Signature Fitness Rowing Machine Review

Introduction

Hey guys welcome back to the Jungle Gym Reviews. I have a super quick review I wanted to share with you: The Signature Fitness Rowing Machine.

Who Is Signature Fitness

So for those of you not familiar with this brand Signature Fitness is another one of many import manufacturers that sell their products on retailers such as Amazon and Walmart. This will now be the third piece of their equipment that I own, along with a stair climber and a clone of an older model Precor Icarian leg press, for which I will have reviews coming in the future. Overall, with Signature Fitness as a brand, I have been satisfied for the price per value of their products, and again as seen in the case of this rower, it is approximately 1/3 of the cost of it’s name brand competitors. So how does it stack up?

This rowing machine/rower is clearly a concept 2 clone, in almost everything minus the branding. To be honest, I think that is really the goal with their products is just to engineer and copy a tried and true design, manufacture it, slap their branding on it, import it, and distribute via a major retailer for a fraction of the cost. And considering the comparatively overall low price, I would say they are succeeding.

I previously owned an actual concept 2 for a little over a year and only sold it to fund some other higher priority equipment purchases. Full disclaimer most of my training revolves around strength or hypertrophy training so I am just a casual rowing machine user, only adding 5-10 minutes a handful of times a week for some added interval training and cardio. That being said I think it is important to determine your use case for a rowing machine prior to purchasing this one or really any one. If you plan to use a rower every day or long periods of time, even this product aside I would almost recommend you spend or invest accordingly no matter what the equipment is.

Functionality, Design, Quality

In regards to this specific rower: starting with the assembly the instructions were slightly unclear, and even being an engineer by trade and intuitive when it comes to and especially nuts and bolts, I even assembled some of the legs supporting the flywheel backwards. Speaking to the actual rowing experience, myself and a few friends who used it, noticed the resistance curve doesn’t feel quite even as the concept 2, and the retraction of the chain feels harder which can be good or bad depending on your expectations as a user. For challenging my interval training, I would say that’s good, if you’re older and doing this for low impact aerobic training, this may make it more difficult for you to row longer periods of time. Although would say for the average person who has nothing to compare it to, it feels just like one would expect a flywheel rower to.

Also out of the box the seat rollers were over tightened and the lip of the seat rail was actually overlapping the frame slightly in some places causing some slight friction underneath the rollers. Again, It didn’t really impact the use for me weighing 175LBS, but maybe to someone lighter it would be more noticeable. This metal slide rail lip in question, even got my finger as a casualty of war (photo) and I even saw this complaint also in another Amazon review.

The display is basic and just fine and works as it should although I haven’t tried the advertised Bluetooth connectivity, but I again quoting some Amazon reviews, I wouldn’t count on it working reliably. For me personally, the only real downside for this machine is that flywheel wobbles at higher flywheel speeds, such as when I am doing interval training, and it is definitely noticeable to the user. However again, since I am using it so infrequently, and also using it on rubber mats which dampen some of the vibration, is not a real deal breaker for me. If I was a frequent rower or was buying it for life this would probably make me reconsider, or if you are super strong and pulling hard and doing lots of interval training this wobble might recategorize from being slightly, to mode moderately annoying overtime. Personally, I wasn’t sure if it would be worth it to try to return since Amazon and have to pack this up, have them send me a new one, only to discover it’s a common issue, so I decided just to keep it as is.

So there you go, these are just my personal experience especially comparing it directly to a concept 2, but is really up to you as the individual and your use case, what your budget vs value expectations are. I just want to be transparent and share just these few things for anyone looking for a budget alternative to the concept 2 or similar rowing machine.

Overall Rating:

Functionality: 7

Feature/Design: 6

Fit/Finish: 6

Value: 8

Overall: 6.5

I would definitely recommend this machine for the price point, but again situationally up to you. For $300 I feel like you comparatively can’t go wrong or can’t go wrong at least trying. One benefits to being sold at a major retailer like Amazon is the potential ability to return it if you don’t like it or experience specific issues, but please do this at your own risk as I do not know the specific return policy. For a comparable price point, the other option would be to find a used concept 2, but I spent months looking within hours of my areas and really never saw a newer model listed for less than 5-600, which again is nearly almost double this price, and I didn’t have to leave my house.

Michael – The Jungle Gym Reviews