Powertec Leg Sled Roller Review

Here is a review of the Powertec Compact Leg Sled and the issue related to it’s rollers. We get asked a lot of questions about this so I thought I would take the time to set the record straight once and for all.

A bit of background on the Powertec Leg Sled first.

The sled section, where you sit and where the weight horns are located, rolls up and down the guide rails on 8 x industrial nylon rollers. The rollers are secured to the carriage structure with high tensile 1/2″ bolts. The bolts are fitted through industrial bearings.

I have been importing these sleds into Australia for over ten years now. The very first batches I imported were the P-CSR model number and they came with a steel roller, that had a rubber casing. These were terrible as the rubber casing would eventually wear off.

To address this issue, Powertec moved to a nylon roller – this is the roller in the carriage picture above. This roller was an improvement, but you had to keep an eye on them, and rotate at the first sign of wear.

Once Powertec identified this issue, they moved to a much thicker and robust roller. You can clearly see the difference in the picture below. These are the rollers that are on the current models.

You can also see from the picture that these rollers have been on the Leg Sled since late 2008. Nearly 10 years! In that time they have proven to be nearly bullet proof. This style of roller has proven to be that effective, Powertec used them on their heavy duty leg press. They offer a better mix of smoothness and durability than a cheap set of linear bearings.

So a lot of the issues you read about these rollers on the internet are very old posts. Or they written about old machines that have been purchased 2nd hand. In the USA there is a massive 2nd hand market, plus a lot of the older model sleds were sold. So they are still doing the rounds. We only got a handful of these sleds with the rubber cased rollers, which were replaced with the nylon ones, so we haven’t had this issue.

In Australia, we sell a lot of these leg sleds to small gyms or personal training studios. So they are in environments that cop a lot more usage than your typical home gym. And these rollers have stood up to that punishment.

I dare say, you can make these rollers last forever by simply rotating them – I will address this in a post/video one day when I have time. Like car tyres, some rollers will experience more wear than others, so if you periodically swap them around you will distribute the long term load more evenly.

So if you have any other questions on the Powertec Compact Leg Sled or any other piece of gym equipment we sell, just go to the contact us page and drop us a line.