Powerline PPR200X Review – A Well-Rounded Power Rack

In this Powerline PPR200X review, I’ll be taking a detailed look at one of the best entry-level power racks around. I’ll give a full breakdown of the power rack, including taking a look at the design and build quality, stability, features, attachments, and much more. A power rack is one of the staple pieces of your home gym, so you will want to make sure you make the right decision. Finally, I’m going to end with my overall assessment and my final recommendation when it comes to this rack.

If you are just starting out with building your home gym, a power rack is one of the most important pieces of equipment you can invest in. Like a bench, it’s one of those cornerstone pieces that you will use time and time again in your workouts. Power racks allow you to lift safely and efficiently without the use of a spotter. You can do basic movements like bench press and squat using a power rack. One of the better quality power racks that offers solid value is the Powerline PPR200X by Body-Solid.

Let’s take a deeper look.

TL;DR version – If you are looking for well-rounded power rack that offers stability and great features, I highly recommend the Powerline PPR200X. The price is right and it offers a moderate weight capacity of 600lb which is more than enough for most beginner to intermediate lifters. It also a decent assortment of attachments, including lat attachment, dip handles, and more. That’s not bad if you want to expand the functionality. It also offers a nice design and great warranty. This is a great power rack if you are starting out your home gym.

Table of Contents

• Intro
• Unboxing and Set Up
• Design and Build Quality
  • Dimensions
  • Weight Capacity
  • Stability
  • Warranty
• Features
  • Safety
  • Settings
  • Liftoffs
  • Pull-up bar
• Attachments
  • DR100 Dip Rack Attachment
  • GWT4 Gym Weight Tree
  • PLA200X Lat Attachments
• PowerLine PPR200X Review – Final Thoughts

Intro

Powerline is a sub-brand of the reputable brand Body-Solid. I own their PFID125X multi-bench and cover it in detail in a separate article – it’s a great addition to my home gym. They make a variety of fitness equipment, ranging from total home gym systems to free weights and cardio. I find the quality of their products, in general, to be above average so you can rest assured this is a quality piece of equipment.

The PPR200X is one of the best budget power racks available and is a solid entry from Body-Solid in this market segment. It retails on Amazon for $340 (as of 1/19/18) so it won’t break the bank. With attachments, which I’ll cover later, the entire package could cost a few hundred dollars more. It’s not the cheapest power rack around, but it remains firmly in the budget category and is geared towards beginner and intermediate lifters.

Unboxing and Setup

The rack arrives shipped from Amazon in 3 boxes – one really long one and two shorter ones. The packaging is pretty sturdy and the boxes weren’t damaged in any way. The boxes are heavy, but not prohibitively so. I did not have any trouble transferring them from my front porch down the stairs to my basement. Not a problem for one stronger person to handle but it may be safer to do with 2 people. There are many pieces of that plastic ties that wrap around these boxes. You will have to use a box cutter or scissors to cut that off and then the boxes open up pretty easily.

The long box contains the upright steel supports that form the four corners of your future power rack. The shorter boxes contain the instructions, pieces in between the supports as well as the spotter arms, accessories, and instructions. The instructions are fairly easy to parse. It’s all pictures with labels that show where each piece, bolt, nut, and washer goes.

I would recommend you unpack and organize everything prior to assembly so you can make easy work of it. The confusing part to me was all the bolts – they are the same head size but of varying lengths, so it’s easy to mix them up. So you will want to separate the bolts into different piles to be more efficient. They are all M10 though so you will need to use a 17mm socket to put this together.

Overall, it’s not that hard to assemble. I recommend using 2 people to assemble this thing. I did manage to do it all by myself and it took about an hour to do but had to do it very strategically to keep the posts up and stable all by myself. If you have a second person, you can do it in about 20 minutes and it will be safer and much easier.

Design and Build Quality

I think this is a good looking power rack with a sleek design. Like the PFID125X bench which I reviewed earlier, it offers a 2-toned black and gray aesthetic. There are black plastic pieces and bolts which hold it all together. The uprights and bars are all a gun-metal deep gray. It’s simple and does not look overly complex with a lot of moving parts or unnecessary add-ons.

Here are a few pics showing the front and side profile of the power rack:

In terms of build quality, it looks to be pretty solid. It’s made of 12 gauge steel and is very sturdy. The paint chipping off seems to be the main issue and I’ll provide some tips on how to mitigate that. I didn’t find there to be any blemishes on the paint. Also, all the parts arrived and were of consistent quality and size. I didn’t see any issues with any of the welds and there were no cracks or scuff marks on the uprights or the other pieces. This is a quality power rack and I can vouch for it after many months of use. It’s holding up well and hardly any maintenance required so far.

