REP fitness PR-4100 rack vs TITAN series home gym

This is a comparison between the Rep Fitness PR-4100 rack and the TITAN series home gym. Follow the links for more details.

Titan Series Home gym $1400 to $6500

The Titan Series Home Gym will put you back about $1400 to $6500. TITAN is well known for their very good prices compared to their competition and will get you started on your home gym. This review was originally posted in “which Titan rack to buy for over $500”.

Overview of a TITAN Home Gym

The Titan series home gym is Titan’s way of providing you with a fully configurable home gym with the attachments that fit your needs best. With this approach, Titan makes the ordering process easy so that you do not have to put different attachments on different pages into your basket. The base rack they are using is the Titan power rack. The Titan power rack has the following specifications:

Overall Weight: 388 LB
Overall Height: 100”
Footprint (including bolt-down plates): 53” x 55.5”
Overall Depth: 48”
Inside Depth: 42
Overall Width: 48”
Inside Width: 42”
Assembly Hardware Included
Titan recommends bolting down your rack for added stability

And comes with the following features

3” x 3” 11 Gauge Tubing and bolt-together design.
Includes (2) 1” Diameter Pins w/ 1.5” Pipes for a heavy-duty pin and pipe safety system.
Includes (4) Bolt-On Weight Plate Holders.
Includes (4) Band Pegs.
Includes a pair (2) Sandwich J-Hooks.
numbered laser-cut holes throughout the uprights and lower cross members.
Keyhole side spacing For array attachments
1” bolts
Max height of 94” for a pull-up bar

With this, you get a very beefy and spacious rack for all your training needs that can be upgraded at a later stage. With this center cage you can start to think about attachments. There is a wide array of different attachments available for the rack itself which come with additional cost. Here is an overview:

Power Rack Leg Press
Rack Mounted H-PND
TITAN Series Barbell Holder Horizontal
TITAN Series Barbell Holder Vertical
TITAN Series Y Dip Bar
TITAN Series Lever Arms
TITAN Heavy Duty Pull Up Bar
TITAN Series Weight Plate Holder
TITAN Series Sandwich J-Hook
Spotter Arms TITAN Series
Women’s Olympic Bombshell Bar
Blues City Olympic Barbell
86” Olympic Bar 1500 lb Capacity
5' Olympic Weightlifting Technique Bar
The Atlas Bar - Men's 20KG Barbell

Be aware that too many attachments might inhibit the possibilities to move freely around the rack. Always keep in mind when you configure your home gym that the barbell is wider than the rack and therefore might touch off attachments. Especially keep this in mind when you want to use the rack to train multiple athletes at the same time.

If you want your home gym to be a leg press as well you can use this attachment to be able to also use it as a leg press machine. Leg presses can be advantageous when you either want to isolate the legs only and want to go very heavy or when you don’t particularly like the barbell back squat. It can also be used when you have a shoulder or lower back injury.

The rack-mounted H PND is a back extension machine that can be directly attached to the TITAN rack. This is usually a good tool for seasoned athletes to take care of their lower backs and younger athletes to train the lower back area which otherwise can easily be overlooked.

The vertical and horizontal barbell holders can be used to store your barbells nicely for your home gym on the rack itself. Another possibility is to mount the barbells to the wall.

If you also want to do dips at your station you can add the Y dip bar. Be aware that the upright you attach it on will be blocked for squats, bench presses or other exercises where you would like to rack a barbell in one side.

The TITAN lever arms can be a great addition to your home gym and rack to widen the possible exercises you can do. The lever arms have a length of 39.25” so think about whether you would like to install them inside or outside of the rack. With the lever arms, you can simulate many machines from a traditional commercial gym which otherwise would take up a lot of space.

With the heavy-duty pull-up bar, you can bring a classic bodyweight exercise to your home gym. My personal opinion is that it would be an oversight not to get one when you buy your rack.

