I bought a Synergy Custom Fitness dumbbell rack, and deeply regret it.
Summary: Shipping damage. Residue on some of the components. Loud pings and pops from the assembled weight rack. A design that looked great and saved space but was painfully unusable. Restocking fee. Non-refunded shipping fees. Ghosted me about the refund.
There are lots of dumbbell storage options. I went with Synergy because they manufacture in the USA, and I chose the Alpha Elite 5-tier model because it can accommodate my round-style urethane dumbbells.
Synergy Custom Fitness has vertical storage with a small footprint.
I couldn’t find many reviews online. I was leaning in a different direction, but convinced my boss that ToolGuyd could review it. A lot of pro and DIY tool users have garage gyms, and so there might be reader interest. That helped move the needle a bit. Mostly, I couldn’t find other small-footprint racks that would work well with my dumbbells, and I was tired of searching.
Synergy’s Alpha Elite rack should fit my largest dumbbells with ease. I figured I’d find a solution for my smaller dumbbells later.
It took a few weeks for my order to arrive. I cancelled an accessory and requested a price adjustment. They were fairly responsive to those early emails.
Synergy always seems to have some type of discount offer going on, and so I’m glad I didn’t pay full price!
There was some shipping damage.
I had to wipe some kind of grime or residue off some of the parts. Some of it looked like cardboard dust, but there was also a brownish wet-type reside. Anti-rust overspray?
Not a big deal. I grabbed a fresh tool cleaning rag and wiped everything down.
Assembly was very simple.
The Synergy dumbbell rack started to creak and pop. I felt a strong “pop” when looking things over with my hand resting on the top plate. Nothing was moving around, but it was very disconcerting.
Did I do something wrong that there were now multiple pings and pops, presumably as stress was being released from the assembled parts?
It shouldn’t be doing that, right?
Then I tried to use it.
And it PINCHED my hands every single time.
I have smallish hands and tend to wear medium-sized gloves.
Every time I removed a dumbbell, the pointed corners hurt my hand.
Most vertical dumbbell rack designs have a larger footprint and tapered design, presumably to avoid this issue.
It looks like it should be fine! But the pointed metal contacted my hand every single time.
I tried with smaller weights, but that pinched my hand every time too. Was I doing something wrong? I shifted my hands. Overhand grip. Underhand grip. Ouch. Ouch. Ouch.
It looked great, but that’s it. With respect to functionality, it was terrible, or at least the Synergy dumbbell rack would not work for me.
I don’t need bougie gym equipment – I needed something space-efficient and easy to use. That’s what matters to me, and the Synergy rack failed at it.
I can remove the dumbbells with 2 hands, and also use 2 hands to re-rack them. But then what’s the point of a rack if it’s going to be less convenient than just leaving the weights on the floor?
Since I encountered the same with even my smaller weights, I realized it’s not a problem that would go away.
Every use of the rack resulted in pinching, poking, or scraping. Unacceptable!
But, I guess it’s a “me issue.” That’s the reviewer in me giving the product the benefit of the doubt. “It’s not for me.”
I requested a return. After some back and forth:
Got it — it looks like that is the right rack for your dumbbells.
Honestly, our racks are great for saving space, but there are more optimal options for easier loading and unloading, like the horizontal rack.
I repeated my wish to return it for a refund.
After some back and forth Synergy sent me a return label.
Synergy said they’d charge me $79 for return shipping, and $76.20 for restocking fee. (That’s 20% off the $380.97 price I paid after coupon, not including shipping.) They’re also not refunding the $54 shipping fee.
So this experience would cost me $210, but I’d get an estimated refund of $225.77. That’s a very expensive lesson.
Fine, ToolGuyd can eat the cost. I’d be so much madder if this was a purely personal purchase.
Yes, that’s a lot to spend on a dumbbell rack. I convinced myself the small footprint would be worth a premium. It wasn’t.
I determined the Synergy Custom Fitness dumbbell rack to be poorly made, poorly designed, and a terrible fit.
I want my money back, or at least some of it. I read the return conditions prior to placing my order, but didn’t realize I’d lose nearly 50% in a return.
I dropped it off at FedEx. They received it a few days later. Synergy Fitness’s return policy says it takes “at least 2-4 days” to process returns.
After 2 weeks I still don’t have my money back – none of it. I emailed them a week ago and 2 more times since then. I never heard back at all. I want my refund. It seems they’ve ghosted me, as if it wasn’t bad enough they were keeping a 20% restocking fee plus both shipping fees.
The (cardboard?) dust and brown residue? I cleaned it. The shipping damage? Maybe I could have asked for touch-up paint. The pings and pops in the minutes after I finished assembly? Weird and unexplained. The poking, pinching, and scraping when I tried to remove or rack any dumbbells? Maybe I’ve got delicate hands and bad coordination. They received the return package 2 weeks ago, I still don’t have my (partial) refund, and nobody responded to my emails. That was my limit.
All of the issues I experienced might be small by themselves, but when added up everything contributed to deep regret.
My mindset shifted from “I’m so excited about this, if it works out maybe I’ll get plate storage too” to “I guess this rack just wasn’t for me.” From there, due to how unresponsive they’ve been about the refund, my sentiment became “I feel ripped off and have nothing but deep regret about giving Synergy Custom Fitness a try.”
I did my research and didn’t find much aside from people flexing about their color-coordinated gyms on social media.
Maybe this might have been a string of bad luck or unfortunate circumstances. Maybe the design isn’t bad, but just bad for me. I really tried to be understanding. But ghosting me over the refund? That I can’t find any way to understand. That’s not a “maybe it’s just a poor fit for me” type of problem.
It was a mistake for me to give Synergy Custom Fitness a try, and it’s proving to be a very expensive one at that.
I had an extremely disappointing and poor experience with Synergy Custom Fitness over the Alpha Elite dumbbell rack, but it’s the return experience that completely soured me on the company. I seriously doubt that I will spend a single penny with Synergy ever again.
I’m now making space for a horizontal rack. Rogue has some universal-type options. Rep has a more affordable universal-type option they say works with round-style urethane dumbbells, and also a 2-tier rack with saddles specifically for round dumbbells.