Dimensions

The footprint of the rack is 44”W x 82”H x 46”D. It’s a wide rack so it gives you a lot of room to walk in and move laterally. The wide design does require you to use a full 7-foot Olympic bar. The height is such that doing pull-ups is not a problem if you have at least 8-foot ceilings. Any lower though and you are pushing it. The lat attachment which I cover in one of the sections below adds about 2 feet to the rear of the rack so you will want to take that into consideration in terms of your space requirements for your home gym. This rack does not really have any kind of plate storage so you don’t need to account for that in terms of spacing. The front and rear uprights are 24” apart so that also gives you enough space to move front to back as you are performing squats and repacking the weights.

Weight Capacity

The weight capacity is moderate at 600lb – suitable for most beginning to intermediate lifters. This will be fine for the vast majority of people. I myself am not nearly strong enough to test that limit. The frame size is 2” x 2” and made out of 12 gauge steel. This about the bare minimum for a power rack and consistent with what you will find with most entry-level power racks. A 3” x 3” power rack will have more weight capacity and will be stronger, but it will obviously cost a lot more.

Stability

The rack is pretty stable – it weights in at 136lbs. However, it does not bolt to the ground. If you re-rack very heavy weights, it may wobble a bit due to the fact that it’s not bolted, but overall you should not have any problem. When I rack the weight after completing heavy bench press, I notice it wobbles more front to back rather than from side to side. I’ve never felt unsafe while working out on it. If you are using the pull-up bar, you can leave a bar with some heavy weights racked and it will help with any wobble while you are lifting yourself up.

Warranty

A power rack is a significant investment. It’s not something you will be buying frequently and it’s also not easy to return or get rid of. It will form one of the cornerstone pieces of your home gym. You will want to make sure you are buying quality and also have a backup option in case the quality is not up to par.

The rack comes with a Powerline’s In-Home 10 Year warranty. This means there is a 10-year warranty on the frame a 1-year warranty on all the other parts. There’s a couple of caveats on this though. It doesn’t cover the paint finish, which is one of the weaknesses on this rack which I cover below. You’ll want to heed my advice to properly protect the paint. The other thing to mention is it is void if it’s not assembled properly. As I mentioned above, this rack is easy to assemble, but you will want to carefully follow the instructions to maintain your warranty and protect your investment.

Overall though, this is one of the best warranties on power rack you will find. The only warranty that’s superior to this on a power rack that I found was Rogue Fitness warranty, but Rogue racks are in a different price segment entirely. This is an above-average warranty. Powerline by Body-Solid is a great brand to buy from.

Features

The PPR200X is a simple rack that doesn’t have too many bells and whistles, but it does get the basics right. It scores very well when it comes to safety and adjustability. It does have some great attachments. It offers a wide ‘walk-in’ design that offers plenty of side-to-side movement. I don’t feel restricted at all when I am working out within this rack.  There are other racks that offer more options, but many of them will skimp on the basics or will be much more expensive. Perhaps one feature that this rack lacks that other racks do a better job of is plate storage. That’s not a deal breaker though because you can always get a plate tree.

Safety

The rack comes with the 2 heat-tempered liftoffs and two saber-style safety rods that all you to lift safely and efficiently. The liftoffs and the safety rods slide through the 1” holes in the power rack and secured with pins that have spring-loaded ball bearings.  Those pins are easy to move in and out – they don’t require much force.

The liftoffs differ from the J-hooks that I am used to using. They are straight/horizontal with an enlarged head that keeps the bar from rolling off. I was concerned initially about the safety with the bar rolling off, but that was unfounded. I never felt unsafe using these liftoffs. Also, I noticed that by using these liftoffs, I could just slide the bar more out versus up. This allows me to keep tightness in my shoulder retraction and arch in my upper back which allows me to do a few more reps. Your mileage may vary.

The safety rods are pretty easy to slide in and out and it doesn’t take long to move them to a different setting as you are switching exercises. Sometimes, they make a bit of noise rubbing against the holes as you slide them, but there’s not too much friction so it didn’t bother me too much. They are very sturdy and did not bend at all after months of use. Then again, I don’t lift to absolute failure every single set.

