I swapped my gym membership for the Speediance Gym Monster 2 – was it worth it?

The Speediance Gym Monster 2 is a versatile home gym all in a package that can roll away into a closet or sit neatly next to a wall, taking up less square footage than a rack of dumbbells. It follows up the original Speediance Gym Monster, which earned 4 out of 5 stars in our review.

The new model makes some smart improvements, shrinking its footprint, upgrading the speaker system, and enhancing the motor system’s cooling. It’s not cheap, with a starting price of $3,649 plus shipping, but the Gym Monster 2 doesn’t require professional installation or an ongoing subscription that will increase the cost over time — the latter being quite common on these types of machines.

And given how many workouts you can do from the convenience of your own home, the value can quickly stack up, especially if you frequently exercise, don’t have a nearby gym, and plan to keep up an exercise routine indefinitely.

The Gym Monster 2 has an edge over the alternatives in price, size, and the lack of a subscription, making it well worth considering. But if you don’t need all the extra and smaller footprint of the Gym Monster 2, I think the (now) much cheaper original Gym Monster offers even better value.

Speediance Gym Monster 2 review

Price and availability

The Speediance Gym Monster comes in three different setups (Works, Works Plus, and Family Plus) and is available at Speediance US, Speediance UK and Speediance AU. All tiers include the same main platform, motorized weight system, and display; they simply vary their included accessories.

The base Works level costs $3,649/ £2,999/ AU$4,499 and includes a flat bench, barbell, barbell hooks, barbell cushion, ankle straps, tricep rope, handles, extender belts, and a Bluetooth ring. The Works Plus swaps out the flat bench for an adjustable bench and raises the price to $3,799/ £3,198/ $4,799.

The Family Plus also gets the adjustable bench and includes a rowing platform and rowing bar while raising the price to $4,199/ £3,689/ AU$5,399.

Specifications

• Live classes: No
• Digital form tracking: No
• Screen: 21.5-inch touchscreen (1920 x 1080)
• Accessories: Weight bench (flat or adjustable), rowing bench, rowing grip, barbell, barbell hooks, barbell cushion, ankle straps, tricep rope, handles, extender belts, Bluetooth ring
• Max Tension: 220 pounds (110 pounds per arm)
• Size: 48.03 x 27.16 x 72.83 inches (unfolded), 14.56 x 27.16 x 72.83 inches (folded)
• Weight: 171.96 pounds
• Warranty: 2-year

Setup and installation

The Gym Monster 2 may be a lot lighter than a squat rack and all the accompanying weights, but it’s still something of a beast at 171.96 pounds. With all the accessories added in, it shipped at a reported 350 pounds for the Family Plus setup tested here.

This may not be an issue if you live on the ground floor, have capable help, or get lucky with a delivery person who wants to go above and beyond, but trying to bring everything up to a second-story apartment alone was out of the question. The size and weight of the Gym Monster 2 make it difficult to move alone.

The flip side is that the Gym Monster 2 comes fully assembled. Once it’s out of the box, you can simply wheel it over to where you want to use it, lay down the base, plug in the power, and start attaching your accessories. The operating system will walk you through setup on the built-in display. After adding a few personal details and linking an email address, the system was ready to use.

The rowing platform is one exception, as it did entail some assembly, though not more than 10-20 minutes worth. Most of the setup process of the Gym Monster 2 is simply unpacking everything, as almost every additional item comes individually packaged.

Design

The Speediance Gym Monster is almost like a doorway to fitness. It has the shape of a door, though conveniently offers smaller proportions, so it’s easy to fit through an actual door. The machine consists of two main elements: a six-foot-tall metal frame and a three-foot-long platform. These are connected with a hinge, allowing the whole system to fold up and take up just 2.75 square feet of floor space.

The compactness is a key aspect of the Gym Monster. Once folded — a position it will hold with a locking peg — it takes up much less space than many different types of workout equipment, including competitors like the Oxefit XS1 (6.79 square feet of floor space when folded). The system also doesn’t require any sort of permanent installation like Tonal does. Speediance has even set it up with wheels, so you can roll it to different rooms of your home or easily slip it into a closet when it’s not in use.

Where the frame and platform hinge, Speediance has housed the electronic motor system that powers the resistance cables. The cables run through anchors that can lock into slots on the base or two slots on either side of the frame. The slots on the frame are adjustable with locking pins that can slide into 11 different heights along the frame. Combining the many different anchor positions and numerous attachments, the Speediance Gym Monster 2 offers a ton of different workout options and resistance up to 110 pounds per side.

In the middle of the upper frame, the Gym Monster 2 has a 21.5-inch touchscreen display for navigating all of the system’s features. The display can also tilt so that it’s still visible when you're lying down to exercise on the bench. The display is enough to get the job done, providing clear visuals for workouts and data. But it’s not a high-quality display. At its size, it’s not incredibly sharp. And perhaps its worst trait is a parallax effect that makes just about anything viewed at an angle show a reflected ghost of the image slightly offset from it.

