Why I'm Waiting to Upgrade to the Gym Monster Ultra

If you're wondering whether it's time to upgrade from the Speediance 2S to the Gym Monster Ultra, here's the honest answer: not yet, and not for a while. At $7,000, the Ultra has moved into Tonal territory in terms of total cost of ownership, and I'm holding off on the upgrade until the device hits a 400-pound weight limit. I'm also going to put a lot more lifting on my current 2S first.

The price has crossed into Tonal territory

Smart home gym pricing has crept up across the board, and the Gym Monster Ultra is the clearest example. Landing at $7,000 puts it in the same conversation as Tonal when you factor in total cost of ownership. That's a different category of purchase than the one most of us made when we bought into the Speediance ecosystem originally.

When a piece of training hardware crosses the threshold from "premium accessory" to "major purchase," the upgrade cycle naturally lengthens. You're not swapping out a $1,500 piece of gear. You're committing several thousand dollars of capital to a single piece of equipment, and that decision needs to earn its keep across years of training, not months.

This is the part of the upgrade conversation that often gets skipped in launch-day hype. The sticker price is real, but the cost of ownership over four or five years is what actually matters when you compare it to keeping the hardware you already own.

What I'm waiting for: a 400-pound weight limit

The dealbreaker for me isn't the price alone. It's the resistance ceiling. I want a 400-pound weight limit on the device before I move my training over to it.

If you push heavy compound lifts — squats, deadlifts, heavy bench work, weighted pulls — the published resistance ceiling of your smart gym is one of the few specs that actually affects training outcomes. A higher ceiling means the machine grows with you instead of becoming the bottleneck on the lifts that matter most.

Until that lands on the Ultra, my 2S still earns its place in the gym. I'd rather keep training on a device I've already paid for than spend $7,000 on an upgrade that I'd immediately want to upgrade again. There is no upgrade treadmill I want to get on.

Why the 2S is getting more use first

I haven't been using my 2S as much as I should. That's not a defect of the machine — it's a use-it-or-lose-it problem on my end. The plan is simple: more lifting, more sessions, more wear and tear, before the upgrade conversation becomes real.

This is the part most upgrade reviews skip. You don't need new hardware to make progress. You need to actually train on the hardware you already have. Until I've put serious volume on the 2S — across the lifts, rep ranges, and programs I bought it for — the case for spending another $7,000 doesn't add up.

There's also a hidden cost to upgrading too early: you stop learning the machine you have. The 2S still has headroom I haven't explored. Until I run into its actual ceiling on the lifts I care about, swapping it out is premature.

Ultra vs 2S: the difference that drives the upgrade decision

Who should upgrade now, and who should wait

Upgrade to the Gym Monster Ultra now if:

• You're coming from older or non-resistance smart gym hardware and the $7,000 fits your training budget
• You want the latest generation of Speediance gear and the features it brings
• You don't train anywhere near the resistance limit, so the 400-pound question doesn't matter to your programming
• Your current machine is genuinely worn out or undersized for your training

Wait on the Gym Monster Ultra if:

• You already own a 2S that you haven't fully loaded with training volume yet
• You lift at or near the current weight ceiling and need more on the top end
• $7,000 is a stretch and you want total cost of ownership to make sense over years
• You don't have a clear reason to upgrade beyond "newer is better"

The deciding tradeoff

The deciding factor isn't brand loyalty or feature lists. It's the gap between what the current Ultra offers and what you actually need. If you need more headroom than the current weight limit provides, waiting for the version that hits 400 pounds is the right call. If you don't need that headroom and the price fits your budget, the Ultra is a legitimate upgrade path — just not a cheap one.

There's also a quieter tradeoff: attention. Every hour spent reading launch threads and spec comparisons is an hour not spent under the bar. The smart move, for me, is to close the comparison tabs, and put the 2S through the work it's owed.

What's next on my end

The plan is straightforward: more lifting on the 2S over the coming months, more wear and tear, and an honest reassessment once the 400-pound weight limit lands on the Ultra. The upgrade is still on the roadmap. It's just not this year, and probably not next year either.

If a new Ultra revision lands at 400 pounds and my 2S is showing real wear from consistent use, the case for upgrading becomes obvious. Until both of those things are true, the 2S stays in the rack and the credit card stays in the wallet.

You can hear the original take in the video here: Why I'm Not Upgrading to the Gym Monster Ultra Yet.