Inspire M3 With Leg Press Review
I am very happy with my Inspire M3 recently bought from Leisure Fitness in New Jersey. The delivery and setup for $300.00 was a little steep, but the two young men were careful, efficient, neat and curteous. Much better, in my opinion, than the delivery people from Omnifitness where I bought my Landice L7 treadmill.
I just had my first serious workout on the M3 last night. I want to provide some feedback on what I thought and give you some background on who I am writing this review. I will start by saying that I have been lifting on and off for almost 20 years and first joined a health club when I was 15 years old. Most of my lifting has been with free weights, dumbbells and health club selectorized universal equipment. During the last 6 years, I have been running and road/mountain biking, but my shoulders are beginning to give me problems (old football/wrestling injuries). Also, my wife needs to train with weight resistance to increase bone density. At 5'8" and 225lbs, I was looking for something to help me loose fat and tone up while increasing strength and muscle mass (particularly around the shoulder girdle). Due to our busy schedules, neither of us got much use out of our local health club memberships. After almost a year of research, I decided to buy the Inspiron M3 with leg press. I also ordered a tricep rope, ab bar and metal D handle. I haven't received the D handle yet. They told me it would be shipped later along with the laminated wall chart. For those interested, my wife chose the tan pads and black weight stack shroud. They look like they will get dingy with age, hopefully Fantastic will help. I chose the Inspire M3 based on the following priorities: health club quality feel, simplicity, smallest possible footprint, 89 inch height limit, and price. For what I paid relative to our savings in gym memberships, we will break even in less than 3 years and will not have to be rushing through our workouts. Since everything on the M3 is warrantied for life for in home use, I felt it was a good investment. With the leg press, the footprint is 67 inches wide and 72 inches long and I believe 83 inches high. Check for specs. I have the unit in a room with my L7 treadmill and computer desk with printer. The room is about 11.5 feet by 15.5 feet and everything fits well, but I think the room would be cramped if it was any smaller.
The shipping box said the unit was designed in USA and made in China. I was also told that the designer started Pacific Fitness, then sold to Precor, signed a 10 year non-compete clause, made high end swings in the meantime (similar technology with supporting weight and pivot points so I don't view this as a negative attribute whatsoever), then, when the non-compete period expired, he began making Inspire Fitness products. Some of the welds remind me of those found on bikes you would buy from Target rather than those on high quality bikes, but at least there are no sharp edges around the welds. This does not effect the performance of the machine and it is my guess that many people would never notice this. Although there were two men for assembly, I assisted them when they would let me. I considered picking up the unit from a local warehouse and assembling it myself. The instructions looked clear, the frame pieces properly lined up, and all of the holes neatly accepted the bolts during assembly. The delivery men told me that this is not the case with other manufacturers that they deal with.
The Inspire M3 does its job nicely. I did not have the wall chart but followed Day 1 of the Advanced Workout link from the Inspirefitness.net "workouts" link. This portion of the website shows, if not tells how the machine should be positioned for most exercises. I am almost considering writing a book just on home gym exercises because there are far more possible exercises than shown on the website or the printable wall chart.
In contrast to the M2, the M3 has a back pad with preset positions for flat bench, incline 1, incline 2, and shoulder press. Especially for shoulder pressing, this leaning forward is an unnatural position. With a decent amount of weight and no back support, as with the M2, I could easily see myself straining my back. This is not an issue with the M3. The free form straps are intended to mimic dumbbells. They succeed in the sense that there is no defined arc of motion, but they are not independent, so one arm could be pushing more of the load than the other. I try to concentrate on using both arms evenly. Another reason I preferred the M3 over the M2 is the seated leg curl. I have never done standing single leg curls. I felt uncomfortable doing them in the showroom on the M2, but as with anything, I am sure I could have gotten use to it. You have to do one leg at a time. For this reason alone, I could justify the additional price of the M3 in time savings by being able to work both hamstrings at once. I liked having the 200lbs vs. the 150lbs on the M2. 3:2 leverage ratio on the leg press provides 300lbs of resistance. PLENTY for us. Another difference, the M2 lower pulley has a nice foot plate and is placed at the end of the leg press. This makes the length needed for the M2 much longer than the M3. The M3's lower pulley is located in front of the weight stack, behind the back support. The M3 does not have the nice foot rest, but the space requirement for me took precedence here.
***If anyone has a solution for the lack of footrest on the M3, I would love to hear about it.***
Last difference is the handles for the ab station. I don't believe the M2 has them and uses straps instead. Not a big difference here.
I prefer the strap handles for many exercises because they also work the secondary muscles. Without a defined arc, the pec fly motion was preferable to any health club fly I have ever tried. Where the motion is defined, I feel like my shoulder is about to dislocate going backward.
The standing tricep pull down is simple and smooth. The only problem here is that it requires me to straddle the seat and causes me to keep my legs farther apart then I normally would. However, because the top pulley is so wide, you don't have to stand directly underneath it. Instead you could stand to either side of the seat and not have to straddle it. The seated tricep extension with the mid pulley is great. Again, lots of different angles you can do here. The lat pull down is smooth and the lat and easy curl bars are incredibly light and have a nice feel. They are thicker than some bars I have used. The thinner bars are less comfortable. The spring clips are small and I already nicked the ceiling trying to change out the lat bar. As has been discussed in other posts, bigger clips will probably help. The standard ab station and ab bar both work well.
The leg press is not quite gym quality. It is comfortable and smooth but it is no replacement for the squat or a gym quality leg press station. The difference is that you are sitting. During a squat, or in a standing leg press station, the weight is on your shoulders, down through your core, into your legs. With this machine, the shoulders and core are not truly weight bearing. Again, I had to make some concessions.
All told, I am VERY happy with the Inspire M3 and highly recommend it if space is an issue, your wife absolutely will not use free weights, you don't want to spend five thousand dollars, and you want a smooth machine where everything is guaranteed for life. It may not be for everyone, but so far, the purchase, delivery, assembly and initial work outs have all been great.
Last note, a post from someone who owned a 15 year old Pacific Fitness machine is on this thread. He was very happy with it. Also, when he needed a replacement part, he obtained it through Precor (the acquiring company). Inspire Fitness is a young company. Hopefully they will stay in business longer than my shoulders. If they are acquired, I hope it will be a company similar to Precor and the replacement parts will be available from that company.
