Shogun NORD-EX Review 2024 – The BEST Nordic Combo for a home gym?

Last updated on December 14th, 2024 at 07:06 pm

At this point I might be one of the most well rounded back-side development home gym product reviewers out there. I say that with the most amount of sarcasm possible. But honestly, we like some back side builders in my gym. I’ve owned dedicated machines, “home gym” folding units, and a number of combo machines. In an effort to build what is behind us, we added the Shogun NORD-EX to the repertoire in early 2024.

Why add another Nordic Combo Machine? For science, of course!

A lot of you are going to be adding one of these to your gym, and my goal is to be able to demystify that buying process. With the Shogun NORD-EX here, I can dig into it, share pros and cons, and give you some feedback on whether it is the next best thing, or somewhere farther down the list.

Links throughout may include Affiliate Links. These help fund the site at no expense to you.

Transparency Note

Shogun was nice enough to send me the Shogun NORD-EX for sake of review, free of charge. Shogun has also provided an affiliate link and discount code for us, so if you use them, it will help me continue to do more cool stuff in my garage. As always, I hope I can provide a clear and detailed review so you know what to do for YOUR home gym.

Shogun NORD-EX Overview

As I mentioned, this will be far from the first posterior chain machine added to the garage. But this might just be the most refined from shipping, to assembly, to the features and materials. Shogun really took their time and thought about ALL of this. While most companies are simply packaging materials into a baggy and providing some half-assed instructions, Shogun went WAY beyond the expectations.

There is no doubt that they are aiming for a PREMIUM experience, and their almost $1000 price tag aligns to that. I mentioned in the BaseBlocks The Nordic Plus review that it was the budget option, so it got some leeway in terms of fit, function, and feel. This will be the opposite. Charge a premium price and expect a stricter review. If this is the most expensive option on the market today, it better be the best option as well.

Exercises

I want to call this out, as a couple of the Nordic Combo Machines do a lot of exercises. The Shogun NORD-EX only does Nordics and Back Extensions. It has several incline regression angles, so that is helpful. But just an FYI, these aren’t Apples to Apples with a couple of the other units. I’ll be fair to what this is, but note if you are looking for hip thrusts, GHRs, and more, you are currently reading the wrong review.

Assembly

The Shogun NORD-EX gets shipped in three different boxes, each is packaged BEAUTIFULLY with custom foam inserts. The only way this thing is getting dinged up in transport is if the Fed-EX guy hates you and chucks it off the truck. Luckily mine likes me, but honestly, this is probably the most thorough and well done shipping experience I’ve ever had. I listed these materials on Marketplace for free and they were gone in SECONDS. People must have known quality packing materials when they saw them.

Then you have the tools and install notes. They individually packaged all of the nuts, bolts, washers, everything into steps, and labelled the bags. This is a super unique and super helpful piece to the puzzle. No more guessing if they are talking about the small bolts or the smaller bolts or the really small bolts on Step 4.

The tools themselves are incredible. Honestly, I have lower grade tools in my tool chest than these wrenches. This might have been the first thing I’ve put together in years that I didn’t go straight for my tool box, impact wrench, and socket sets. They are so nice that I have kept them and placed them inside my garage cabinet for assembling future gym equipment.

I will state that there was a small hiccup in the install process. To install the plastic knob for the side pull pin, I had to turn the unit on its side and STEP on it to get it inserted. But other than that, it was straightforward.

Specs List

• Brand: Shogun
• Made In USA: No
• Footprint: 41 x 25 inches
• Weight: 126lbs
• Suitable Athletes: All ranges
• Finish: black with polished steel adjustment posts
• Assembly: claims roughly 30 minutes, mine took a bit longer
• Additional Items: none

Build and Construction

Pads

I’m not a foam snob like I am a plate snob or cable attachment snob. I want my foam to look good, feel good, and perform well. And ideally, it does that for a long time. If I have to get things reupholstered, that adds to the cost of the unit. Not to mention, staples and other parts falling off is less than ideal.

The Shogun NORD-EX went to the extremes on padding. They skipped the typical foam wrapped in various materials and went straight for a premium custom molded polyurethane foam. There are no sliding materials, no stitching, no staples, nothing. Each piece of foam is a 100% solid piece. The nice thing here is that this will likely look the same from the day you unwrap it, to the day you hand this down to your kids.

Now here is where things get interesting. Ask 10 people about the ideal padding firmness to softness ratio and you’ll get 10 different answers. These are going to be highly based on your shape, size, gender, and more.

