 14-gauge steel. As I mentioned before there is one singular center mounted pulley weight stack and guide rod system that supplies both individual functional trainer cable sides with the typical 2:1 pulley, obviously if you are using both side you are splitting the weight in half with the other side. The holes on the uprights are 1 inch diameter which means they can fit attachments from a variety of other brands, although Major fitness does have an entire line of their own well thought out attachments you can add to this rack and you can order from their website: weight storage, lateral raise machine attachment, lever arms, a leg holder for lat pulldowns, an upgrade to this racks functional trainer to a fully selectorized 170LB weight stack on both sides, and a few others. So again, just know that when you buy this rack, you have plenty of attachment options to suit your needs. Not only that, but then you can use parts from other companies Like REP and TITAN and a few others because they make attachments for this upright size and hole diameter.

Rack Specs

So for those who want let’s say “what’s the most amount of functionality I can get for $500 but I don’t care about it being the best all around” this right here hits exactly that category and appeal of a cheap yet capable rack, so let’s go over some of the details quickly. Total dimensions are 86 in tall by 64 in wide x 66 in front to back length. That total width does include the band pegs and low row footplate, so you don’t need to factor in extra space for those. Also, since you load the weight stack from the middle of the rack you don’t need to have room on the outside, just walk directly into the rack to load up those weight horns. A quick mention on the height, you probably do want a few more inches of ceiling clearance to accommodate your head doing pullups, although alternatively you could mount the pull up bar upside down to save about 4 inches of ceiling clearance.

Again, since this rack uses drop in safety spotters, that lock with a detent pin, one of their big advertising points with this rack is a video Major Fitness showed that they drop test 500 LBS at head height from a forklift and the rack and spotter arms held up just fine. So their 900 LB static rack capacity actually can hand at least so a 500LB dynamic true drop test. Being the engineer that I am, I immediately was contemplating how to roll even more weight, like 600LBS on a barbell and do my own drop test in my driveway but when trying to plan the logistics to stay alive, my wife said  “I don’t want to be a part of that”, so I stopped my train of thought there – probably a good move too. One of these days I am going to get more reckless when I can collect enough weigh plates and a barbell and a rack I truly don’t care about damaging!

Coming back to the rack specs, of all the capacities, one thing to be aware of is actually the cable capacity, which is listed at 300LBS static load, so I assume that means dynamically is some percentage maybe equating to 200-250LBS range dynamically if I had to guess. So just know if you are planning to consistently load this thing over 200LBS that this is probably the bottleneck capability for you super strong folks, especially long term.

Lastly, in case people are interested in the specific height settings the adjustable range is from approximately 12 in height at in the lowest setting, to the highest at 74 in. This is the actual height of the cable where you pull from not the holes themselves. The spacing for the cable height adjustments is ever 10cm within this range and the spacing between 1-inch attachment holes on the front of the rack is approximately 3.5 in on center.

Functionality and Using the Rack

So quickly just to go over the full functionality of the rack, it’s your typical power rack so you can do all your barbell-based movements like squat and bench press. Again, even though it’s a single weight trolley it’s still a dual sided functional trainer so you can do all the endless functional trainer movements on either side individually or together. The included multi grip pull up bar is nice to be able to add variation to your pullups, but really you only have one neutral grip option, so don’t expect groundbreaking ways to use it there, but it works, and it’s nicer than just having a single straight bar for pullups anyways.

Major Fitness does also include a set of dips bars for dips which is nice, I personally actually have tendonitis in my elbow which coincidentally started from deep weighted dips, and didn’t get better as I continued to do them and increase pressing volume over the years, shocker, so I don’t personally do those anymore because of some minor years of PTSD, but that is an out of the box included movement and functionality they have with the rack here, so that is nice.

Also as mentioned prior, you can also do single sided movements just fine. The included low row footplate allows for an easy switch and setup to those, and then you can do lat pulldowns as well, but as with any setup doing lat pulldowns from the floor, it becomes hard to keep your torso on the ground when you lift more than your bodyweight, but you can be creative in finding a solution to those, find an aftermarket solution, or just buy their leg holder attachment from their website for about $90.

