Hoist HF-4263 Ab/Back Hyper Bench Review
Last updated on April 5th, 2024 at 09:58 am
A few months back we made a big change to the gym layout by dropping the dedicated GHD, and opting to have more storage in the form of a mass storage unit from the local hardware store. The idea was to clean up and organize the space a little better. This allowed us to add some more items in the form of equipment that could be stored easily. You can see some of that in the previous Booty Sprout review, and then today in our review on this foldable back extension from Hoist Fitness – the HF-4263.
Key Notes
The Hoist HF-4263 is good, but not quite great. It does what I need it to, but not exactly all I WANT it to.
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So the goal here was to add a solid back extension to the garage that could be put away easily. Ideally it would hold up well to both myself and my wife with our discrepancies in weight, height, and strength. And of course, it needed to be fairly functional in it’s ability to perform back extensions with bodyweight, a bar, DBs, whatever.
Options
I looked around at options and basically landed on four options:
- A dedicated hardcore back extension from someone like EliteFTS, that I would attempt to shove under the mass storage unit.
- One of those “as seen on TV” type units that pop up on Facebook ads all the time. Hyper X or some crap.
- Snag a couple rollers for the rack and DIY slap together a unit.
- The HOIST unit.
The big dedicated unit would be ideal in performance, but we just didn’t have the footprint to store, move, etc. The as seen on TV units have an insanely low weight limit, and look to be fairly flimsy. Big concerns there on its ability to stand up over time. The DIY route is ok, but costly, and again, just… ok. So we settled on the HOIST unit.
I’m going to focus this review almost entirely on the unit as a back extension. I have zero interest in an ab bench and did not buy it for that. So keep that in mind.
Hoist HF-4263 Build
If you have ever used anything from HOIST before, you probably have a solid expectation on the build, and that is pretty on point. The Hoist HF-4263 is well powder coated, the pads are firm, tight, with great shape. The pop-pins are smooth, easy to use, and lock in perfectly. Basically everything looks like something you’d find in a commercial gym, or at the very least, a very nice personal trainer studio. This wouldn’t stand out as a “home gym unit” pretty much anywhere from an aesthetic perspective all the way around.
It weighs 45lbs, and has a width of 17in, height of 23.75in, and length of 40in while in the set up position. Folding the unit down for storage changes the dimensions to a width of 17in, a full length of 46in, and a height of about 14in.
Stability
Much like the Booty Sprout and other mobile gym equipment items, when sitting still and no weight on it, it shakes pretty easily. The Hoist HF-4263 weighs 45lbs, which just isn’t a ton of weight in as big of a unit as this is. It is basically my 4 year old daughter, and I can knock her over SUPER easy (jokes… just jokes).
Compare that to a commercial unit and you are looking at a minimum of 100lbs. The good news here, is that once you get on the unit, adding your 100+lbs of body weight, that rockiness goes away. You aren’t rocking side to side or shifting front to back or anything like that during your sets. So the tradeoff for mobility is likely worth it here.
The pad on the Hoist HF-4263 itself can be adjusted to change the incline with a pop pin. This is very important regardless if you plan to use it as a back extension OR an ab bench. The pad needs to firmly rest in the right spot for you to perform back extensions or else you are going to be smashing the wrong parts. There is a nice cut-out to accommodate the male athletes in the group, so don’t worry about that.
Fold Up!
The ability for the unit to fold up for storage purposes is smooth and fairly seamless. A pop pin and a quick adjustment and you move from storage mode to action mode. Hit the other pop pin to put the pad to your desired height, and you are ready to rock. That is my kind of set up process. The downside with storage is that it doesn’t fold up length wise.
So while the unit takes up less space than a traditional dedicated unit by far, it is still a pretty cumbersome and LONG piece of equipment. It does have wheels, but in my gym wheels are almost a non-factor. The wheels also seem to be in the wrong place on the unit? They work, kind of, but their location and size is odd.
The Hoist HF-4263 does store out of the way nicely in a vertical position. If you had a longer run way under a bench or something, it would go there too. It takes up significantly less space than my GHD did, and gives similar functionality in terms of low back, glute, hamstring, and core work.
The take home on the overall build is that it is pretty solid with a few areas of improvement. Again, it is still a moveable item in a gym. So you are trading some stability for this mobility, everything else about the unit functions pretty seamlessly and looks great.
So we know it looks good and the overall build is solid, but what about actually putting it to work?
Hoist HF-4263 Performance
For bodyweight extensions this thing is great. Solid, stable, adjustable for athletes from my height at 6ft to my wife at 5’6 to even my mom at just under 5′ tall. My daughter has tried to use it, but she isn’t quite tall enough. The setting I use for the extensions still leaves ______ holes on the pop pin adjustment for taller athletes. The pads are firm but comfortable. It is super easy to perform extensions without tiring out the wrong muscles because of poor set-up. You aren’t going to be left with bruises on your thighs, etc. Really solid.