The J cups are not a necessary extra investment if you will only train for yourself as there is one pair included. If you want to use the rack with multiple people in parallel, stock up on extras.

As the base model of the Titan rack does include 4 weight plate legs I personally do not see a need to add additional ones to your order. Double-check with Titan that they are actually included. I am personally not a fan of storing plates directly on the rack where I do my workouts when they have four uprights. Titan does offer extension kits to turn the rack into a six upright version.

Spotter arms are a good investment if you want multiple athletes to use the rack in parallel. If you will be the only one using the rack stick with safety pins. They are more secure and can also be used for pin squats. In case a barbell drops they usually deform by bending, while spotter arms are more likely to break at the weld which attaches them to the upright. Ultimately I prefer to just drop the barbell if I am working outside the rack. Inside the rack I try to lower to the pins as slowly as possible.

The blues city and bombshell barbells are Titans cerakote bars. Cerakote coating is a special way of treating metal so that designs can be applied. It is also less like to corrode and was originally developed in the weapons industry. The only downside is that it is more likely to scratch when it touches metal. So if you do a lot of work of the pins instead of the j cups maybe get another coating.

The 86” bar is a no-nonsense bar for 1500 lbs load. It comes with a tensile strength of 190.000. The material is steel with a chrome finish.

An Olympic technique bar might be of interest to you if you have many beginners in your gym or children at home. This is a lighter barbell to focus on technique and explosiveness for the Olympic lifts. For advanced athletes technique plates with a normal barbell are usual preferred.

The atlas bar is the bread and butter barbell from Titan. A solid 20kg barbell for all purposes.

Pros of the Titan Home gym

The rack has 3x3 11 Gauge tubing in a bolt-together design. This makes this rack a tank while it can also be assembled fast and transported in pieces. Titans prices are very good on this type of high-quality material. Combining your rack purchase with other pieces to complete your home gym saves shipping cost and is recommended if you exactly know what you want and have the budget for it. A high-quality home gym for one of the best prices in the market for this quality.

Cons of the Titan home gym

Configuring a while home gym on your first purchase might not lead to overspending. It is very easy to get excited and carried away. 50 dollar here and there and all of a sudden you are 2000 above what you originally intended to spend. Just make sure, that you only buy things, that you will actually make use of. These are usually the rack, a barbell, plates, and a bench. If you want to spend extra money above this get a pair of 55-pound plates extra to grow into and a gun rack for your barbells.

With a highly competitive price, you can also expect that Titan might save on customer service. If you offer a great product on this low a price, you either save on staff, finish or shipping. As shipping is free with Titan, there are only two other options left.

Alternatives to the Titan home gym

Alternatives to the Titan home gym are:

If you want to take it slow or already have quite some equipment at home you can get the Titan series power rack by itself. This lowers the cost and puts you at a lower risk to overspend because you are getting excited. If you purchase your equipment in drips and draps you will end up sinking more dollars into shipping costs.

The X3 is basically the same model as the Titan rack with two differences. It doesn’t have numbered holes on the uprights and the keyhole design. This means that you can use fewer attachments with it which you have not necessarily bought from Rogue.

The T2 model comes in various shapes and heights and can be configured differently for your home gym to make it fit your space. The main difference to the other Titan racks is that the uprights are 2x2 instead of 2x3 or 3x3.

The T3 rack model is also very similar to the Titan rack but comes at a lower cost. It is the same as the X3 except that it has 2x3 Gauge uprights instead of 3x3.

Summary of the Titan home gym

The Titan home gym is a great option for your home gym if you want to save some money compared to other options in the market. This is the flagship which will cover your needs with a barbell. If you live in Europe you, unfortunately, have not the option to order without getting your material handled by a freight company in a container, which means extra cost and hassle. Maybe Titan will expand to Europe at some stage as other companies have. The only downside is that Titan equipment is known to have inconsistencies in the quality of the finish of their equipment. Lately, they also seem to not keep up with demand as a lot on their website is sold out (status Sep 2019).

