Once upon a time, I used to go to the gym five or six days a week. But then I became a dad — looking at you, Ewan. And then I got a job. Then a pandemic came and my wife, Kelly, gave birth to a second, equally-adorable energy suck — hi, Lou! Now it’s 2022, and I haven’t been inside a gym since 2019.

Between dumbbells, kettle bells, fitness bands, a handcycle trainer and a pull-up bar, I’ve mostly figured out how to get my workouts in at home. But there’s one piece of gym equipment I’ve been missing: a cable machine. I’d looked at home cable machine options, but they all took up huge amounts of space or cost thousands of dollars — or both.

Fortunately, earlier this year, a rep from MAXPRO reached out. MAXPRO makes a fitness machine aimed at the general public that mimics the action of a gym-based cable machine, but in a tiny 10-pound package. I’d seen it online and been intrigued. Most fitness products are crap though, and I wasn’t willing to shell out almost $1,000 for the MAXPRO just to see if it would work for me (the price has since been lowered to $879). When the rep offered to send a unit to review, I was excited.

After two months of testing the MAXPRO, my excitement hasn’t faded. Despite a few quirks, it has quickly become my most versatile and most used piece of fitness equipment.

Setup

The MAXPRO is marketed as a portable machine — their videos have bronzed, muscly bodies working out with the unit attached to trees and park fences — but setting the thing up was difficult enough that I haven’t wanted to change the height of it, let alone take it to the shores of a scenic, alpine lake.

The unit comes with some ratchet straps and plastic mounting plates that let you attach the MAXPRO to a door. I’ll admit that some of my difficulties came about because I did the guy thing and neglected to read the directions before I started. But even after I figured out proper protocol, there was no way I was going to be able to attach it to the door at a functional height on my own. Even with Kelly helping, it was a bear trying to hold the unit at the right height while she fed the straps through the door protectors, positioned them and tightened them down.  

I’ll likely invest in their wall track ($318 on maxprofitness.com), which screws into a stud and allows you to slide the unit from floor level to over your head with the push of a button. They also have a foldable bench under which the unit attaches, but I likely wouldn’t use that for much more than chest presses so it doesn’t seem worth the expense or the space.

Workout

Once the MAXPRO was secured on my utility room door, I realized what a unique piece of equipment this is. I started by rolling up facing the unit and locking my brakes. The unit can deliver 5 to 300 pounds of resistance, which you control with two dials that go from 1 to 25. With the dial set on 1, it did feel similar to 5 pounds on a cable machine. I have no way of verifying the upper end of the range, but even performing one of my strongest movements (a high row), I was barely able to budge the handle with the dial set on 20. For most users, it will have plenty of resistance.

I went through one of my standard back workouts — single-arm rows, reverse flys, straight arm pull backs and side pulls — and hot damn, I had the functionality of a cable machine again. The resistance was so easy to adjust that I could do it with a single quad finger.

I’m more than satisfied with the strength workouts I’m getting with the MAXPRO. That’s because building and maintaining balanced strength — including all those antagonist muscles that don’t often get worked during daily life as a wheelchair user — has been one of the keys for keeping my shoulders healthy over 20-plus years with a spinal cord injury. But it can be difficult to get a quality back workout with a home gym setup. No more, thanks to the MAXPRO.

There were a few quirks, though. One is that the cable pull isn’t entirely smooth like a gym machine. This is likely due to the operation of the clutch plates, which provide the resistance. There are ticks in the line as you pull, but they are a mild annoyance and don’t impact functionality. After a few workouts, I stopped noticing. The other thing that takes some getting used to is that the unit only provides resistance as you pull the cable out, not as it retracts. At first this felt a little weird, but I quickly adjusted to it.

Versatility

Once I’d done a strength workout, I started playing around to see what else I could do with the unit. With the resistance lowered, I realized that I could do cardio workouts similar to a row machine or a ski erg that many adaptive athletes use. Or I could do circuits — switching between rows and straight arm pull backs, alternating or not — getting my heart rate up and my chest heaving without having to go out in the nasty weather we’ve been experiencing. I could do a solid cardio routine — and one that targeted my back no less — in the time it took Ewan to watch an episode of Wild Kratts. “Baba, did you know the pileated woodpecker has shock absorbers around its brain?!” “That’s fascinating bud — I’m gonna keep working out.”

For anyone with kids or familiar with the frequent, unexpected disruptions of disability life, starting a workout with minimal hassle, and thus being able to come back to it whenever you have time again, is huge. It means that dad life and all, I actually use the MAXPRO.

I also appreciate the unit’s ability to deliver some more advanced training methods. Plyometric training is often used by athletes who want to increase power and explosiveness. But you have to be careful with plyometrics. If you do a rep fast enough to make the weight jump, it inevitably falls back down, and a momentary lapse of form can easily tweak a muscle or joint. The MAXPRO’s concentric-only resistance means that you can be as explosive as you’d like and you never have worry about the impact of the weight coming back down.

The instantaneous resistance adjustment meant that I was better able to do some of the muscle-building workouts like pyramids that I used to perform back in my athlete days. You can start with a heavy weight and once you reach exhaustion, quickly dial back the resistance, and continue to exhaustion again, and again. I was able to obliterate my triceps, which sometimes is what you need. Sadly, I didn’t have any cans of protein powder on hand to really get the full “bro” experience.

The Takeaway

If you can afford it, buy it.

If you can’t afford it, I get it. Back when I was an athlete, my monthly social security checks were less than the MAXPRO. It’s worth researching grant opportunities, as many organizations provide funding for fitness equipment. MAXPRO also offers financing that works out to around $37 a month for a base unit.

Normally I’d have a hard time recommending a piece of fitness equipment that costs almost $900, but I’ve yet to encounter anything else that offers anywhere near the versatility and functionality of the MAXPRO. If you’re looking to maintain a functional strength and cardio routine as a wheelchair user, you can get by with this single piece of equipment. Plus, it takes up almost no space. That’s hard to beat.