ATX® PRX Power Rack Buying Guide
German engineers seem to sacrifice their precious sleep and weekends to offer the best power racks in the world for the price.
Just recently they have released 10 new Power Cages. Add an ever-growing list of various accessories to the mix and you have got yourself into something called choice overload.
Knowing this information will also be useful when comparing ATX racks vs non ATX Racks. Prior to covid there was extensive competition in the rack category. Post covid the variety is mind boggling.
If you look closely, a lot of the competitors rack look similar. The reason is that they are often made from the same design, sometimes from the same factory. They are generic.
Even though they are similar, the claims can vary significantly – load capacities and commercial ratings are thrown around with gay abandon.
The goal of this guide is to help you choose the right rack for your needs. Not only from within the ATX range, but it will also help you do meaningful comparisons against the competition.
Frame & Features
Your overall rack stability and weight load capacity will heavily depend on the rack’s upright width and the steel thickness. Generally, wider the upright and the thicker the steel the more weight it will be able to bear.
Width and Thickness of ATX® Racks:
50 mm/2 mm – ATX-PRX-520
60 mm/2 mm – ATX-PRX-610, ATX-PRX-620
60 mm/3 mm – ATX-PRX-650
70 mm/3 mm – ATX-PRX-750, ATX-PRX-770
80 mm/3 mm – ATX-PRX-810, ATX-PRX-820, ATX-PRX-830, ATX-PRX-840
Neat and organized – just the way the gym equipment market should be!
Why does the upright width max out at 80 mm x 80 mm?
I would dare to say that the 80 mm x 80 mm is the maximum width the manufacture can choose for their racks. If you would go past this point, you would compromise both internal and external width of the power cage.
After all, the Olympic barbells are manufactured to a specific measurement and if you opt for a wider power cage you might not be able to fit one on it.
Is there any point to go past 3 mm thick steel?
Ever since the Soviet Union collapsed the number of athletes with supernatural strength greatly decreased. There is no real benefit of manufacturing uprights of +3 mm steel as no one will ever get strong enough to get to the weight load capacities.
Racks manufactured out of 4 mm and 5 mm thick steel is essentially a marketing technique.
Reinforcement Brackets
There are other ways to improve the overall stability of a power cage. The ATX® have opted for reinforcement brackets.
For example, the PRX-520, which is supposed to be the smallest member of the family, features welded on reinforcement brackets & plates at the bottom and the top of every upright.
This allows the rack to have phenomenal stability, especially for such a compact footprint, low weight and most importantly price point.
If you would jump to the Commercial PRX-800 racks, you would notice that every single corner features an additional corner bracket.
This eliminates any possible flex in the rack, even during the heaviest of loads.