Overview and review of the REP fitness PR-4100 rack

This is an overview of the REP fitness PR-4100 rack including the pros, cons, and alternatives. This article was originally posted in which rack to buy from REP Fitness. Follow the links for more information.

Overview of the REP PR-4100 Rack $429

The REP PR-4100 is the folding version of the PR-4000 rack that outbid the REP fitness rack product line. With this rack, you get two uprights, and the cross-members you need to build a rack that can be bolted to the wall with a folding mechanism. This is the ideal rack for a garage gym in which you still want to park or a floor space that should be transformed into a yoga or playroom after the use of the rack. Some of the specifications for this rack are:

Choose between 21.5" or 41" depth (from wall to the front outside of upright).
(1) pair of plastic-lined J-cups.
(1) easy-to-adjust 1.25" pull-up bar.
5/8" diameter hardware.
1" hole spacing in benching area.
2" hole spacing above and below bench area.
Uprights: 11-gauge steel, 3x3", 92" tall.
21.5" Dims: 18.5" inside length x 42.5" inside width.
41" Dims: 38" inside length x 42.5" inside width.
48.5" overall width.

This is a solid option to get a lower-cost folding rack of good quality. Especially with folding racks it nightmare sense to invest a few extra dollars as the folding action needs more attentional detail in production than a simple four post rack.

Pros of the REP PR-4100 Rack

Pros of the REP PR-4100 are:

Space efficient
Budget efficient
Reliable brand

The biggest plus of folding racks is that they can get out of the way when they are not needed anymore. If you only have one occasional user of the rack in the house O would seriously consider a folding rack.

The PR-4100 is good on your purse from two perspectives. You are getting your rack from a company that imports their products from China and you are buying a product that uses less metal than a PR-4000 or PR-5000. This makes the PR 4100 a smart buy. Especially if you are not planning on many upgrades and attachments.

Compared to Amazon resellers or TITAN fitness you will buy from a young brand that is still bending over backward to grow its customer base. You will get good, reliable service with this rack in most cases, that is why the price is a little higher than sourcing from Amazon or from TITAN.

Cons of the REP PR-4100 Rack

The cons of the REP PR-4100 are:

Limited use of attachments
Imported
Plate storage

As this is a folding rack with smaller holes on 3x3 uprights your use of attachments will be very limited. Personally, I think the most you can really get out of a folding rack is a dip station and not much else, but that is just me.

If you buy from REP Fitness your rack will be produced and packaged in China and then send to a warehouse in the US. If that rubs your patriotic streak up the wrong way you have to buy from Rogue Fitness instead and pay the extra money American Labour costs.

My biggest con for a folding rack is that you still have to come up with some solution for storing your plates as you can not do it on the rack. Unless you keep it permanently in place which defeats the purpose. There are good wall storage solutions for plates but those involve more DIY.

Alternatives to the REP PR-4100 Rack

Alternatives to the REP PR-4100 are:

The Rogue RML3WC is what comes closest out of the Rogue fitness portfolio to you the PR-4100. It has the same uprights with only slightly different drillings for the holes. Some say that the folding action on the RML3WC is a little smoother but that also hugely depends on where it is being installed and who did the job.

The TITAN X3 folding rack is TITAN’s 3x3 upright folding rack. This is the best option for a low price while still having some proper customer support with it. Other options are Amazon resellers who just stuck produce to flip it for a small

margin in bulk.

The REP SR 4000 is an alternative option if you believe in squat stands with a big base for stabilizing. I personally don’t but if you think that is a good idea the SR 4000 is excellent value for money.

Conclusion for the REP PR-4100 Rack

I personally think folding racks are a great idea for home gyms that need to co promise. If you use your garage as a mechanic/workshop in parallel or own a fancy Sunday car, this is the right option for you.