Gym owners have limited money and space to add equipment to their training facilities— if you're a gym owner, you know that if you add something, you want to be sure it's the best option. Is this item worth the money you will spend on it? Is this item worth the space it will take up in your gym? Will it help your clients? Will gym members use it, or will it collect dust in the corner?

Introducing elitefts Customer Product Reviews. If you're the kind of gym owner who isn't satisfied by simply looking at images of a product or by speaking with a sales director, we've got your covered. In these unedited reviews from strength coaches and gym owners, we're sharing the honest opinions of people who have purchased the equipment, have trained on the equipment, and have had clients and gym members train on the equipment. The reviews that we share here are not from lifters who have seen the equipment once and now want to share an opinion; they are from experienced, successful people in the industry who have used a variety of equipment. We know you don't want empty praise of our equipment — you want honest, detailed feedback so that you can know what to expect.

For this edition of elitefts Customer Product Reviews, TJ Slomka, owner of Old School Iron Gym in Brook Park, Ohio, reviews the Seated Calf/Tibia Raise Machine.

First, here is some background information from the product listing page:

This isn't your average calf raise...

What is the point of training the forgotten half of your legs if you're not going to do it all the way? Having big calves with non-existent tibialis anteriors is like having all pecs and no back — it's just wrong.

The elitefts Seated Calf/Tibia Raise is a one-two punch keeping your legs balanced, healthy, and strong.

Product Features:

  • 63" x 45" x 42"
  • 11ga. Welded Tubular steel construction
  • Powder coated finish in an assortment of colors. Don't see the color you want? Call 888-854-8806 for more color options.
  • 6061 Aluminum skid foot-plate
  • 2″ & 3″ High-Density Foam Pads
  • 6 position adjustable Tibia Pads
  • Moveable Safety
  • Rubber comfort grip handles

This is what TJ Slomka has to say about it:

  1. You can anchor this to the floor, which is very important in a busy gym.
  2. This thing is made to stand up to some serious heavy use: thick gauge steel, thick durable padding, and not too large of a footprint for the gym floor.
  3. The tibialis trainer functions very easily. You can train them unilaterally or bilaterally. Additionally, there is an adjustment on the tibialis foot holder to account for larger and smaller feet. You can also make the transition from training the tibialis to a normal seated calf raise very easily by simply re-racking the tibialis padded foot holders and pulling your feet back a few inches. Adjust the knee padding and you are good to go.
  4. One of the best features of this machine is that the foot placement area is actually rounded and not flat, as you will see standard on other calf raise machines. I think this allows you to get a better range of motion and it actually is more comfortable on the bottom of the foot.
  5. The bad: to load the weight for the seated calf raise, it loads as one post, making it difficult when you need multiple plates loaded. You would have to put five or two-and-a-half pound plates between 45-pound plates so you can easily remove them when finished.
  6. The tibialis trainer loads from the side, which is great and makes changing plates easy.

I like this machine a lot. For us, the only negative so far is the way you load the weight for a regular seated calf raise. In the short amount of time we have had it, the weight is never fully removed after use. They leave it and I know part of it is because of the one-post loading. No excuse, believe me, but unfortunately, it happens.

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