This was an extremely cheap alternative to purchasing a lat pulldown seat attachment for my cable machine. It is such a simple thing but it works well and is versatile to be used in several different configurations allowing you to use it for different exercises. I personally slot it into my Bells of Tower cable tower and use it as kneepads to enable me to do lat pulldowns. This would be the split configuration. You can also put both pads on one side of the upright to give yourself a wider area for other movements such as split squats. It's a great add-on for your rack or cable tower.

I bought the plate loaded version to save money and use my existing weight plates. I went with this over other budget versions like what Titan offers because of the standard holes on all sides of the upright. I slide in a Nordbar so I can do lat pulldowns which wouldn't be possible without the holes on the sides. I immediately upgraded to the aluminum pulleys after using this for a week or so. I would recommend just starting with aluminum so you don't have to rebuild the machine when you inevitably decide to upgrade. I have 2 main issues with the machine, but both would be solved if it were simply taller. First, it isn't tall enough..... I wish it were like 6 inches taller so I didn't have to sit on the floor to do pulldowns. And 2nd, the cables are very twisty. Maybe it's something I did in assembly, but I cannot leave the connector bar on between exercises because the cables twist around and it starts load in weird ways. I wanted to put some swivel shackles on to alleviate the twisting but then you run into the issue of the connection point getting too low. The twisting cables also makes it awkward when I adjust it to highest and lowest points as the pulleys rotate backwards and get caught behind plates at low position and hit the shroud at high position.

I bought these over 15 years ago and despite all of the plastic, they are still in good shape. Adjustable dumbbells have come a long way since I purchased them so while these have served me well, I certainly wouldn't recommend buying them today as there are just too many better options available. Not much to say about these that hasn't been said a million times, they offer a good weight range with 10lb starting weight and 5lb increments up to 90lbs. They adjust very quickly but you do need to spin dials on both sides. Reracking into the cradle can take some effort as they need to more or less go straight down to prevent binding. The big drawback of this style of dumbbell is the size of the dumbbell remains fixed no matter what weight you've selected so the 10lbs are the same size as 90lbs. The only other issue is that some weight selections can feel imbalanced. For example, when you select 40lbs, the 2 innermost plates are loaded, and it makes the dumbbell feel much different than if you bump up to 45 where it adds weights to the outside edges giving it a much more balanced and natural feel.

While these are a serious upgrade over the stock handles that were included with Bells Cable Tower, I wish they were just a little wider. The grips are 5" wide and during certain exercises, the strap can rub my knuckle which is irritating and distracting. If they were slightly wider, I don't think this would be an issue at all. Aside from that, the build quality is solid, the aluminum handles feel great, and the bearings make using them a much better experience overall.