The design of the Speediance Gym Monster 2 certainly has its advantages where space is limited and permanent installation isn’t allowed — hello, my fellow apartment renters. It comes with some downsides, though. The platform is a bit small for some workouts and taller users, so you can expect to have your legs sticking out the end if you’re lying down for a workout. The frame also has just a bit of wiggle to it. In other words, it’s not built like a tank, but it has proven up to the task of the resistance the motors produce.

Overall, it’s a smartly designed machine and has some minor improvements over the original Gym Monster, like its smaller floor footprint and upgraded speaker system. But there’s still polish that could have been added. The adjustable bench included with our test unit can fold up, but rather than relying on quick-release pins to lock the legs in place when in use, the bench relies on threaded bolts that need to be slid and screwed in.

It’s still a quick process, but not as quick as it could be. And the threaded bolts don’t have a retaining cable to keep them connected to the bench when it’s not in use, so you need to make sure not to misplace them. The seat portion of the bench also doesn’t lock into place completely when the bench is flat, and the legs don’t lock in their folded position; this lets them flop around and makes moving the bench all the more awkward. They’re very small missteps but a bit below expectations for a premium product such as this.

The rowing bench is quite heavy (and a little trickier to move thanks to the sliding seat). Rowing with the Gym Monster 2 still proves a serious workout, but it’s not quite as refined as a dedicated rowing system. In particular, the sliders on the seat have a little play and the result is noise. Sliding back and forth on the seat, the rowing bench is simply loud. The straight bar that is the rowing handle allows isn’t very ergonomic.

And for all Speediance’s consideration of space savings, it doesn’t actually work perfectly if it’s tucked snug against a wall. For one thing, the power cord sticks directly out of the back of the base. The display’s hinge also shifts it in such a way that the lower two-thirds stick out backwards, so you’ll have to slide the Gym Monster 2 away from the wall a few inches if you plan on using that element of the display.

Thankfully, it only takes a few seconds to fold up, reposition, and fold down the machine, and the power comes in through a pretty standard C13 connector, so you can just grab an aftermarket right-angle cable and be on your merry way.

The kit includes extenders that come in handy to avoid having the cables drag along your arms during certain motions and give you a little added safety while bench pressing. But the fabric on these is a bit rough if it drags across your arms, which it will for some exercises. The barbell is well built, but the adjustable attachment rings are tricky to unlatch and move.

Finally, for those who have special gear they like, the setup even includes special attachment parts that let you use your own grips. For instance, this let me easily attach a pair of Metolius Rock Rings 3D to add a bit of finger grip training to the larger muscles targeted by my workouts.

Software

Speediance runs a custom operating system that makes it fairly easy to dive into exercise. You’ll have to set up an account and profile to take full advantage of the system, but there’s no mandatory subscription plan — a huge advantage over some of the Gym Monster 2’s competitors.

Speediance offers visually guided workouts with various models showing the exercises and explanations of the motion and target muscles. Data screens include details of your range of motion, power for each lift, rep counts, total weight lifted, and more. As you workout, pop-up notifications can point out if your lifting is uneven, too quick, or not the expected range of motion.

The system has loads of pre-recorded, instructor guided works and long-term programs with more added on a regular basis. And to its credit, the Gym Monster 2 encourages smart exercise. With many of its exercise programs, it starts off with a couple of warmups and it ends with a couple of stretches for the targeted muscle groups.

While I’ve enjoyed these workouts, I found many programs tended to repeat the exact same exercises each week, which can get a little dull. Many also include bodyweight and HIIT movements that are better performed on a mat on the floor or a space beside the Gym Monster 2, so it’s worth setting aside some space around the machine while working out.

The first thing you’ll want to do once you have the Gym Monster 2 up and running is take a strength assessment. Oddly, this assessment isn’t easy to find. I’d expect a huge notification to direct me to it, but instead, it’s somewhat tucked away inside your user profile, once you make that. Without taking the strength assessment, any workout programs you sign up for will start at very low weight levels.

This may work for some, but if you’ve already got some muscle you’re just hoping to tighten up or add to, you’ll find yourself tediously adjusting the weights at the start of every workout. And if you have already begun a workout program, it won’t adapt to strength assessment data after the fact. Instead, it will just rely on your performance and adjustments in prior sessions.

The strength assessment is also a bit tedious to go through. It doesn’t use the normal interface, and it doesn’t show you what equipment or workout you’ll be doing in advance. Instead, it starts you out with a guided warmup and then asks you to dive right in with the assessment workout. In a couple cases, it took too long to load the exercise I was meant to do during the assessment and assumed I had given up.

As a means of getting familiar with the machine, I find the assessment rather intimidating as well, as it simply repeats the exercise with increasing loads. I’d already exercised on the machine quite a bit beforehand, but even I got a little concerned each time it bumped up the weight of my bench press as I didn’t know how it was going to behave if I couldn’t lift it. Thankfully, after a couple seconds of me being stalled out, the weight turned off and the assessment ended automatically.

