Precor 240i Commercial Series StretchTrainer

First of all, in my opinion this stretch trainer is WAY overpriced for what it is. The profit margin must be amazing for Precor on this device. It's some aluminum pipe, a seat, and a hinge mechanism. That said, given what this has done for me I would pay 10 times the price and still be happy! I have had a chronic problem in my lower back, right hip, and leg that is the result of various small injuries from playing soccer much too late into life. I was having constant leg and hip pain for the past couple of years that at times was making it impossible to sleep. My muscles in the area had contracted, atrophied, and my flexibility was very poor in those areas. I tried chiropractic and massage therapy with limited benefit. Exercise alone helped a little. In one month of using the stretch trainer twice a day for less than 10 minutes in combination with some strength training on my bow flex and riding my bike the pain is pretty much completely gone and my flexibility has improved greatly! I had tried just doing stretching without such a device but I never seemed to get anywhere. The ease of use of this stretch trainer and the way that simple gravity lets you increase your stretches has made all the difference for me. It has literally changed my life. I initially did not tell my wife how much I paid for it since I knew she would not be happy, but now that she has seen what it has done I told her and she has no complaints. I know this sounds like some marketing sell but I have nothing to do with the company at all. My suggestion is that if you have a condition that has resulted in contraction and atrophy of muscles this my be worth many times the price for you. If you are healthy and just want to stretch a little more it is expensive. For me, it works better than anything else I have tried!

Before buying Precor, I was seeing a chiro at least one a month; getting a message once a month and having sleepless nights. I bought all infomercial gadgets for back pain. My next thing to buy was to get a sleep number bed but it costs thousands. My husband came home from his gym and mentioned Precor stretcher. I'm not a gym or exercise person but I went with him just to try it The first time I've tried it, I already felt the stretch on my lower back. I went back at least three times just to make sure that I was feeling better and getting some sleep at night because of Precor. I was right, the stretching was helping my lower back. The price was really out of my budget and I've looked elsewhere for a lower price, but no luck. I knew this product works for me so I bought it. I was reimbursed by my flex spending account because I bought it for medical reason. This item has good quality and easy to put together. I put it together myself but made my husband get rid of the packaging materials. I don't normally write a review especially this long but I fully recommend this product, I put use my Precor while watching TV or while using my iPad.

Once assembled the StretchTrainer does exactly what you'd expect it to do. It helps you stretch your muscles. The first time I used the device was at a community recreational center where they had 2 at opposite ends of an indoor running track. I found that the stretches listed on the device were both easy to perform using the StretchTrainer but also surprising effective. When I moved and no longer had access to the device I found myself longing for it for years. After now moving a 2nd time I found that I had enough room to have one in my home and ordered it from Amazon. It arrived with all of the pieces in the box, minimal damage to the trainer despite the box being absolutely crushed during delivery (and half torn open). A single tiny scratch marred one of the leg pieces. Assembly alone was definitely a bit challenging (specifically the main metal bars that form the body/frame of the device. Once I had a 2nd pair of hands to hold those bars steady I found assembly to be easier than expected. If you don't have help though, I can imagine assembly is more difficult. All in all I am very glad to have made the purchase and it helps enormously with stretching my back (upper and lower), hips, and shoulders on a daily basis [5-10 minutes].

Great machine for starting a regular stretching program at home. A "bear" to put together! The instructional manual as well as the video were not much help. It is doable, but be prepared to get frustrated. Even the people at the gym had trouble and it took them a couple of tries. It definitely takes two people. This will make sense after you get all of the pieces ready to assemble: Follow the book's order of assembly, but do this first: Hold the base plate on by hand. Line up the holes on the base and the center tubes and thread the long bolts through. Tighten the base plate bottom bolts, but do not tighten all the way. Pull out the long bolts in order to insert the spacer piece and tap into alignment with a rubber mallet. Reinsert the long bolts and snug down. This is where two people are needed. There will be some shifting around to align the holes This Trainer is worth the effort.

