...and with that, there are many pros here! This is really solid equipment overall, but there are also a few small changes that I would like to see in the future and I hope Major Lutie listens to my input in that regard and makes their products even better than they are now!

So with that little disclaimer out of the way let's jump into the review! I am going to break this review down into 3 main categories.

• Firstly, I want to briefly discuss the assembly process of the Raptor F22 power rack (ease of assembly, clarity of instructions, etc.)

• Secondly, I want to talk about some of the specs and features of all the equipment they sent me and give them all an overall quality rating out of 5 stars

• Thirdly and finally, I want to discuss some of the pros & cons of the Raptor F22 Power Rack and its design. 

It's important to note that I completed the assembly all by myself. For the most part it was pretty straightforward and pretty easy, but there were one or two small snags that would have been much easier to get in place with the assistance of a third or fourth hand. The main issue I had was getting the pull-up bar secured in position with the bolts threaded through it, as the pull-up bar kind of acts as the final piece of bracing that squares everything on the rack together as you near the end of assembly. There are also 8 bolts that run through it (nice and secure, which I like!), but there is nothing to rest any of it on as you are trying to square everything and get the bolts lined up properly, run through their holes, and threaded in place.

So without a third hand it can be difficult to hold/balance the awkward piece in just the right place while trying to line everything up, run the bolts through, and get them threaded so that you can start the process of securing the bar. But in spite of that I managed to do it easily enough and anyone who is adept assembling things like this or skilled with hand tools shouldn't have too much issue getting the rack together even all by themselves. 

You do need a couple common tools to make the assembly process easier, most notably a ratchet and socket wrench set. Now, if you're a grown man and you don't own a ratchet and socket set already then I would highly recommend buying one or you should probably turn in your man card anyway because I'm not sure how you've been getting through life up to this point. A pair of slip joint pliers also comes in handy, as does a rubber mallet. I believe Major Lutie provides all necessary wrenches for assembling the rack, however, if you use a standard wrench (as provided) it will take you 5 times as long to secure every bolt as compared to using a ratchet and socket wrench set, so I would highly recommend going this route unless you just enjoy things being more tedious than they have to be.

Anyway, all together I give the assembly process a solid 4 out of 5 stars! Like I said there were a couple minor snags, but overall it was a pretty seamless and easy assembly process for the Raptor F22 Power Rack from Major Lutie Fitness! And it would be an even easier process if you are able to enlist a little bit of assistance along the way as well. 

In terms of pricing, they are slightly expensive overall running about 3 dollars per pound, but this is pretty standard pricing for this particular product. For example, Rogue's comparable bumper plates run about $2.70 per pound. So it's just an expensive product in general so I cant really knock it for that.

All things considered I'm giving the Major Lutie low bounce bumper plates 4.5 out of 5 stars!

Major Lutie Men's 20kg Basic Barbell

I really like this thing! In case you can't tell from my wall here I am a little bit of a collector of bars, and I do appreciate a good quality, economically priced barbell. This particular Major Lutie bar goes for about $260.00, which is a good price for the quality and caliber of that you're getting here.

It's 28mm in diameter, so it's not too thick but also not too thin and fits nicely in your hands; it has a 750lbs weight capacity, which is hefty; and I am a very big fan of the knurl. It's grippy and tacky and feels very solid and locked into your hands when you're holding it. It also accomplishes this feat without feeling like a cheese grater or tearing your hands to shreds in the process, so the machining is very high quality.

The bar has a moderate level of whip, which is good for pulls and Olympic lift variations, but because of that it wouldn't make it my first choice for squats or strict presses (side note: for the average lifter it will work perfectly fine as an all around bar for pretty much any exercise and most people will absolutely not notice any of these aforementioned differences). The sleeves rotate quite well also, about on par with my old Pendlay HD Olympic bar, but not quite as good as the Rogue Echo Olympic bar I own. 

Overall, the bar is great. I love it. It's a very high quality, well made barbell that is priced very fairly for what it is. 5 out of 5 stars here!

Major Lutie Raptor F22 Power Rack

Finally let's go over the quality of the Major Lutie Fitness Raptor F22 power rack itself. Overall, I'm very impressed with it! This thing is hefty and pretty damn heavy duty. Each side of the pulley has a 300lbs weight limit, so likely far more than you'll ever need to load onto something like that. The safeties and the rack have an 800 pound weight capacity, which is quite impressive!

I'll tell you, I have traveled across the world and I have visited more gyms than I can possibly even remember and lifted on more different types and brands of equipment than probably 99% of people, and this rack, which is designed for home gym use, could easily be used in commercial applications and you wouldn't know the difference. Typically, there is a pretty stark contrast between home gym grade equipment and commercial grade gym equipment, but in this case that contrast is pretty much non-existent. I have come across far cheaper feeling and flimsier racks in many of the gyms that I have visited. So the Raptor F22 is a high quality, heavy duty piece of equipment that is built very solidly.  

It also comes standard with a pull-up/chin-up bar, a true seated cable row setup with a foot plate so you can easily brace yourself and work hard, an adjustable height dual pulley system, a dip attachment with options for narrow and wide grip dips, band pegs so you can anchor your bands to the floor without worry or issue, a pretty sweet landmine attachment, as well as  4 weight plate holders on the backside of the rack, which is nice.

So the rack comes standard with some pretty cool add-ons and attachments, but before we give it a final grade let's review some of the pros and cons of the Major Lutie Raptor F22 power rack's design based on my experience lifting on it so far.