During regular workouts (i.e., ones that aren’t part of an instructor-led program), the software has a coach that will provide some verbal instructions and corrections, but they are not always worded clearly. Given how thorough other aspects of the training are, it’s surprising to see this one so half-baked.

In addition to the many pre-programmed and guided workouts, Speediance offers means to design your own workout routines. This lets you combine 50 different movements and activities, and with hundreds of options to choose from, you can build quite a rigorous exercise. Building a custom workout proved a little tedious as it wouldn’t accept my weight adjustments for the pre-populated sets when I added a movement.

So I had to customize each movement in order to get away from the default weights. There are some smart points, though, as the system has filters that let you narrow in on different types of exercises, focus on specific muscle groups, and limit search results to show only workouts that use accessories you own.

During my testing, Speediance also introduced an AI-based service called “Wellness+”. This would come up with workouts based on my goals and fitness and guide me through them. This will also become a paid subscription on June 1, 2025.

My limited use of it proved underwhelming, especially when compared to the many guided workouts already available. The AI voice was also unpleasant to listen to. Thankfully, Speediance isn’t putting much behind that subscription and users will still get a fully-featured workout system without it.

Frustratingly, Speediance’s software will always begin music playback at the start of a workout session. I’ve never wanted the music to play, but without a means of disabling it, I have to start the workout on the machine, pause the playback, and then proceed to my exercise. With the many guided workouts available, the music also gets in the way.

Performance

Having worked out regularly over the last month and a half and having lifted some 250,000+ pounds on the Gym Monster 2, I’ve gotten good and familiar with its workings. There’s no doubt that it can provide a serious workout, and I’ve been able to hit just about every major muscle group. The anchors and attachment points on the Gym Monster 2 make it pretty easy to switch between workouts. And adjusting weights takes only a second or two.

The most tedious parts of workouts are setting up the bench, shifting the cables from floor to the frame (and vice versa), as the motors will try to gently retract the cables from time to time. These light tugs can make lining up and slotting in the anchor difficult. Finagling the barbell onto the cables is also a bit annoying. Even then, it’s such a quick process to go from one workout to another that I think I could get through most workout routines quicker on the Gym Monster 2 than if I were alone in a gym with free use of its various machines and free weights.

Weight lifting with the Gym Monster 2 is also surprisingly natural. There’s a little funniness as the motors apply the weight, but once they’ve done so, each workout feels much like it would in the gym with a weight machine or free weights. In fact, the Gym Monster 2 floats somewhere in the middle of those two exercises methods, as each movement doesn't have a restricted path as a weight machine would, but the cables also don’t apply resistance directly downward like the gravity on free weights would.

The Gym Monster 2 allows for some more complex lifting behaviors as well. It can apply a constant resistance for natural lifting. It can apply eccentric resistance, ramping up the resistance as you lower the weights. It has a chain mode that increases the weight as you move toward the peak range of motion. And it rounds out with a constant speed, which dynamically adjusts the resistance to match your force — no snatching or explosive movement.

The safety features of the Gym Monster 2 proved reliable in my testing. The system’s spotter mode is very useful. Set to its higher-mode, it would kick in to quickly lower the resistance if I stalled out in the middle of a lift, and once I started to move the bar again, it would level off at that new weight.

The system also automatically deactivates the weight if it detects they’ve been dropped. That said, the spotter can have some false-positives that may steer you away from it. When doing exercises with alternating arm movements, I noticed the spotter lowering the weight after each rep. It seemed to think the idle arm was struggling and would thus lower the weight in response.

The system is smart about shutting down if it detects a drop, but it also appears to understand that rowing is a different scenario. Sliding forward after each row, even if I moved aggressively forward, the system didn’t get confused and think I was dropping weights.

While exercising, the motors inside the base make a gentle, low-pitch whirring as they resist movement and retract the cables. It’s quiet enough that it’s not liable to bother someone in a nearby room, though I have concerns about its transmission through the floor. While the system is on, there appear to be fans running, and these can increase in volume as the weight demands increase, likely to help keep the motors cool.

Verdict

The Speediance Gym Monster 2 provides a serious workout and lets you hit a load of different muscle groups all from a machine that you can tuck up next to a wall or roll away into a closet. It may be expensive, but its price readily rivals the many pieces of home gym equipment you’d have to add together to match Gym Monster 2’s versatility.

It’s an impressive piece of hardware that delivers on its promise, and while it has some room for improvement, given how many workouts I’ve completed in just the time I’d have spent commuting to a gym and back, it’s hard to argue with the convenience and compact nature of the machine.

It’s a great alternative to the pricey Oxefit XS1 (not to mention sizable) or Tonal 2. The core accessories of the Gym Monster 2 are solid, but the extras that come with the upgrade packages don’t feel worth the extra money, and I’d recommend sticking with the Works package and buying a third-party bench if you need one.

Perhaps its biggest issue with the Gym Monster 2 is that it doesn’t offer much more than the original Gym Monster, and you can still snag that for well under $3,000.