Rogue Fitness Yoke Review
I recently purchased the Rogue Y1 Yoke, and I thought I’d give my initial impressions of this piece of equipment. I bought the Rogue Yoke basically because we needed a second rack to squat, bench, or overhead press when my wife and I worked out at the same time in the garage. We already have a Rogue S2 Squat Stand to serve as our primary work out station and it works great when we are working out alone. However, when we work out together swapping weights and bar heights and benches becomes a bit of a hassle
We wanted something with a small footprint, like a squat stand, that we could easily stow away when not in use. So with this in mind we looked at several options from Rogue such as S1 Squat Stand, Echo Squat Stand, and the S4 Squat stand. We also considered a foldable wall mounted rack, but unfortunately we didn’t have the wall space. Out of this group the S4 was the most appealing since it had the smallest footprint and could be stored in a corner. Enter the Rogue Y1 Yoke. This thing has it all. It’s a yoke, squat stand, sled, and plate storage rack all in one. It seemed like a no brainer so we pulled the trigger and purchased one as soon as they came in stock on the Rogue website. I was really excited to finally purchase this piece of equipment after fawning over it for the better part of a year, so without further delay, let’s get into the details of what I like and don’t like about the Y1 Yoke.
Things I liked about the Y1
As expected with any Rogue product the Y1 is well made. It has 2x3, 11 gauge steel uprights. The welds are perfect. The powder coat is great. It can handle up 750 lbs, way more than I’ll ever squat or carry on a yoke walk. It has one inch hole spacing for bench press, which is a must if your bench pressing in my opinion. It even comes with a couple of J cups and it is compatible with the Rogue Infinity Spotter arms. In fact, Rogue sent a couple of their Plate Storage Channel posts. I’m not sure if this was an accident or if they sent them as a freebie since it took them a while to ship the yoke after I ordered it. I don’t need them right now, but someday in the future maybe?? This highlights another great strength of the Y1 and that’s the cross compatibility with other Rogue products in their Infinity line. It’s one of the reasons I like buying from Rogue so much. All my accessories on my Infinity S2 Squat Stand are compatible with the Yoke and vise versa. I could even convert my S2 into a Y2 and my Y1 into an S1 by just swapping out the base tubing.
Another great thing about the Y1 is that when it is not in use the pins holding the cross bar come out so it can be stored by just leaning the uprights and the crossbar against the wall. This was a big deal for us since we didn’t have the walls space for another squat stand or rack, and we didn’t want to permanently take up the middle of the garage. The fact that it just collapses down so that it takes up virtually no space leaning against the wall is great for those who may need to use their space for more than one purpose. However, it’s not as easy to take apart as it would be to collapse one of the many wall mounted racks on the market that just fold over. A reasonably in shape person can put it together and take it apart on their own, and with two people it’s no problem. Plus, a wall mount collapsible rack does not give you nearly the versatility as the Y1. So there is a bit of a convenience trade off. However, if you do plan to break it down after every workout, and don’t need the other functionality of a yoke, then I’d just buy a collapsible wall mounted rack. It will be significantly easier than breaking down a yoke. My wife and I usually workout at different times, so we primarily use our S2 Squat Stand. We’ll bust the Yoke out for those occasions when we workout together, or for Yoke walks, etc...
In terms of the actual use of the Y1 we’ve used it for all the major lifts and it performs exactly as you’d expect…..well almost, but we’ll get into that in a few minutes. It’s a stable and strong platform. It will slide a little bit if the barbell hits the back of the J cups, but no more than any other squat stand. If you have weights on the horns or if it is against the wall then that eliminates that problem. I don’t really think it’s a big deal since that is the case for squat stand not screwed to the floor. You can even lower the crossmember and do some serious super fat grip rows or bar dips. Theoretically, you could use it for pullups, but I think the crossmember is too fat for 99% of the population. It’s significantly thicker than my axle bar to give you an idea. Nonetheless, this thing is super versatile and super solid. The fact it doubles as plate storage is great too. We don’t need it for this purpose, but if you do it's there! Lastly, this thing is a yoke and it works great for that purpose. Full disclosure, I’m nursing a back injury at the moment so I wasn’t able to load it up with a bunch of weight, and honestly I’m not nearly strong enough to load this thing down to test its 750 lbs weight capacity. I did pick it up and yoke walk it without any additional weight (185 lbs), and it felt really comfortable. I also have absolutely no reason to doubt Rogues 750 lbs rating. So if you’re just buying for the purposes of being a yoke, then I think it will perform great. Although, I do have some questions about durability which I’ll get into in the next section.
