What in the CROSSFIT did we get? Ski Machine for cardio?

Welcome back to another video. Today I'm going to be using a piece of equipment that I've never even heard of until this company reached out and asked me to review it. I have been going to gyms for a long time. I have never even seen this in a regular commercial gym. These are pretty common in CrossFit gyms but we are gonna try and test it nonetheless it is something for cardio which i definitely need to do more of do you need to do more cardio or are you just lifting and doing your reps and skipping out on cardio i want to know in the comments and do you guys think cardio is important yes or no ah now this is called a ski machine let me get the other box this is the ski machine it comes in two boxes it is not that heavy we are going to open it up check it out put it together i hope it's not too hard not too complicated like some of the stuff that i have been unboxing and we will see what this thing is all about now we cannot do an unboxing on my channel without the viking axe but where is it my axe needs to become like Mjolnir it needs to come when commanded bring me my there it is let's go we're gonna unbox it the way we always do now this is the first one they got it all taped up here like this it's gonna run the axe through the box carefully because these axes are extremely sharp don't want to cut off any fingers i'm gonna chop this down now this should just pop open let's see what's inside all right here we go here is what we got in the first box it looks like there will be some assembly doesn't look overly complicated not like some of the gym equipment we've been putting together it takes hours and hours so hopefully we'll get this thing pieced together in about 10-15 minutes and then we can test it now first things first the user manual it's your standard step-by-step piece together procedure that we are going to be following to ultimately build this right here the ski machine ha now this is the brand right here they got the little protective film on there so i'm gonna take everything out of the boxes um lay it out and then follow the instructions instead of digging through the boxes for each piece i think that is the best way to go as someone who does a lot of reviews and unboxings i think that that is the best approach is laying everything out so you can see where every piece is and then going step by step. Oh, we got little pieces over here. Put those off to the side. This is the bottom of the machine. The base right here. We'll set this up over here so we can easily get to it. All right. Box number one is unpacked. Time to do box number two. Now we're going to need the trusty axe again to cut through all this tape. These plastic things are what you need that sharp axe for right there straight through like that chop through right there open right up let me show you guys box number two so this is what we're looking at got some nuts and some bolts nothing too crazy it seems to be well packaged so i'm happy about that i'm pretty surprised at how light it is let's see how it's all gonna come together here some more instructions protectors all right this is like one solid piece over here i think maybe it'll be easy if we just tip it over and just slide it out now this is the top piece of the machine this is what's going to go on the base i'm guessing i took a look on their website and like i said i've never seen one of these before in a regular commercial gym but i have seen them in like CrossFit competitions um in some videos so i am excited to try this thing out now let's make some space and get this box out of here we got a little bit of trash here from the unboxing so we're going to clean it all up a little bit bam just like that we're ready for the next step now step one is attaching these wheels to the baseboard here and they give you this multi-purpose two-in-one screwdriver which is pretty cool so you got two different attachments all in one now i want to know whether you guys enjoy this part when you get something new of having to piece it together or if everybody hates it as much as i do gotta put that ---- together if you want to actually use it so it is what it is i just want to know do you guys hate it as much as i do all right step one done the baseboard is complete now we gotta attach the beams and the top piece and hopefully it won't be too complicated but step one done what we're gonna do is put this piece first before we do anything else we're gonna make sure this is secure to the base then we'll attach the arms and the beams that go up one eternity later all right not gonna lie these instructions are not very good trying to figure out what happens here because i'm pretty sure you don't leave these tied like this that doesn't seem uh legit but i don't know where these screws are supposed to go because it doesn't show them anywhere on the instructions let's try to figure this out all right now we got the two beams up here and all we got to do is bring this piece with the ropes and set it to the top here and then all we do is attach this basically you're going to go to the back and then come down that way when you pull down on this machine i'm assuming it's not going to flip over and come crashing down on you it's bigger than i expected it to be i'm gonna have fun getting it in the garage i have finished building this piece of equipment the ski machine let's see what this thing can do so we have gone from this to this so let's test it out now this right here is the display however this thing requires some double a batteries which did not come with the machine so we need to get some batteries in this bad boy and just like that we summon up our four batteries we stick them in here and let's power this thing on so this is not necessary to work the machine it will work without it but this thing can track i think like time and all this other stuff so you can like set up different things that you're going to do on it the most satisfying part about any piece of equipment is when you get to peel off that protective layer that protective film oh yeah it's so satisfying now this piece of equipment is designed for cardio based workouts so where you're going to get your heart rate up it's going to be kind of explosive and constant it's not your standard resistance type machine kind of like a rower right so you got that fan in there it builds the resistance as you pull and then you reset and pull again so there's no constant resistance like there would be in any other type of cable machine. So the way it's designed is you grab these handles here and then you can do it with a squat. You can just do it standing. I can feel my heart rate going up because right now I'm just upper body focused. I can add a squat to build a little more momentum. That's the main way that you use this thing. It will make a good cardio workout for sure. Just like rowing. This one's more upper body focused. So if you have a leg injury you can't do biking you can't do running this could be a great alternative for you to get a cardio workout in avoid using your legs and still get that heart rate up burn some calories build up that cardiovascular endurance now these handles are kind of slick they're very smooth i prefer the smooth handle me personally because you have this bottom part that goes on your palm so it doesn't slip out but they do have these grip tapes that they send with it and you can wrap this around the handles but basically you just grab it like this your palm rests here so it's not going to slip you hold it and then you pull it just like this i can see this thing being very beneficial for cardio but it does take up quite a bit of space and for the limited amount of things you can do on this i wish that you could somehow pull from different angles this one you're only pulling from the top down. So there is the downside of that's it. That's all that you can really do with it. You know, you're gonna get your pulling muscles involved, your biceps, your back, some core, if you're smart about how you do it. But besides that, you're not really gonna do anything else with it. You can't really transform this into a rower. So if you have the space for it and you want something that's upper body cardio focused, perfect for you. Now let's give this thing a good test run. 30 second or so set. let's see how we're going to feel after doing that one. You can see I'm doing it with the squat right now. So I'm involving some more muscle groups, but I can stop with the legs and do mainly just upper body if I want. And it is quite challenging. Definitely feel it. You could probably do one side too, but that's pretty much how you're going to use this thing. This is the GMWD ski machine so if you are interested in something that can give you a good cardio based workout check them out i'll drop a link to their website in the description you can check out their other products and this one if this is something that you think you might like this is more crossfitty i mean i guess anyone can use it but like i said i haven't seen one of these in a commercial gym but i'm sure crossfit gyms all over have these especially for those circuits that they do so if you're doing like different exercises where you're going station to station and this is one of your cardio stations can be really beneficial for that my overall final rating for this product 6.5 out of 10 only because it's very limited as far as what you can do with it it is a great piece of equipment for cardio as i said but that's it for the amount of space that it takes up that's why it gets the 6.5 out of 10 it is a solid piece of equipment no complaints about the quality of it definitely built well and it is on wheels so you can lean it up and roll it around wherever you need to go if you need to move it so there is that i'm gonna put this in my garage with the rest of my gym equipment because i don't want to keep it in the house it takes up too much space and it's just it's kind of big right so if you've got the space for it absolutely recommend if you need something cardio focused upper body cardio focused highly recommend besides that if you need something that involves legs more this may not be for you as always if you enjoyed this video smash that like smash that subscribe if there is a product out there that you want me to test or you're a brand and you want me to test your product and give it my honest review let me know in the comments or reach out see you guys in the next one bye