The Gym Monster 2 is lets you perform dozens of exercises with video guidance and up to 220 combined pounds of resistance and doesn’t need a subscription, but it doesn’t offer full classes or detailed form feedback.
If you’re looking for a smart home gym machine and already have a pretty good grasp on how you want to work out, the Speediance Gym Monster 2 (starting at $3,749) is worth checking out. It’s much less expensive than the Tonal 2 ($4,295, plus accessories and membership fees), doesn’t require a subscription, and is freestanding, so you don’t need to worry about installing it on a wall. These advantages come with some significant trade-offs, though, as the Gym Monster 2’s presentation and overall experience feel rougher and more stripped-down than Tonal’s. It doesn’t have any live classes, can’t provide nearly as much useful form feedback, and switching between exercise configurations is much more clunky. The Tonal 2 is a better, though pricier, choice for beginners who are looking for an easy, encouraging, and safe way to build muscle and burn fat at home, and remains our Editors’ Choice for smart strength training.Design: Freestanding and Functional
The Gym Monster 2 comes in four different bundles: Basic ($3,749), Works ($3,949), Works Plus ($4,099), and Family Plus ($4,499). Basic includes the machine, Bluetooth ring, ring clip, an adjustable barbell, a set of barbell hooks, a pair of handles, a pair of handle extenders, a pair of ankle straps, and a triceps rope. Works adds a flat bench, and Works Plus upgrades the bench to an adjustable version capable of multiple angles from flat to seated upright. Family Plus has all of those parts, plus a rowing bench. Speediance sent me the Works Plus bundle for testing.
Even without a weight stack or attached handles, the Gym Monster 2 unmistakably looks like a home exercise machine. It stands 73 by 28 by 15 inches folded (HWD), with a U-shaped frame and a rectangular flip-down mat both rising above a heavy base. The machine’s large, tablet-like control panel is mounted on an arm that descends from the top of the frame, with a hinge that lets it tilt slightly up and down. That tablet houses most of the Gym Monster 2’s electronics, while the base holds the power supply and magnetic motors.
The motors and power supply account for most of the Gym Monster 2’s 172-pound weight, so it’s quite bottom-heavy. To make it easier to move around, there are two wheels on the front edge of the base, behind where the mat flips down. With the machine folded, you can roll it around the room by gripping the frame and tilting it toward you so it rises up on the wheels, then pushing it around like a hand cart. The wheelable base and free-standing design are the Gym Monster 2’s biggest advantages over the Tonal 2: If you have the space, you can put this machine down anywhere, while the Tonal 2 requires professional wall-mounting that makes it more expensive to set up and simply unfeasible in some homes.
If you’re willing to deal with free weights and use your own TV and iPhone instead of a full machine, the Tempo Move is an excellent alternative for smart strength training. It offers the classes and form feedback that the Gym Monster 2 lacks for a fraction of the price (starting at $708 for the first year to cover both the subscription and equipment, and $39 per month thereafter for the subscription).
The Gym Monster 2’s mat is a large black slab that folds down to the floor, with rubber feet on the bottom and a gray foam rubber pad on the top. The pad has enough traction to stay in place and can be removed and hand-washed when necessary. Unfolded, the mat expands the machine’s footprint to 28 by 48 inches (WD). When not in use, the mat folds vertically against the frame and stays locked in place until you press a button on the base to release it. Two short metal bars sit against the base and fold down onto the mat to lock it in the open position and keep the main body of the machine steady when in use; without the bars in place, the Gym Monster 2 can wobble and tilt forward when you use it.
Two thin cables run from the sides of the base to ball-shaped clips that the different handles snap into. These provide the resistance for many of the Gym Monster 2’s exercises. The cables run through pulleys on small metal brackets that slide into rails on the machine’s frame and mat. The rail mounts on the frame can be locked at several different heights, while the mat’s rail is fixed at the midpoints of its left and right edges. This setup enables resistance from multiple directions: Most pressing and curling exercises will use the mat points, while other moves like axe chop and chest fly may use the frame points at different heights.
