In building my REP Fitness PR-5000 rack, I actually had to put a lot of thought into the dip station that I wanted for it. Because I also have the Ares 2.0 cable attachment, I knew that I wanted a dip attachment that can attach to a single upright, and this would allow me to utilize the cable system for weighted dips more easily than one that mounts on two uprights. Not to mention that this would also save a lot of space.
An obvious option would be to go with the REP Dip Station. But I decided agaiunst it for two reasons. One, for the price, it wasn’t fully welded but assembled with a couple of bolts. It’s not like this wouldn’t work; I just personally would rather have an attachment that’s mostly welded because I perceive that as providing more value for my investment. But this is something that I could’ve lived without. The ultimate determiner is the fact that the REP Dip Station had no optional wall mount. This is something that I really wanted because I didn’t want the dip station to just sit around on the floor or constantly take up space on my rack. After some research, I decided to go with the Rogue Monster Matador dip station.
If you look this product up, you’ll see that there are three varioations. There’s the Monster Matador for 1” racks, Monster Lite Matador for 5/8” racks, and the Matador for the infinity Series, which is Rogue’s 2x3” racks. Most people are going to be looking at either the Monster or Monster Lite version so I’ll focus on those.
Something important to note about these two versions is that they are identical in size and shape. dimension, and build. The main difference between the two is going to be the hole that’s drilled out for the retaining pin. However, in terms of price, the Monster version is $80 more. So, something a lot of people do is buy the Monster Lite version, drill the hole out to fit a 1” pin, and save the money. This is actually what I did. I just used a step drill bit that I already had, some 3-In-1 oil as a lubricant, and went at it. In a couple of minutes, I got it to the size that I needed and saved $80.
Another difference that I do want to point out between the Monster and Monster Lite Matador is the amount of protection on the inside of the mounting area. With the Monster Lite, there’s nothing so when you go to mount it on a rack, it’s just bare metal on metal. So if you care, the Matador Lite is going to rip your rack up basically immediately upon use. With the Monster Matador, you get one piece of UHMW on the front and weirdly felt on the two sides. I thought that this was kind of lame, which was another reason that persuaded me to go with the Monster Lite version because I knew I could just pick up some anti slip, anti scractch pads, stick it on and that would offer more protection than what Rogue was offering with the more expensive Monster Matador.
Again, I wanted the Matador Dip Station because Rogue offers a separate wall mount option. And this item is going to be fairly straightforward. There’s nothing really to it as it just acts as a place for you to put the Matador on. In terms of installation, it’s just held in place by two bolts, which are not included. Luckily, the ones that came with my REP plate wall mount fit perfectly.
When I was researching this Matador Wall Hanger, all of the photos showed it in use with the handles up. This does seem to be the proper way to use this hanger as there’s a small tab on the hanger that presses against the Matador to keep it in place. However, because I was hanging my Matador higher up, I wanted the handles down just to make getting it up and down easier. I want to share that this orientation works perfectly without issues.
Something that often comes up with these single-post rack attach dip stations is fitment. For some reason, they always seem to be sloppy and allow a lot of wiggle room. Again, I’m using a Rogue product on a REP rack. The two are not the same in terms of physical dimensions, with Rogue being a bit larger, so it’s only logical that their attachments are going to be even looser on a REP rack. But, again, I did modify my attachment by lining it with the self-adhesive pads, so my fitment is very usable. I actually left it slightly loose on purpose to make getting on and off easier, but for sure, you can make this rock solid snug with the pads.
Overall, the Matador itself is a good product that does exactly what it’s designed for, and that’s to allow you to do dips. This is also probably the most heavy-duty, in terms of construction, rack-attach dip station that I’ve ever used. It’s built like a tank. However, I do want to touch on Rogue for a bit. In building my home gym, I went with a lot of REP stuff for the large purchases and some Rogue stuff for attachments and accessories. For some reason, every Rogue item I ordered either has some defect from the factory or was damaged in transit. This Matador is a prime example of that. The black powder coating on the Matador itself is just terrible. A couple of areas were either not coated or were damaged to a degree that the coating came off, and they still shipped it off. With the hanger, Rogue shipped it along with other stuff in the same box but didn’t think to properly package them, so the items just bounced around in the box, destroying each other. I really don’t know what they were thinking with that. Then, when it comes time to contact Rogue about the issues, it always seems like customer service is put offish and are just going through the motions. Assisting you because it’s their job and they have to, not like they care even in the customer service sense. So again, this is a good product that gets my recommendation, but I personally will probably not be buying from Rogue for some time.
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