New Drops from Rogue Fitness (2025): What’s Worth It for Your Home Gym?
- The Team at Gym Reviewer
- 5 days ago
- 7 min read
Innovation, Creation and in Some Cases: Stagnation
Rogue’s release cycle has been spicy lately—shiny cable machines, slick conditioning gear, and niche accessories that make garage-gym nerds (like us) raise an eyebrow. We pulled together the newest drops we’ve tested, poked at, or have strong opinions about. Below you’ll find real pricing context, who each item is for, what we’d change, smarter alternatives, and how to slot each piece into a tight home-gym footprint.
Learn all about the Rogue Fitness backstory - How Bill Henniger created the powerhouse of an American Fitness Manufacturer that Rogue has become today
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The Quick Take (TL;DR)
Skip for home gyms: POWERDRIVE (too pricey for what it replaces), CG-series cable attachments (overpriced and redundant).
Fantastic for small spaces: FM-6 Twin Functional Trainer — a rack, functional trainer, and lat/low-row station in one footprint.
Best value in cardio: Echo Rower — folds cleanly, priced right, rides close to Concept2 metrics.
Low-profile conditioning: Echo Weight Vest — comfy and quiet, but budget in plate costs.
Elegant storage & utility: Darko Dock — turns a bar into a pull-up option and cleans up your rack.
Digital training: Rogue Move — convenient plug-and-play programming; we want it to get smarter about your equipment list.
POWERDRIVE
Verdict: Not a home-gym buy.
What it is: A premium, strongman-ish power implement designed to mimic tire-flip style training—minus the dirty tire.
Price reality: It costs about as much as a solid entire starter home gym. If your budget is finite, this chews all of it.
Who it’s for:
Commercial gyms and CrossFit boxes that want a clean, durable, coach-friendly alternative to messy tire flips.
Facilities programming strongman circuits without sourcing and storing giant tires.
Why we’re cold on it for garages:
Opportunity cost: For ~the same money, you can equip a rack, bar, plates, bench, and a conditioning tool.
DIY beats it on value: Call a tire shop and ask for an old tractor or semi tire; many will give you one free to avoid disposal fees. Rent a $50–$100 truck for pickup if needed. Boom—tire flips for pennies.
What we’d change:
A modular chassis that accepts different weighted shells or sled-style loading pins would broaden use and lower the “just for one movement” problem.
A lower-cost “home” version would make this less of a budget black hole.
FM-6 Twin Functional Trainer (Monster)
Verdict: Our top pick if you want one system to do it all.
Why it’s special: It’s three machines in one footprint—power rack + dual adjustable pulleys + mid/high & low pulls—with legit cable travel and Monster-series rigidity.
Who it’s for:
Garage/room gyms where every inch counts.
Lifters who want cable work (pressdowns, face pulls, rows) and barbell lifts in a single, clean setup.
How we’d configure it (our ideal build):
Depth: 30" inside the rack (not 24"). 24" feels cramped for squats/bench; 30" is the sweet spot. 43" is overkill unless you’re massive or want yoga in there.
J-Cups: Go 1" sandwich cups (not 2"). Rogue racks are ~49" wide; the 2" rollers crowd your collars. The 1" sandwiches give you just enough clearance to rack fast without kissing the uprights.
Safeties: Strap safeties > pin/pipe. They’re quieter, kinder to your bar, and easier to level fine-tuning.
Shrouds: Add them if you have kids in the gym or want a cleaner look and fewer pinch points.
Spotter Arms (1 set): Run a second bar outside the rack. It feels open and lets you superset without teardown.
Anchors: If you own the slab, anchoring improves stability—especially with aggressive cable work. Renters: skip, but mind your leverages.
Real-world quirks to know:
Cables run outside the uprights. If you park a pulley low for curls, that cable snakes down the outside and can hog exterior space; plan where your spotter arms live (we store ours inside at the lowest hole when not in use).
Mirror line of sight: The center column for the mid-pull can block a straight-ahead mirror. Consider a side mirror or reverse your squat orientation if form checks are life.
“Made in USA… with imported pulleys.” Performance seems great, but we’d love to see domestic pulleys to match the rest of the build.
Monster vs Monster Lite (FML-6):
Skip Monster Lite here. If you’re already spending big, stick with 1" hardware Monster. Westside (1" on 5/8") hole logic is less compelling with modern strap safeties and smart J-cup designs.
For reference, take a look at the Rogue Monster Lite FML-6 - the cheaper, little brother to the Monster version and in our opinion, the worse alternative...
Small wish list for Rogue:
Side-mounted plate storage that keeps the rack flush to the wall. Current pegs can force a gap if you want full 45s on the back.
A quick-release knee pad solution for lat pulldowns that doesn’t require a $300+ accessory. (Want something cheaper? Take a look at the Stand-Alone Lat Tower Solution from Titan Fitness)
Rogue Move (Training Subscription)
Verdict: Convenient; could be brilliant with one big upgrade.
What it does: Push-button programming for $15/month. Some equipment purchases include a free trial—nice way to sample.