My general take on the Shogun NORD-EX padding is that it is too firm. There is so little give, that it isn’t comfortable. I feel like they went a little too far on the rigidity scale here. In the picture below you can see my entire bodyweight (250+lbs) resting on my knees and the pad compresses maybe a few millimeters. Again, the beautiful thing here is that this means these pads will NEVER fall apart. Even after sweaty workouts, these pads look fantastic. But I’d rather have a little more cushion for the pushin.

Where this is the most noticeable in my experience, is with the 45 degree back extension. After months of use with the Freak Athlete Nordic Hyper GHD, my wife went to use the Shogun NORD-EX and instantly tapped out and went back to the Nordic Hyper.

The pads for me are like a high end sports car. Cool to look at, but I’d never want a Lamborghini to be my daily driver.

I want you to also keep in mind, that I am comparing multiple combo machines side by side here. If you grabbed the Shogun NORD-EX on its own and didn’t have anything to compare to, you might have no negative thoughts here. Just my two-cents when comparing multiple pieces side by side.

Rollers

The rollers take the same style foam as the rest of the Shogun NORD-EX. Here I feel like this works out well. Since I’m not putting my entire bodyweight on my ankles, like I would my knees or hips, the roller can be a bit stiffer. And since it will hold together forever, this is probably a solid choice.

However, Shogun went with a single roller design, similar to the BaseBlocks unit. Two rollers allows our feet and ankles to be more locked in, specifically keeping our ankle from flexing. By keeping the foot/ankle locked in place, we have more stability which can radiate up into the legs and hips. I have found that doing Nordics on the two roller design combo machines is SIGNIFICANTLY easier than the single roller designs.

Footplate

The footplate is on the small side. No matter what size athlete you are, you have ONE spot to put your feet, which for someone like myself isn’t even shoulder width apart. Considering the unit itself is much wider than the footplate, I feel like they have room to expand. The footplate is however thick enough with the diamond plating for a little grip, so it functions as needed in general. I just see a wider footplate being helpful for larger athletes.

Emblems, Bolts, and Extras

I don’t normally cover this on most products with its own section. Most of the time you’ll get a casual “and they added their logo here” kind of thing. But the Shogun NORD-EX deserves an entire section dedicated to the finer details they have included here.

The logo plate on the side is a laser cut machined steel plate. It is SO finely cut, that my daughter actually managed to get a “paper cut” on her finger when helping me assemble it. That might sound like a negative, which it kind of is, but seriously, I’ve not seen such a clean piece of metal in my life. This is something I’d expect on a high end sports car.

All of the bolts and washers are stainless steel, meaning they look fantastic and will continue to look fantastic FOREVER regardless of the environment your gym is in. The black powdercoat is seamless, the roller end caps are also stainless steel, even the pull-pins are metal and refined. This looks the LEAST like a piece of Home Gym Equipment, and the MOST like a piece of Commercial Gym Equipment. This is something that Sorinex would make. Or Prime Fitness. This is exceptionally well done in terms of every single last detail of aesthetics.

Up against all of the other offerings on the market, if this was purely a beauty pageant, there would be no contest. The Shogun NORD-EX is the far and above winner here.

Storage and Mobility

The Shogun NORD-EX comes with wheels and the ability to be stored vertically. The wheels function fine, I don’t have the same dragging issues that I had with the BaseBlocks The Nordic Plus. But we run into problems with the vertical storage itself. When you roll it into place, the entire unit stores on top of the footplate.

Remember when I said the footplate was too small? Well now you have the full 126lb machine stored upright on a small footplate. Shogun addressed this with an aftermarket 3D Printed plastic piece to help support the wheels. They have magnets on them so they can store under the unit when you are moving it and using it, and then placed back where they need to be for storage.

This is honestly a creative and functional solution. But, in my opinion, it never should have been needed in the first place. If you want to make something store vertically, make it store vertically in a safe fashion. Not retrofit it. Now when I go to move it, I have to rock the unit backwards to pick up the blocks and adhere them to the underside. You are tilting the 125lb machine backwards while ducking to the ground to set the blocks. And doing that again to put it back into storage mode. It gets the job done, but this doesn’t align to a premium product experience.

Nordics

This is one of the basic movements for the Shogun NORD-EX and includes multiple regression angles.

The Shogun NORD-EX does regressions differently than any other Nordic Combo Machine on the market. Where the others angle the entire machine, the Shogun NORD-EX uses the back extension hip pad to create an early stopping point. You stay in the same flat position, but have a shorter range of motion, instead of bio-mechanically making the exercise easier by increasing the angle and changing the leverages. Think of it kind of like doing rack pulls for deadlifts.