I liked that the Precor stretch trainer arrived at the scheduled time. Easy to assemble and is very sturdy and stable. I did not like the customer service that I received from Amazon when I called about what I thought were missing bolts. In actuality, we didnt notice that the bolts were attached to the seat. Amazon suggested that we could buy the "missing bolts" and be issued a 20.00 credit,which we didn't think was a great idea, so we called Precor and the "missing bolts" were shipped with next day arrival. By then we had figured out where the bolts were attached.

I injured my back a few years ago and had been receiving chiropractic care and massage therapy. My flexibility and overall fitness suffered as a result of the injury. I soon realized that I needed to stretch my lower back, hips and legs to relieve stress and tension. Through massage therapy, I regained some of my flexibility. I wanted to easily stretch by myself anytime in my own home and the Precor 240i allows me to do just that. Within a week of daily use, my lower back pain has decreased significantly and my overall flexibility has improved. I am very happy with the product. It arrived promptly and installation took about a half hour. All of the stretches can be achieved on the floor without the machine, but I find that I can jump on the stretch trainer and easily and effectively target my lower back, hips and legs. The price is high in my opinion, but the construction and quality is solid, and the relief I receive from using it is priceless.

We are in our 70s and moved to a rural setting. We were used to going to a gym 3 times a week. The gym had this and the wife and I both used it. It is great to have one in the garage, I use it daily. It really helps my body to stretch. It is a bit pricey but its very well built and believe its worth it for the health of our bodies. Amazon sealed the deal with a o% 5 month pay.

My wife had been after me for the past few months to start doing yoga classes (but who has the time?) to help with some chronic neck and shoulder pain that I have, I saw this on Amazon as a daily deal and since it was discounted about 15% from the regular price I decided to go ahead and buy it. Assembly was a little difficult (in fairness the manual warns you that two people should be involved, but I did it by myself), I found that actually tilting it up so that the front of the frame was lying on the ground made it much easier to put the main bolts through the two primary supports. From that point onward the assembly is pretty routine. A step that you might miss but is important is to leave some slack in all bolts until you are fully assembled, then you can tighten everything up. I should also point out that at the premium price for this device, I was surprised that the metal parts were only painted instead of being powder coated, for the price Precor is charging they should be using the same power coated steel they use on their home Elliptical and other high dollar fitness machines. Now, on to the use of the StretchTrainer itself... as other reviewers have mentioned, the device allows you to do many of the same deep stretches you would get on a mat, doing yoga or something similar, but it makes it much easier to do these. I don't know about others, but I tend to have a very hard time stretching properly on a mat, and there is very little motivation to crawl around on the floor doing stretches. With this machine, I can simply walk over to it and get a good pre-workout stretch in about 10 minutes. Since I am sitting on the machine I can watch a bit of TV while doing it and I'm not rolling around on the ground (sweating profusely). I have observed less soreness since I started using this before all of my workouts. To give a specific example, if I do incline bench presses, and butterfly lifts, I am usually pretty sore for one or two days afterwards... to the point that I might have to take some muscle relaxers in addition to non steroid anti inflammatory medication. This is due to the problems with my neck. Since using this machine, I have not observed this level of soreness following a workout. In addition I notice a little less pain when seated for long periods at a chair in the office doing computer activities, so, as far as I am concerned, the machine is worth the hefty price. I saw a similar machine at a fitness store that was a non Precor model and it was $599 so the price I paid was pretty reasonable compared to the competition. In all honesty though, this is something that should probably be sold for more around the $399 price point. Do you need this? Maybe, maybe not. There's nothing that the StretchTrainer does for you that you could not do for yourself with an exercise mat, some patience and practice. However, I feel that it does a good job of more or less goading me into stretching before every workout and the machine more or less enforces the proper posture to get a deep stretch without hurting yourself (you control the intensity of the stretch with your body weight). Also, this is not a miracle cure for back pain. I still have back pain. However, if you are somewhat fit, are interested in staying fit, then this will probably help you as it will keep you more limber during workouts, increase your flexibility (there was a study I saw online where this was proven to increase flexibility in test subjects) and probably reduce the pain you are feeling to some degree.