One last point I wanted to mention is the rack also has a built-in landmine post attached to the rack so that is just another avenue of movements and versatility you can add to your workouts. This also allows really allows you to work out with multiple people if that is ever needed: friends, family, or even just setting up two or more exercises to do circuit training or super setting between barbell, cable, or landline movements quickly.

Overall

Functionality: 7.5

Features/Design:7.5

Fit/Finish: 7

Value: 8

Overall: 7.5

So overall the Major Fitness Drone 1 is a decent rack that can do a lot of things and it’s selling point is really just the low price per the amount of movement and capability that this rack offers. Like I mentioned it can accommodate multiple people working out if you are creative, someone inside the rack doing barbell movements and someone outside doing cables or landmines. You can do traditional strength training, you can do circuit training, you can use bands wrapped around the included band pegs on the rack, you name it.

If I were buying this, I would probably grab a couple pairs for their weight plates holders so you can store plates on the rack and then more plates always just makes the rack more stable as well.

This rack overall is not really a buy it for life option I would say, but if you’re someone who wants to start a home gym, wants a little bit of everything, who maybe doesn’t want to have to do a bunch of research in pieces a bunch of parts together, or definitely just wants to save money and get something that works – this rack is for you.

Lastly, if you do want some examples of alternate options or a more comprehensive list of rack sizing, options, and my recommendations, check out that section from the previous Major Fitness F22 review, again the link is in the description.

Feedback and Improvements

So I do have a couple things to mention as far as things I didn’t like or ways that I think the rack could be better, but none of them are a deal breaker for me at this price. Obviously at such a relatively low price point for an item this large, like a rack, there are tradeoffs and limitations to the overall quality or some of the movements that you can do. First off, the cables and the pulleys that come by default are not the smoothest although you can upgrade to aluminum pulleys and purchase those on the Major Fitness website for about $160. I think that’s a small investment for any home gym user that will make this feel much better and definitely make things smoother so would be a consideration of mine if I had long term ownership of this machine. The original pulleys get the job done but compared to the 5 other functional trainer or pulley setups I currently have in my gym here: REP PR5000 lat pulldown, Inspire SF3 trainer, Dialed Motion Ibex, Mikolo Falcon functional trainer, this Dron 1 one is the least smooth out of all of them, but probably as expected for the price range. I would say, if you plan to use cables as a primary training method, I would generally advise you to consider a dedicated functional trainer option because it is going to be smooth and more easy to use, but immediately we are talking about a minimum of a two times price jump at that point for only one type of functionality, the trainer. So, I don’t think it’s a fair comparison here.

Another thing I wanted to point out is that it is slightly awkward to load the weight horns due to the cables in the rear in the rack as they limit the width of space you have to get the plates on the weight horns. That, along with the location of the rear floor crossmembers means you have to reach a little bit aways from your center or gravity to load and unload, and with 45LB plates it gets a little awkward feeling. It’s not a deal braker by any means but just know you have about 6 inches of clearance left to right to put your weight plates and slide them on and off of the angled weight loading horns.

Lastly, Major Fitness advertises that you can do EVERYTHING inside the rack which is mostly the case, however everyone knows the one movement exception to that typically is incline barbell benching because when your bench is in any moderate incline position. Here is exactly the case as well where the feet of the bench hit the rear crossmember so you can’t line up even remotely underneath the bar. Again, not a big deal, you just simply move the J cups to the front posts of the rack when you want to incline bench, but you would be able to have spotters for that movement then obviously.

Other than that, everything is on the lighter cheaper side for fit and finish and overall functionality, but that’s really the overall tradeoff you get to pack all this stuff in for $500. Potentially buyers know this, Major Fitness knows this, and that’s why they have focused on the things you need to get a good workout in rather.

Signoff

Alright guys that’s pretty much it, let me know your thoughts in the comments below if something like this is interesting to you, or what you would consider as an alternative in this ultra budget multi-functional all-in-one rack category. Thank you for checking out this review of the Major Fitness Drone 1, if you have any questions on this product, suggestions for future reviews, or anything like that, please comment down below and I will be happy to answer or at least try. Thanks for tuning into The Jungle Gym Reviews, we will see you next time, take it easy, peace.

-Michael @TheJungleGymReviews