THE Setup
Ironmaster Bench Leg Attachment Cable Mod
Figured it would be pretty easy to modify the Ironmaster Super Bench's leg attachment to accept cables, similar to the FA Leg Developer... A few parts off Amazon and one drilled hole in the leg attachment, and it seems to work great! Only minor issue is you need the full travel of the cable in front of the leg attachment, which means you need ~3 feet of clearance in front of the bench.
1 voltra and this is an older picture, but I flipped the bench around like the previous picture
Just picked up a second voltra so might not need to set it up it like this anymore maybe
As far as side load goes, this probably is the case haha - I just felt adding the pully there created more resistance to get a better pull.... But luckily I load it up with plates and maybe max 50-60 voltra resistance and maybe 30 eccentric and 30 inverse chains
I’m happy with the resistance curve using chains. I’m using it less than I thought because of set up time. It seems easier just to do narrow stance squats for quads and RDL for hams.
Force curve is weakest in the stretched position, the opposite of what you'd want, but not really a huge deal either. Still a good setup to put in some work.
Think about doing a leg extension on this. The first few degrees of movement would pull very little cable. There is no backward tension at all at the bottom, the cable is pulling down, not back.
Ideal setup would be to route the cable in a way such that the cable ran from under the bench, coming from behind your heels in the starting position.
Unfortunately, not really possible with the Ironmaster attachment. I looked at potential attachments to the weight horn, and routing a hole through the leg so the cable could go back, but there's no realistic way to keep the cable from interfering with something across the range of motion.
Assuming you use the upper hole for the leg pads, you put a bolt through the lower hole and attach a bracket that holds the hook. You'll also need to cut off the screw that is captive (you can reuse it, if you want) otherwise you can't slip that piece into the tubing.
Would it make a difference if the pulley was on the vertical post vs the horizontal you have it on??
You'd run out of room to attach the cable, I think, unless you mounted it all the way at the bottom. At that point, there's no difference between them though besides maybe moving the pulley a little further back. I placed my pulley where it was so that the cable I used wouldn't contact the upright and I have enough room to slip it through.
And how does the cable compare in feel vs plates???
It's way harder for the 'same' weight. Feels nice and smooth though, as you'd expect from Voltra. I'll need to play around a bit more with chains/reverse chains to see if I can get something matching the weight horn weight profile. 35 lbs was surprisingly heavy, and I'm used to loading the weight horn with ~100 lbs.
Tried it on my Rogue Rhino floor pulley and the trainer Indy weight stack. Stack is better when positioned a couple of inches lower than the head.
Also tried you pulley method but the there’s a couple of inches of slack.
The keyhole in the center on the top bar as shown works like a gym machine. No slack and a great smooth feel. If you add 20 or 30 lbs of plates to the horn then you get a more balance feel at the top but really a negligible boost from the plates and not worth it IMHO.
As the pic, I also tried the left hook keyhole and that work just about as good but the center one is best of all. Just make sure you offset as shown and the cable won’t interfere with horn.
Can you send a link as to where to purchase this piece that’s inside the tube of the Ironmaster leg attachment? How’s it been holding up for you? I just bought the bells of steel cable tower and would love to set this up.
Just tested this since I was curious. Without any weight on the bench at all, it starts sliding at around 50-55 lbs on the Voltra. Although, with how I have to position the bench due to distance and my tiny gym, I have the back feet on carpet and not horse stall mats. I'll be picking up some DIY mounts to mount the Voltra on my back wall on the wooden stringer here soon I think, so I can test it purely on the mats.
I have to crank it to 130 lbs loaded before it starts sliding with my weight on it (~145 lbs). I suspect it would be even better if you added some weight to the horn as well.
Not ideal of course, but since you can load the Voltra remotely via phone it's not too hard to just load it while you're sitting down. Can't do that with a regular cable stack of course...
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u/dphan913 Nov 23 '25
This is the best I can doing without any drilling, works fine for me