All The Pros and Cons After Owning For Half A Year
These are more like a 3.5--I use these every time I workout and don't regret my purchase necessarily (I bought them on sale), but there are some issues with these people should know about before purchasing. Pros: - They're adjustable--which is obvious from the title and design--and the way you adjust the weight, by turning the grip so that the red piece aligns with the number you want, is a cool system. It's very intuitive and easy to use, and that particular mechanism feels high quality. - The max weight is heavier than 50 lbs (52.5 lbs), which is fairly heavy for an adjustable dumbbell, meaning these will last you a long time if you currently lift lighter than that. - Not everyone will like the unusual weight intervals on here, but I thought they were a great complement to my existing set of dumbbells that progressed by intervals of 5. So now I have 7, 13, and 18 (and heavier) in addition to 5, 10, and 15 with no overlap. (It's probably due to the plates being all different weights, which adds up to some unusual numbers.) It may bother you more if this is your only pair of dumbbells though. Cons: - There's nothing holding the extra plates in place when they're not connected to the dumbbell, so sometimes they shift in the base after you remove the dumbbell. This means the dumbbell may not easily slide back in when you're putting it back and you have to finagle it a little, which is especially annoying if you're fatigued at the end of a workout and holding a dumbbell that's heavy for you. - This doesn't happen all the time, but sometimes if you click over from a heavier weight to a lighter weight, the extra plates from the heavier weight will "stick" to the other plates. Because they're not properly secured to the dumbbell anymore, though, they will usually fall after you've lifted the dumbbell from the base--kind of a hazard because it can easily fall on your foot! The way I prevent this is to jiggle the dumbbell a little in the base before I lift it out if I've gone down in weight. - This one is my biggest gripe and the main reason this product isn't 4 stars or more. While these feel fairly well-made overall and the actual plates are very smooth, the edges of outer pieces (the part of the dumbbell with the number dial, and the external edge with the gear) are SHARP. That means if you are doing an exercise where the dumbbell touches or comes within close range of your body with anything less than the full 52.5 lbs, there is the risk of the edge scratching or digging into your skin. It's especially bad if you use the dumbbells in the high-rack position (it kept digging into my shoulders) or in the goblet position (I still have red marks on my wrists five hours after working out from where the edge dug in this morning). This shouldn't be something you have to think about mid-workout. Overall, I still use these despite the shortcomings, but I'd be much more likely to wholeheartedly recommend them even if just my last con was fixed. I've had these for about half a year, so consider this my tried and tested review.