Set Up

You can technically do a flat Nordic Curl on the Shogun NORD-EX, as well as the other machines, without doing any modifications or adjustments. When it comes time to set up regressions, this is where things start to look different.

Lets use the Freak Athlete Nordic Hyper GHD for this comparison. To angle the unit you pull the locking pin, and then adjust the angle with the pop pin. Lock in it place, and good to go. You should go from flat to whatever angle you want in a matter of seconds, with easy adjustments from 45 down to flat, and everything in between.

For the Shogun NORD-EX, you have to perform a few tasks. First we need to pull the pop-pin on the side of the unit to raise the pads up and out of the way. Then we adjust the regression angle piece by reaching under the unit, finding the pull-pin, and adjusting as needed. Then we pull the hip-pad out of the back post, drop it into the regression angle post, and lock it in place. Lower the back post, lock it in, and now get to work.

As you can see, the process for the Shogun NORD-EX takes longer and has more hiccups. Even the process of reaching under the machine to find a pop-pin that you can not see to get the regression angle set appropriately just feels clunky.

Keep in mind, it isn’t BAD. I am nitpicking here because this is supposed to be the premium option on the market. Neither of these machines have a TERRIBLE process for Nordic Curl regression adjustments. But one is definitely better than the other.

Progression

Nordic Curls are often most difficult at the bottom. This makes sense as the hamstrings are stretched and the leverages have our entire upper body out front putting the maximum amount of resistance and stretch on the hamstrings. If you can control all the way down and EXPLODE out of the bottom, you will likely make it through the entire rep.

With the Shogun NORD-EX regression angles, you aren’t training the hardest part of the lift, the bottom. With the other combo machines you are mostly getting rid of the top portion of the lift, which is arguably the easiest portion.

Before I could do a full Flat Nordic Curl, and I was making my way through the progressions and testing the various machines, I would do some warm-ups at the highest setting and work my way down until I couldn’t do 5 solid reps. The Shogun NORD-EX has 15 degree jumps from 45-30-15-0. The Freak Athlete Nordic Hyper GHD has 5 degree increments, which obviously make the progression much easier. This is like adding 5lbs instead of 15lbs at a time to break a plateau.

In my experience, the Shogun NORD-EX model of regressions is inferior to the way the other machines do theirs. Now here is a big caveat… if you are a home gym owner and you are the only person using this, the regressions are potentially only a factor for a short period of time. Most athletes putting in consistent work on Nordic Curls will likely progress from the highest angle to full flat within 6 months to a year. Even at my bodyweight I managed to do it within that timeframe.

How I Got My First Nordic Curl In 2024 – Free Program

So we are really splitting hairs here. Both methods will help you progress from wherever you are today, to a flat Nordic Curl in the near future, and then you can forget all about regressions (for the most part). And if the 15 degree jumps was too much, you could always strap a pad to the Shogun NORD-EX to make that 15 degree jump more like a 5 or 10.

Just consider if you have additional athletes, kids, maybe a spouse or friend who will use the equipment. I’ve been using the regressions lately to work on Single Leg Nordic Curls, and with such a difficult movement the 5 degree jumps are crucial.

You gym and needs might be different than mine.

Performance

Here you can see me run through the multiple regression angles for Nordic Curls with the Shogun NORD-EX.

• It performs as expected at the 45 degree angle – ✅
• It has some lift on the back feet at the 30 degree angle – ❗️
• It pops a solid 3 inches off the ground at the 15 degree angle – ❗️
• It stays flat in the flat position – ✅

A few caveats to the above. First, keep in mind that I am 6ft and 250+lbs. Multiple other athletes who are in the 180lb range that I know that have tested this unit, have not had the same issues that I do. So I believe that if you are a more “normal” human being, you are likely to have all 4 options pass with flying colors.

You may notice that in the flat position above, I have the regression pad extended all the way out. Unfortunately, due to my size, this is a necessity. Otherwise the unit rocks in the flat position. So remember when I said “You can technically do a flat Nordic Curl on the Shogun NORD-EX… without doing any modifications or adjustments” – well that is why I said technically. YOU might be able to, but I can not. So when I go to use the machine, there is set-up time NO MATTER WHAT.

Back Extensions

Back extensions on the Shogun NORD-EX are probably better than Nordics in my personal use case. You get multiple angle adjustments including 35, 40, 45, 50, & 55 degrees. And the unit is rock solid in every position. You have a very adequate range of motion, so you shouldn’t struggle with basically any form of back extension options.