One of the main problems with both the liftoffs as well as the safety roads is the paint job. The paint chips with any kind of contact with the bar. If you don’t care about aesthetics or even resale value of the rack, that won’t matter to you. But if you want to maintain the paint on your rack, this can be a pain. There a couple of tips that will help you salvage the paint on these accessories. First, you can get foam padding that goes around the 1” spotter rods. You can get this from any home improvement store, like Lowes or Home Depot. For the liftoffs, you can use electrical tape or heavy duty duct tape and wrap them up really good. That should keep your paint intact.

Settings

The PPR200X has 18 different adjustment levels at 3” apart. This is about standard for an entry-level power rack, so nothing to write home about here. However, I do wish there were a few adjustment settings that were closer to the floor. They stop at about knee level. If there were a few more settings below the knee, you could do varying levels rack pulls and other exercises that require you to bend over. Some people don’t have the mobility to go all the way to the ground. Other than that, there is nothing lacking in my opinion with regards to the different settings. Some racks come with the holes marked and with some racks numbering is an available option. The PPR200X doesn’t have numbers at all. To make your workouts more efficient in terms of bouncing from exercise to the other, you could label the holes with number decals or letters.

Pullup Bar

The rack does also come with a pull-up bar that is knurled with a diamond cut pattern. That can be rough on the hands, so a pair of gloves or some tape will do you well. The pull-up bar spans 41” across the entire length of the front of the power rack. Having done some weighted pull-ups and hanging leg raises with the bar, I did feel that the rack is a bit wobbly. After all, it does weigh only about 130lbs and is an entry-level rack so that’s to be expected. That being said, I did not feel it was unsafe or anything. To mitigate the wobbliness, you can load up a barbell on the liftoffs to weigh it down. I would definitely consider that if you are going to do kipping pull-ups.

Attachments

In terms of options and expandability, Body-Solid does offer some decent attachments, including a lat attachment (PLA200X), grips, and ab slings for your hanging ab work. Check out the Body-Solid website to see the full range of accessories and attachments available. Here, I’ll cover some of the most popular attachments for this power rack.

DR100 Dip Rack Attachment

The DR100 dip attachment is a great asset for your PPR200X to turn it into a dip station to workout your chest, arms, and shoulders. You can also do cool things like use it for incline pushups as well. It retails for $80 via Amazon (as of 1/22/18). This dip attachment is different than some of the other dip attachments you’ll see with other racks, like the Rogue Matador. The DR100 fits across the entire span of the inside of the power rack. They are installed by sitting on the safety spotter bars. This provides good stability and it’s easy to remove and adjust the height. Also, because the handles taper, you can use different starting positions to target different muscles.

Here’s a short video of the DR100 dip attachment:

PLA200X Lat Attachment

The PLA200X is the lat attachment for the Powerline power rack. It retails for $263 on Amazon (as of 1/20/18) and it’s a great compliment to the PPR200X. With this, you are able to add seated rows, standing rows, lat pulldowns, tricep pushdowns, and a variety of other exercises. It turns your power rack into a multi-workout machine. This attachment allows you to accommodate standard or Olympic plates and uses nylon-coated, aircraft quality cables that can load up to 2200 pounds. It also comes with a lifetime warranty. It’s fairly easy to assemble and if you spray some WD40 and rub down the cables, the mechanism is smooth. The one thing to remember with this is that it attaches to the back of the power rack and adds 24inch to the footprint, so make sure you have adequate space to accommodate.

Here’s a short video of the PLA200X lat attachment:

Powerline PPR200X Review – Final Thoughts

The Powerline PPR200X is a fantastic power rack for most people. It’s supported by a solid brand in terms of Powerline by Body-solid and is extremely good value for the money. It offers decent weight capacity, solid build quality, good stability, and a basic set of attachments, including dip bars and lat attachment. I never felt unsafe working out on it after months of use and it’s holding up really well. My favorite part of this rack is the wide walk-in design that offers great lateral movement.

The only caveats about this power rack that I would mention are the poor paint job on the liftoffs and the safeties and the 600lb weight capacity. The weight capacity doesn’t bother me too much because I’m not that strong, but if you are an elite Olympic powerlifter, you may want to think twice about using this rack. The paint issues can be mitigated using foam padding and tape.

Few issues, this is a great rack for the money. If you need something with more weight capacity and more attachments, and money is no object, then the Rogue R-6 is probably more suitable for you.

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