Con #1 : The Safety Arms

The rack has an open ended design, which I like because it provides more freedom than a cage. For example, previously I have had to do all my AD presses outside of the rack and outside the safety of the safety pins simply because my bench did not fit inside the cage in a way that was feasible to perform this exercise. With the open ended design this is no longer an issue and I can AD press with the safeties in place, so that's awesome! This is just one example of the benefits of an open design rack, but there are many others as well.

My only gripe with this setup  is that the safety arms themselves are a little bit shorter than I am comfortable with. So for example, if you are doing a heavy squat you have to move far enough away from the rack after unracking the weight that you don't risk clipping the pins with the bar. But with these short safety arms and the open ended design you might step back a little bit too far and move outside the safety zone without realizing it. The margin for error is pretty small here because the safety arms are quite short.

In the event of a missed lift (or something catastrophic occurring) you could potentially fall backwards and miss the safety arms entirely. So my hope is that they will remodel these safety arms and make them just a few inches longer. Even a couple extra inches will go a long way (that's what she said) towards increasing the overall safety of the product even if that means decreasing the weight tolerance rating on the safety arms by a little bit.

Con #2: The Dip Handle Attachment

I'll start by saying that I really like the wide grip and narrow grip concept on this dip attachment. The only problem is that in this case neither grip is very comfortable for me (your mileage may vary, everyone is built differently). I love dips, but on this attachment the wide grip is a little bit too wide which makes it uncomfortable, and the narrow grip is a little bit too narrow which makes it feel weak and awkward. Trying to mix and match between one of each handle width gives me the right grip width, but then the apparatus itself obstructs the range of motion of the exercise so this isn't really an option either.

This is another easily modifiable tweak as you can simply provide a different style of dip attachment and people can choose to purchase whichever one works better for them in that case. Alternatively, and this is probably asking a lot because I've never seen this before on a piece of home gym equipment, you could design an adjustable dip handle attachment where the user can change the orientation of the handles to optimally suit their specific build. This would be absolutely amazing to see.

Con #3: The Pull-up Bar

I really love the option for neutral grip chins. As many of you may recall I have gone to great lengths to give myself the option of doing neutral grip chins by placing my Swiss Bar on top of my old squat rack and anchoring it in place with resistance bands. So I am really looking forward to crushing some heavy, neutral grip chins on here. However, on the Raptor F22 I am now missing the option for straight bar work as the rack has only a neutral and wide grip handle. Without a straight bar there is no option for true supinated or true pronated grip work, and the choices for different grip widths are limited also.

As well, the handles are not knurled but are instead coated with rubber grips. A little bit of palm sweat here makes these handles very slippery and when you're working with heavy weights and really trying to push your chin-ups and pull-ups to the limit this grip issue matters a great deal. Changing to a knurled setup and adding in more options in terms of handles and grip choices will go a very very long towards improving the value of the pull-up station on this rack. 

So a few small cons here, most of which can be easily improved upon to make the rack better than it already is. Now let's move on to the pros! 

Pro #1: The Quality of the Rack

As noted previously this is a super heavy duty piece of home gym equipment and is basically a commercial grade rack. 'Nuff said.

Pro #2: The Pulley System

The dual setup is pretty sweet to have access to in a home gym, the system has a very high weight capacity, and the pulley heights are also adjustable so you'll be able to do pretty much any type of cable exercise that you can think of on here: pushdowns, rows, curls, extensions French presses, face pulls, Y raise, cable crossovers, rear delt flyes, etc. etc. It really really opens up your options in terms of the type of work you can do in a home gym setting.

The pulleys also feel super smooth when you actually load them up and work on them, which is nice because a janky feeling pulley system (which is how a lot of home gym ones feel) can really degrade the quality of your work. The pulley on the Raptor F22 is basically like going to the gym and working on a commercial grade pulley system, but you get to do it right from the comfort of your home gym.

Pro #3: The Open Design

As I mentioned previously, I like this open design and there are several advantages to it, as it simply allows more freedom to do things without being obstructed or hampered by the cage. In my case I can now perform the AD press as well as incline bench presses of varying degrees with the safeties in place which is going to let me push those exercises harder and make better gains on them!

Pro #4 : The Seated Row Setup

The addition of a foot plate is a simple, but nice touch that is going to let you push your rowing movements a lot harder and make better gains on them. It's simply impossible to really row hard on a cable apparatus without proper bracing, as you are often pulling against loads in excess of your own body weight. This footplate solves that issue, and basically turns the rowing station into one with a feel that is identical to the seated cable rowing machines that you find in most commercial gyms.

Pro #5: The Attachments Come Standard

The dip handles, landmine attachment, and band pegs all come standard on the Raptor F22 rack. A lot of companies make you pay extra for minor little add-ons like this, which is annoying, but in this case they all come standard with the rack which is a nice benefit as it really increases the versatility and value of the rack. It's not just a cage for squatting or pressing anymore, but now it is effectively an entire home gym system in one piece of do it all equipment.

Pro #6: 4 Weight Plate Holders

This is another simple add-on which is a really nice touch because space is often very limited in home gym setups. Sure, you can buy a weight tree to hold your plates (I own one myself), but that also just takes up more precious space that could be used for equipment or exercise floor space instead! In this case the rack was already going to take up that space anyway, and now it also doubles as a plate holder which helps to save precious space in crowded home gyms. As I said, a nice touch!

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