Trouble
Where we start to get into trouble is with adding additional load. The fact that this attempts to serve two purposes and needs to be mobile, the unit sets up in an A pattern, opposed to a dedicated unit being more of a > Greater Than pattern. The key hitch here, is that with the dedicated unit, you have a ton of free space out front to load the movement… DBs, chains, bands, bars, landmines, whatever.
With the A frame, you have a lot less options as that free space is taken up by the unit itself. That said, you can still load it up with a few variations. DBs still work as long as you keep it tight to the chest or hold it out front of you. Chains get the job done, and cables work pretty well for a change of pace.
I’d still really like that front section free, but you often give up some abilities with a mobile piece. You can’t use anything too large, like say a medicine ball, because you’d run into the pad too early and short change your ROM.
Bands are an option, but it isn’t a super clean process to do so, since your bodyweight has to hold the unit down. You could set up a super heavy DB to do this, or get close to a rack or something. But again, you gotta get creative to make it happen, and setting up five things to make it work kind of defeats the purpose, right?
Frustrated
This was a pretty frustrating realization for me. I really wanted to be able to program these for some heavy work with a landmine, use my pull up globe with the cables, medicine ball drop sets, you name it.
THEN, one of my IG followers gave me a great idea… why not try my Rickshaw? I was hesitant at first, but It worked pretty damn well. We aren’t talking perfect by any means, but you can easily load it up, hit it heavy, and get a fairly full ROM. We are missing a little ROM at the end range which is unfortunate, but doable.
So the take home here, the unit works well, but because of the dual functionality and design, it is limited in its use in terms of progressive overload with a lot of implements. You are going to sacrifice ROM or total weight used, unless you have a pretty specific combo of implements.
Other Notes On The Hoist HF-4263
The Hoist HF-4263 really feels like an ab bench first, and a hyper bench second. The ab bench set up looks and feels and functions like any ab bench I’ve ever used. The hyper portion was clearly a reach for some extra functionality. On a typical hyper bench your quads are lying ON the pads. On this, your quads are lying AGAINST the pads. It is a thick and comfortable pad, but if you are trying to do these after a quad heavy leg day, be prepared to have some free foam rolling services added to your menu as the pressure can be a little much, especially with added weight.
One of the rubber grip “sleeves” that goes over the leg on the floor is severely loose. It looks like the plastic piece inside might be a little stripped, which causes it to
Hoist HF-4263 Final Thoughts
Currently I don’t see anything on the market that truly meets our needs, which is frustrating. The Hoist HF-4263 is close, and I’m certainly not looking to sell it any time soon (again, no other solid option), but there is definitely some room for improvement. I can easily get past the small complaints, but the ability to use it with added weight with all of the implements I wanted is a tough pill to swallow, and I’m betting going to be the dagger for most of you in terms of whether to buy, or not.
My wife still uses this weekly and is able to make variations with bodyweight, DBs, adjusting tempo, you name it, and the Rickshaw might be her go to for the heavy weeks. I tend to program these for myself in a mostly bodyweight fashion at higher rep ranges focusing on control, tempo, and tension. So again, I’m not tossing it on the curb or selling it tomorrow. It is still playing as a solid addition to our gym and our programming… I just wish it filled all the holes (that’s what she said).
A better design for a folding unit might be something with the exact same design as a standard unit, but the support beam simply folds out of the way and likely locks in with a pop pin of sorts or even functions like an FID with the adjustable ladder. This would allow it to be practically completely flat in storage mode. I’m sure if you tinker with that design you could even make a dual natural GHR and a back extension combo, maybe other cool things too.
The End
In the end, I’m not so frustrated that I’ll be cursing HOISTs name, but I’m probably not recommending this to anyone soon because of that one fatal flaw. A big piece to the progression game in the gym is the ability to add weight, reps, etc. over time. Adding reps only gets you so far, and you ultimately need weight increases. This makes that pretty tough to accomplish. Doable, but far from ideal.
If you happen to make gym equipment, can you take my idea and send me one? Thanks! In the meantime, we’ll continue to get a nasty glute and hip pump as we work around the limitations here.
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Joe Gray
My name is Joe Gray - aka Gray Matter Lifting - and I've been lifting at home since 2013. In that time I've built a badass gym, deadlifted over 600lbs, helped grow r/Homegym to over 1 Million subscribers, created the Garage Gym Competition and written a ton of posts here on this site. I love the Garage Gym Community... If you do too, I hope you stick around.