What we want next:
Let us scan our gym (even a quick phone video) and have Move auto-build a program from the gear we actually own. Add a new Echo Bike? The plan updates. Swap a trap bar for a straight bar? It adapts. That would be a game-changer for adherence.
Echo Rower
Verdict: The best value rower right now for home gyms.
Why we like it:
Price & warranty support are on point.
Fold-up footprint is neat and genuinely garage-friendly.
Metrics parity: Rogue validated performance so you can compare efforts with Concept2 times—huge if you care about benchmarks and shared leaderboards.
Design notes:
The foot straps and quick adjustments feel premium.
The seat rail path looks slightly shorter than Concept2; bigger athletes should test if possible.
The turf tires are chunky visually—practical, but a bit loud on the eyes.
Who it’s for: Anyone who wants a serious erg without paying a brand tax—and who values easy storage.
Echo Weight Vest
Verdict: Minimal, comfy, and quiet—budget for the plates.
What stands out:
Low-profile design that tracks your torso instead of sloshing like a pack.
Materials: 1000D/500D Cordura and clean stitching; built to live on the floor of your garage and keep going.
Comfort & mobility: Big cutouts free up shoulders and chest for runs, push-ups, and metcons.
Trade-offs:
You’ll need to buy plate pairs (10/20 lb, etc.). If you love micromanaging loading every session, this isn’t the fastest system.
Hook-and-loop maintenance: Keep Velcro clean so retention stays high over time.
Colorway tip: The Coyote finish looks great and hides abrasion better than pure black.
Safety note: It is not body armor. Don’t treat it like it is.
The Darko Dock (Bar Hanger)
Verdict: Small accessory, big quality of life.
Why we’re fans:
Super clean, Made-in-USA solution that mounts to your rack, stores bars tight, and even lets you use a bar as a pull-up handle (yes, knurl for pull-ups is amazing).
It declutters your training space and keeps knurling safe from dingy corners and concrete.
Who it’s for: Anyone who owns multiple barbells or likes the idea of a quick-swap pull-up texture/diameter.
CG-Series Cable & Landmine Attachments (CG-1 / CG-2M1 / CG-3NF)
Verdict: Skip—function is fine, value is not.
Our gripe:
You’re buying multiple near-duplicates to cover angles and widths. Many third-party handles deliver 80–90% of the performance at 30–50% of the price.
Better idea: A single quick-change handle ecosystem (push-button or cam) that swaps angles/handles in seconds—one SKU to rule them all. Rogue, please copy this.
How to Build a Smarter, Smaller Home Gym with These Drops
If you have ~1 bay of garage space:
FM-6 Twin Functional Trainer (30" Depth) as your anchor.
Strap safeties + 1" cups + 1 set of spotter arms.
Darko Dock to store your Ohio Bar + specialty bar.
Echo Rower on the wall/standing when not in use.
Echo Weight Vest for conditioning finishers and weighted calisthenics.
Programming flow (3 days/week):
Day A (Squat + Pull): Low-bar back squat in-rack, superset cable rows/face pulls. Vest walk finisher.
Day B (Bench + Push): Bench in-rack, supersets with cable fly/pressdowns. 1k Echo row easy/moderate.
Day C (Deadlift + Accessories): Deadlift outside on spotter arms (block pulls/RDLs), then lat pulldown and curls. Vest step-ups finisher.
Space hacks we use:
Store spotter arms inside at the bottom holes when not working outside the rack.
Keep one pulley at top, the other mid/low, and plan your supersets to avoid re-pinning every set.
Mount a side mirror if the mid-pull column blocks your main mirror line.
Pricing & Value Notes (What We’d Actually Buy)
Buy now, enjoy for years: FM-6 Twin Functional Trainer (core of a space-efficient gym), Echo Rower (best value erg).
Nice-to-have: Echo Weight Vest, Darko Dock (these elevate your experience).
Pass: POWERDRIVE (home users), CG Attachments (redundant & pricey).
Maybe: Rogue Move if you want plug-and-play programming—or if it’s bundled free with a purchase you’re making anyway.
What We’d Love Rogue to Tackle Next
Quick-change cable handle system (angles & widths in seconds).
USA-made pulleys to match the rest of Monster builds.
Wall-flush plate storage that plays nice with mirrors and narrow bays.
AI-aware programming that reads your equipment list and updates sessions around what you own.
See Up-To-Date Prices on the Gear We Mentioned
Final Word
Rogue’s newest drop cycle proves they still do category-defining heavy metal better than most. If you want a single purchase that levels up a tight space, the FM-6 Twin Functional Trainer is the crown jewel.
Pair it with the Echo Rower, add the Darko Dock for sanity, and strap on the Echo Weight Vest when you want to suffer (productively).
The rest? Interesting, sometimes fun—but not all of it is smart money for the average home gym.
Have the FM-6 Twin Functional Trainer or Echo Rower? Drop your setup notes in the comments on our YouTube Review—depth, anchoring, pulley tricks—so other home-gym folks can steal your best ideas.
Stay strong,
Gym Reviewer 🌴
