1 Year Review: Is the $700 Walmart Commercial Leg Press Worth It? (BalanceFrom/Signature Fitness)

Introduction

I’ve owned the BalanceFrom/Signature Fitness “commercial” leg press for an entire year. It’s all black, moderately adjustable, easily loadable for all strength levels, and honestly, clearly a visual clone at least, of the Precor Icarian 45 degree leg press than has been around for years. On paper, this leg press looks to be one of the bang for buck purchases you can have for your home gym coming it at only $800 including free shipping, sold and fulfilled via Walmart.com. All of this sounds really almost quite too good to be true, and so I am here tell you just how it's been after my full year of ownership and using it weekly in my training. Let’s check it out! 

Hey guys this is Michael with the Jungle Gym Reviews. Today we are reviewing the BalanceFrom/Signature Fitness commercial grade, plate loaded adjustable leg press, model SF-L2. As I mentioned I have owned this piece for a full year now and I’ve been tempted to make this video a handful of times as I have still yet to see more than 1 or maybe 2 video reviews on this product, despite it popping up again and again and again in the home gym group. Well today, I am here to share my experience owning it long term, tell you a little about what to expect with the machine, and then you can decide whether you think this will be a good purchase and fit for you, your home gym, and your training.

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Price

Ok so when I bought this machine a year ago it was around $1000 which I thought was a great price at the time. In recent months Walmart has dropped it to $800 and I have even seen it go about a hundred or two dollars cheaper than that, which is absolutely wild even just for something of this weight and size. I mean mostly plate loaded leg extension and curl machines are around $400-600 or 700 so for a 230LB leg press to get freight shipped to your door in a big crate at that price is pretty cool.

Build Quality/Fit/Finish

From the day I received it I have had no issues with the overall build quality, fit and finish. The linear bearings on the leg press trolley are still very smooth and noticeably moreso than any of the other cheaper plate loaded leg press and hack squat options I have owned in the past like the Titan Fitness and the RitFit combo machines. This Balancefrom/Signature Fitness version feels extremely solid and for sure one of the most commercial-like home gym oriented machines I have owned to date. As I mentioned before it is literally almost an exact clone of the older school Precor Icarian Leg Press that I have seen in a handful of gyms over the years and used in the past. 

As far as overall quality goes, the only things I have personally noticed on my machine, is that the left side stopper/locking handle is harder to turn than the other more friction than the other. It feels moderately like it is slightly catching or grinding from some metal on metal contact, where some rotational part or point is not seated or lubricated properly within whatever it is housed in. I have tried to get some silicone grease in there where I assumed to be the friction points but that didn’t really help, and it’s such a minor gripe that really doesn’t add or take away from the overall functionality, I just left it alone and largely just don’t even notice it anymore after using it for so long.

Other than that, from a quality standpoint, things like the footplate are both wide enough and comfortable enough, have good enough gripping, and built in dual footplate angle options, again mimicking that Icarian leg press – so they didn’t reinvent the wheel here. So there are just plenty of options for width and vertical positioning so that it is can be comfortable for users of any height, any limb and biomechanical proportions, if you want to bias your quads or your hamstrings more depending on how wide and what angles you choose to place your feet. 

Footprint/Dimensions

So probably as you could guess with the self-labeled commercial designation, this thing definitely does take up a bit of room, but honestly not too much in the grand scheme of things. The floor footprint is only 84 by 37 inches, so it can be pretty narrow depending on how oyu configure it. And the height is only 55 in. What really takes up the most space is the super long, but removeable, main weight loading horn which goes across the width of the frame and is 64 inches wide, which means then you also have to add a few inches more on either side in order to load it. What I have done is just remove this weight horn entirely, since the other one already mounted to the leg press plate trolley, can on it’s own accommodate about 12-14 standard width Olympic plates, then saving about a foot of width on either side, making this machine again pretty seamlessly fit anywhere into my gym(s) space with approximately a similar footprint to other such standalone machines.

How Well does it work?

So, considering all that, how well does it work? Honestly, if you blindfolded me at my local gym and had me use it, I would say “yep that’s a leg press”. Meaning, it feels 100% both normal from a use and quality standpoint that I would truly think this is a commercial option. It doesn’t shake, it doesn’t wobble, it is very smooth, you can load it fairly heavy with all loadable weight horn length on here, but to be transparent I haven’t loaded it with more than 10 or 12 plates total, both because I’m not that strong to rep that out with full ROM and because the other issue being I truly do not have more than 10 45LB plates in my home, so I assume quite a few of you are also are in this camp. So with all that being considered, it serves it purpose extremely well and I assume could adequately handle a few more 45LBS considering it’s 1000 LB rated weight capacity, which is about 22 45LB plates if you have that laying around.

