Customer Reviews

Marcy Diamond Elite MD-856 Olympic Bench

5 star:		(1)
4 star:		(4)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

This Marcy Olympic Bench was a great addition to my home gym. For starters, assembly was a breeze. All fasteners were clearly labeled and instructions were easy to follow. Best of all, all holes lined up easily and no force was required. Bench adjusts easy for flat, incline and decline bench press. Preacher pad is comfortable and fully adjustable. Extra star for the safety catches that come standard. 2 notes: The diamond plating is plastic (not stainless as it appears in the picture) and do not overtighten the lock knob on the main seat support as it will not let the seat glide smoothly. No excuses for not working out once you add this to your home gym!

I really like this bench it didn't take me no one hour to put together but once i finally did i got a great workout out of it. The instructions were easy to follow and all the nuts and bolts and whatnot came laminated in a numbered parts bag to make it error proof while following directions. It's very sturdy also no wobbling going on while working out. My only minor complaints are that some pieces were not as smooth to put together like the leg developer. Sometimes the bolts would fit in one hole and not the other it took me a really long time to get those to go in properly i don't know if it was just my bench that was like that. The striker plates while they look really cool they are plastic held together by screws and glue. Some of the glue dried out on mine so it doesn't stick as well as it should. The seat is made from really cheap material you could tear it with your nails if you wanted to also it is stapled at the bottom. I don't see the seat lasting for more than a couple of months without a tear. Last come the hard plastic knobs at the end of the foam pads on the leg developer. I never would've thought that the most simplest thing would end up being the most annoying and time consuming. In the instructions it simply said to plug them in but i tried to for a very long time until my hand started to hurt i got so frustrated i just hammered all of them in and it was perfect. I will probably write another review in the months to come to see if it still holds up as it does now but aside from those minor complaints I am really happy with my bench and amazon's free shipping on this item makes it that much sweeter.

I was given this bench for my birthday. It was a great addition to my home gym which includes free weights, a Bowflex and adjustable sit-up bench from Nautilus (also recommend).
Assemblying the bench wasn't terribly difficult, but for people who have a hard time putting things together I would recommend having friends help you put it together.
Like the other reviews the quality of the bench isn't the greatest, but for the price this is a great deal! I have done my research on benches and have seen the really cheap ones- this one is decent for personal use.
Since you have to buy the weights and barbell for the bench I would recommend a 35 lb. Olympic bar with 300 pounds of weights.
This bench is a great addition to anyone's home gym. The safety device included helps restrain the weight if you have muscle failure- great addition. I give it a B+

I must say, as every other review has, that this bench is a great product. Easy assembly, durable for the most part, very well designed and extremely versatile.

Only issue I've had after 4 months of ownership is the ab-strap (or whatever it's called) started to tear at the seams within the first few weeks. Too much weight? Improper form on my part? Bad craftsmanship? Who knows.

I had it replaced and 3 months later it's still as it was new.

I purchased this bench based on everyone's positive reviews and am very disappointed. Either I'm a little spoiled because I've been working out in a gym for about 15 years or the people who rated this bench positively are used to exercising on crappy benches they purchased from Model's.

First, when the seat is set for a flat bench position, it feels very uncomfortable. I am not excessively tall or short- I'm 6 feet tall. Perhaps the gap between the upper and lower seat may be too big. Second, I had to remove the leg developer because it has very limited range of motion. The small piece sticking out of the rear of the leg developer kept hitting the front leg of the bench when I tried doing leg extensions or preacher curls. So now, I have to purchase a stand so I can do preacher bench with free weights. I prefer free weights anyway, but it's going to cost me a lot of money to get something to rest my preacher curl bar on. Third, Marcy has a bunch of morons working for them. My box was missing a few parts which were essential to completing assembly of the bench. Therefore, I could not work out until received them. I received the bench the end of October. After almost 2 months of begging and elevating the request with a supervisor, I finally received the parts on Christmas Eve 2009. What a bunch of morons. Stay away from Marcy and find a better bench. If I had to do all over again, I would have bought a separate preacher curl bench and a better quality flat bench. At least I love my Powerline PLM180X Lat Machine which I purchased from Amazon. I use it for pulldowns as well as tricep exercises. I can't believe it cost less than $200! Too bad I can't say the same about this bench.

This is a what you see is what you get type of product. It is put together with solid pieces, no flimsy plastic that can bend or break. Putting it together is a bit of a pain, but it's that way with almost any bench you might get. There was a piece that was damaged during deliver which I am still waiting for, but other than that I was happy with how fast their customer service took my info and solved the problem. I would recommend getting this if you want a basic bench and you don't lift a crazy amount of weight.