Areas of Concern
Our Y1 arrived with damage to the plastic tops of the plate storage posts. Typically, I would attribute this to the box being totally manhandled during shipping, but the box they came in was in good condition. I don’t think Rogue sent posts out in this condition, however it appears that Rogue did not provide sufficient packing material to protect the soft plastic tops of the posts, so even getting roughed up a little bit in shipping was enough to scuff the plastic tops. This isn’t a huge deal, and if it was another vendor I might even let this slide. However, this is Rogue Fitness and my expectation is they will have taken care of all these little details. I could’ve contacted Rogue about this and I’m sure they would’ve taken care of it, but functionally the posts still work. It would be more hassle than it is worth, but just more of a nuisance.
Next issue, the Y1 Yoke is short. I knew this when I bought it and I’d seen the reviews of people who could not unrack the bar for a squat without bumping the back of their head on the crossmember. I figured this would be a problem for me, but my wife is only 5’1’’, so the Y1 works fine for her to use on all the lifts. The bottom of the cross member is at 5’9” and I am 5’11’’, so if you are a couple inches shorter than me then you may not have any issues. I also have a bit of a minor issue with performing front squats and overhead press. The Y1 is 72 ½ inches, which theoretically should be plenty tall for most people to use to front squat and overhead press. However, you have to be careful about just looking at the total height of the Y1 when assessing if it is tall enough for you. The crossmember at the highest setting takes up the top 13 inches, so really you only have 59 ½ inches of height on the uprights. This also is deceiving because of the design of the Rogue J Cups you can’t use the top hole directly under the crossmember, so you lose another 6 inches. So with the J Cups in the highest position the bar is going to sit at about 53 inches. So they are too short for me to use to either front squat or overhead press without having to dip down and do a half squat to unrack the bar. I’ve seen that some people are getting around this by raising the crossmember so they are only using the bottom two pins, but the Y1 wasn’t designed to be used this way so I’d caution against it. I’m sure Rogue would agree. Since the Rogue Y2 Yoke 92 inches tall it could solve the height issue. For us, however, we didn’t get the Y2 because due to space limitations we have to have the Yoke setup in the middle of the garage, and it would’ve been too tall with the garage door open. That’s a pretty much a deal breaker in the summer in Texas.
The last complaint I have for the Y1 is the skid plates have no UHMW plastic to protect them from getting scratched. It’s just powder coated steel. Everyone who has ever seen or performed a yoke walk knows that when you put the yoke down it’s going to slide some on the ground. Without any protection the powder coating on the skid plates are going to be damaged after only one or two uses if you’re using it on a hard surface, for example: outside on the concrete. And using it as a sled? Forget about it. Some people may be fine with that, but personally I want this thing to last. I contacted Rogue about this and they responded back stating that they “do not have an official padding or modification for the bottom side of the Y-1”. It’s too bad, because I was really looking forward to possibly incorporating some sled pushes into my workouts, but I’m not sure that I will now. I just don’t want the bottom to get torn up. I’ll probably still do some yoke walks, and just try to be really careful when I set it down on the concrete.
That’s it for this initial look at the Rogue Y1 Yoke. I hope this review is helpful to some potential buyers. Overall I think it is a really nice piece of equipment that has a lot of versatility making it great for the garage gym, as long as you realize Y1’s limitations on being things other than a Yoke. If you are looking to use this as your everyday squat rack then you may want to consider a Y2, especially if you’re 5’9” or taller. Thanks for reading.