Seat adjustments and Range of Motion

So for the adjustments and range of motion you have a few options to choose from. The seat back angle adjustments are plenty, as there are 4 different angles to choose from: 20, 25, 30, and 35 degrees which are pretty standard selections in my opinion.

The range of motion is really great and I think far outshines most home gym oriented leg press, especially the leg press and hack squat options. Since this machine is a dedicated leg press only, it is tailored to that specific movement. So here you can see just how deep you can go without hitting the bottom stoppers, and I even definitely consider myself a deep squatter as well, so I have had had no problems there. If you want even a little extra range of motion, which I don’t think mostly people will, but you can add some sort of padding or in my case an extra bench pad or similar prob behind you to push your torso further up and out, therefore giving you the save proportional range of motion increase if desired.

Assembly/ability for basement

As far as assembly goes, it is very straightforward. It gets plopped in your driveway in a big crate, everything including the large side frame pieces, and the leg press plate and trolley, are bubble wrapped and thrown in together and there are really only like about 8-10 pieces or so: the two sides of the frame, the seat frame, 2 or 3 cross braces, the guide rails, the whole leg press plate and trolley assembly, and the weight horns. On top of that, everything is assembled with 14-20 of the exact same size bolts which makes it easy and relatively quick to assemble. The other really nice thing about this bolt together design is that you can take it apart or move it up or down some stairs, so no matter if you have a basement, bedroom, or garage gym, you can take it piece by piece to the desired area where you want it setup and not have any issues getting it around corners or through doors. I had mine in the basement for about half of the last year before moving it back up here to the garage auxiliary gym 2 for some fresh air.

Overall Rating

Functionality: 8.5

Features/Design: 8

Fit/Finish: 8

Value: 9.5

Overall: 8.5

 So overall, considering the matrix of convenient and straightforward ordering, decent quality, low price, ability to go super heavy, and the smooth solid and just downright functional nature of the machine, it is definitely a good purchase for most people if they have the space in their home gym. For the price, in my opionion, its a no brainer, coupled with the fact its sold and shipped by Walmart =, it has a great range of motion, a relatively minimal footprint for a leg press, some built in plate storage and best of all its dirt cheap, which I still don’t understand because shipping I imagine is expensive

I am on a quest to try every leg press and hack squat machine on the market in the coming year or two, but for now this definitely has to be one of the best price per value ones that you can get that is also oriented to more, in theory at least, than just casua; home gym users, despite being a very competitive price. I would say this isn’t a true commercial machine but it is downright close and 95% of the users including myself, would never really know that’s not the case.

Improvements Needed

For the price, really the only improvements that wouldn’t break the bank in changing the design would be that I wish the back pad went higher to support my neck and head. When you are pushing heavily, kind of like benching, you start to push your shoulder blades and neck back, and with this, I end up just loosely looking at the ceiling. You can remember to just keep your neck slightly tucked and locked but it would be nice to have that feature.  The other improvement, that would likely cause a slight design change unfortunately is that I wish the trolley guide rails were a big longer to do calf raises on, I can do them, but at 6ft2 with long legs, I just have to do the bent knee version rather than a straight leg, so more just a quality of life issue. The last improvement is that I went the locking rails extended just a bit farther, I feel like it needs another notch about 6 inches higher than it currently does. It’s for sure not a deal breaker but rather than starting with my legs almost fully locked out, I have to squat quite a bit and start mid press range of motion to get it off the tallest stopper, so it needs one more higher to accommodate those of us who are long limbed.

Alternate Options

In this specific price range, none. Similar ones are much more expensive for near the same copy paste of this machine. IF you want hack squat and leg press there are a handful in this 600-1000 range, see my previous video of the RitFit leg press and hack squat that I will link in the description, for a more in depth comparison to similar options. As far as this commercial or light commercial options for a leg press, I haven’t seen much lower than the $1500-2000 price range, so this is about half that cost, so you aren’t really comparing apples to apples since this one is just so far apart in the price range. It’s really hard to make the case for something more expensive that may have small quality of life or quality or max capacity type improvements.

Signoff and Q&A

So guys that’s it for this review on the Balancefrom/Signature Fitness Leg press sold on Walmart.com. If you’re interested in joining the connecting on a more personal level, please see the link below for our Discord channel where we have a lot of great conversations going between us, other creators, and you the community members. We also officially launched our apparel website thejunglegymapparel.com with limited stock for our first official release of high quality, super comfortable, athletic fit casual and gym wear and gym flags. Thank you for tuning into The Jungle Gym Reviews, we will see you next time, take it easy, peace.

-Michael @The Jungle Gym Reviews