Keep in mind that because this piece still has a large base in the front, it isn’t going to work for barbell back extensions. There is just too much in the way there, and we aren’t able to get that full arm extension. That said, most people are likely to do back extensions with dumbbells, medicine balls, or a weighted vest. With the more than robust weight limit and stability of the unit, you’ll be in business.

I only have two negatives with Back Extensions. One is with the padding, again it is pretty firm. I personally find it uncomfortable. And second is the amount of room allocated for the man parts. This is a VERY shallow groove. I’m not sure this accomplishes the intended goal for most dudes. There is room for the pipe but not the giblets.

Other Options On The Market

There are currently five Nordic Combo Machines on the market targeted at home gym owners.

First up is the Freak Athlete Nordic Hyper GHD. This was the first one that showed up in our gym and started the entire process of reviewing all of them. It is about double what The BaseBlocks The Nordic Plus costs, depending on what sales they have going on, but comes in a few hundred bucks shy of the Shogun NORD-EX. It also includes multiple additional exercises.

Check out the review here.

The BaseBlocks The Nord Plus

The next one is the BaseBlocks The Nordic Plus. This is the least expensive offering between the main offerings out there. You could buy two of these and have some change leftover compared to the Shogun. It is far from my favorite, but if you are on a VERY tight budget and fit a VERY specific set of characteristics, I could see this fitting into your routine.

Check out the review here.

The Tib Bar Guy Nordic Back Extension Machine V2

The Tib Bar Guy’s Nordic Back Extension Machine V2 released in early 2024 and comes in just north of The BaseBlocks The Nordic Plus but takes a lot of HEAVY influences from the Freak Athlete model. Their model adjusts in a similar fashion, sets up for Hip Thrusts the same, and has a ton of exercise options. It is leaps and bounds out of the same league of the Shogun NORD-EX in terms of refinement and aesthetics.

Check out the review here.

Nordstick The Nordbench

New to the scene in late 2024, is the Nordstick The Nordbench. It recently arrived in my garage and I have the initial write-up with pictures and specs.

Save 10% on the new NordBench and all NordStick products w/ Code: GML10S

The Nordstick Nordbench clocks in REALLY close to the Tib Bar Guy price, and depending on discount codes and details might end up being THE budget option. They have some unique features including a wall mount, squat wedge, and more.

Check out the initial write-up here.

Will one be better than the other?

This will come down to the features, build, price, and performance. And ultimately the one you pick will take YOUR needs into consideration, and choose the right Nordic Combo Machine for YOUR home gym.

Overall Thoughts On The Shogun NORD-EX

The Shogun NORD-EX reminds me of my time with the BulletProof Isolator. You just know that someone spent an absurd amount of time thinking through the small details, making something truly unique, and trying to create a premium experience from beginning to end.

I think unfortunately, much like the Isolator, the NORD-EX just doesn’t have room in my gym. If it was the only option on the market, I’d have no problems giving it a thumbs up. If you buy the Shogun NORD-EX, or already own it, I 100% think you will enjoy it. it isn’t a bad piece of gym equipment.

But my size and strength levels seem to create an interesting gap in the performance of Nordic Curls, and even though the pads are gorgeous, I’m just not digging them from a fit and feel stance. The unit struggles with vertical storage, has extended set-up time and overall came out the gate swinging with a premium install and aesthetic that couldn’t keep up in use.

I just think that for the money, if it was MY money, in MY gym, I’d spend it on another offering in the market.

I want to add in this though, my buddy Adam at Garage Gym Lab had mostly the opposite feelings as me. He enjoyed the Shogun NORD-EX better than the Freak Athlete Nordic Hyper GHD. I think a large part of that is due to Adam keeping his NORD-EX set up in the back extension mode (so the vertical storage and set up problems weren’t an issue), Adam being a smaller athlete than I am (so the leverage problems weren’t an issue), and Adam having a little more aesthetic preference over performance than I do (a man of exquisite tastes). So there is 100% an audience and perfect pairing for the Shogun NORD-EX, it just isn’t me. Will it be you?

Wrap Up

Shogun really nailed a lot of aspects here, that the other manufacturers could take note on. But I’m a performance first kind of dude, and the Shogun NORD-EX leaves me wanting more for my own home gym.

If you are a smaller athlete than me, who plans to primarily leave the Shogun NORD-EX flat on the floor, instead of using the vertical storage mode, and you are willing to pay the premium for the premium aesthetic and components, then this is the piece for you. Otherwise I’d recommend checking out the Freak Athlete Nordic Hyper GHD.

💲Want to buy a Shogun NORD-EX for your own home gym? Use this link & save 10% w/ Code: GML10

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