Barbell Shrugged - How to Build a Great Garage Gym w/ Cooper Mitchell, Anders Varner, Doug Larson, and Coach Travis Mash Barbell Shrugged #590

Episode Date: June 30, 2021

Garage Gym Reviews is arguably one of the top gym equipment sites available right now. Cooper Mitchell (Coop), who operates the site provides the everyday home gym owner detailed insight, information,... and recommendations on various types of equipment. From Rogue to Titan Fitness, to American Barbell, to Fringe Sport, he covers their products meticulously. In addition to the reviews of products, he showcases the different garage gyms of people all throughout the Instagram world.   With over 100,000 on Instagram and a Facebook group of over 10,000 followers, he has become the go-to figure of barbells, power racks, and more. In another Strength and Leadership Interview, I had the opportunity to talk with Cooper about more than just the reviews. Here, Cooper discusses what drives him and how he pushes everyday to make himself better.   In this Episode of Barbell Shrugged:   The basics of building a garage gym What are the best barbells for your garage How to start a garage gym on a budget The rebirth of at home training Where is the future of garage gyms and at home training Garage Gym Reviews on Instagram   Anders Varner on Instagram   Doug Larson on Instagram   Coach Travis Mash on Instagram   ————————————————   Diesel Dad Mentorship Application: https://bit.ly/DDMentorshipApp   Diesel Dad Training Programs: http://barbellshrugged.com/dieseldad   Training Programs to Build Muscle: https://bit.ly/34zcGVw   Nutrition Programs to Lose Fat and Build Muscle: https://bit.ly/3eiW8FF   Nutrition and Training Bundles to Save 67%: https://bit.ly/2yaxQxa   Please Support Our Sponsors   Organifi - Save 20% using code: “Shrugged” at organifi.com/shrugged   BiOptimizers Probitotics - Save 10% at bioptimizers.com/shrugged   Garage Gym Equipment and Accessories: https://prxperformance.com/discount/BBS5OFF Save 5% using the coupon code “BBS5OFF”

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Starting point is 00:00:00 Shrugged Family, this week on Barbell Shrug, Coop from Garage Gym Reviews is on the show and we are talking how you need to build your garage gym. This is actually a really cool interview because Coop has like three gyms at his house and he has reviewed more barbells, I think, than anybody, any other human on this planet. I kind of wish I had that job where I just look at barbells, lift barbells, tell people about the barbells. I don't know if I know enough about barbells to know exactly everything that I need to do to review them fully. But Lord, if you get on his Instagram account, you see the amount of equipment that rolls into his house. I don't know how his wife stays with
Starting point is 00:00:40 him. He must have a very successful business and be very good at reviewing things because my wife would kill me if I had a two-car garage plus a trailer in the back plus another gigantic gym all just filled with equipment that I had to write blog articles and film YouTube videos and talk about on podcasts. What an epic life. If you love the gym, if you love home gyms, you're going to love this episode. But before we get into it, I got to tell you about our friends over at Organifi. Most of us could use more energy in our day, but caffeine can only do so much. At some point, we need to look at the root causes of our fatigue. It turns out two main factors are low energy and chronic stress and a lack of nutrition. Organifi creates delicious super food blends that address both of these problems. They use adaptogenic herbs and mushrooms to help
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Starting point is 00:02:33 Mary left a five-star review saying, I'd give this 100 stars if I could. Within one month of use, I went from daily struggles with restless legs, constipation, and poor sleep to no struggles with any of that. I know it sounds dramatic and far-fetched but it's true and mary is not the only one getting better sleep after taking magnesium breakthrough amanda says i fall asleep much faster and stay asleep now until normal waking hours you have a customer for life bill says on the first night of taking magnesium breakthrough my deep sleep jumped two hours which has been the highest reading so far from my aura ring. Listen, if you're having trouble falling asleep and staying asleep, one of the best things you can do is possibly
Starting point is 00:03:08 do is start getting enough magnesium, but please do not run to the store and buy your first magnesium supplement you find. Most magnesium supplements use only two of two of the cheapest synthetic forms. And since they're not full spectrum, they won't fix your magnesium deficiency or help you sleep better. There are actually seven unique forms of magnesium and you must get all seven of them if you want to experience its calming sleep enhancing effects. That's why I recommend Magnesium Breakthrough by BioOptimizers. Simply take two capsules before you go to bed and you'll be amazed at how much better you sleep and how much more rested you feel when you wake up.
Starting point is 00:03:40 For an exclusive offer to Barbell Shrugged listeners, go to magbreakthrough.com forward slash shrugged and use the code shrugged10 during checkout to save 10%. magbreakthrough.com forward slash shrugged. M-A-G-B-R-E-A-K-T-H-R-O-U-G-H.com forward slash shrugged. And make sure you use the code shrugged10 at checkout. Friends, let's get into the show. Welcome to Barbell Shrugged. I'm Anders Varner, Doug Larson, Cooper Mitchell. Coop! From Garage Gym Reviews. Dude, this is super rad. We were just talking pre-show about how over 80% of the people that are following our programs now have some sort of home gym, and there's nobody probably on this planet better at teaching people how to build home
Starting point is 00:04:27 gyms and then make them super sick than you like super sick you're building a home gym like every day on youtube um how did you get into like why did home gyms become the thing because i don't think home gyms got this the credit that they deserved until the pandemic. And now it's like the rite of passage. Yeah, I totally agree. I think home gyms are the future of fitness. I've said this many times. I've been saying this for years.
Starting point is 00:04:57 Just like, okay, we see this with brick and mortar businesses. The pandemic has absolutely been the nail in the coffin for a lot of brick and mortars. We've seen it all over, not just in the gym equipment industry, but on the opposite side of that, the pandemic was like the nitrous oxide for the home gym industry. It was something that was going to happen. We've seen it trending more and more towards people working out in the home gym. You see this with just investment dollars going into VC backed companies like Tempo, Total, Peloton, all these like, you know,
Starting point is 00:05:23 Hold on, that stuff freaks me out. Yeah, we can talk about that. But so all this money is being pumped into that space, right? Well, that's like all of a sudden, like introducing all these new people to this idea of training at home. Well, suddenly people are stuck at home. They still want to get fit. And there's all this like, you know, new information and economies of scale, bringing prices of equipment down. So it was like the perfect time for people to get into the home gyms. It was like the perfect storm. So there's a lot of
Starting point is 00:05:53 bad things that came out of obviously 2020, but one, I don't know, not necessarily a good thing, but unique thing is people are learning to train for themselves at their homes. And so my journey started, I was, let me think how I can start here. I first got introduced to home gym. My dad was a national level powerlifter. He had a 750 squat at 220. Not like insane, but a really strong. I'd call that insane. He trained in our garage. And so I'd go out there when I was like you know 10 years old and my dad would be in third stall garage just chalk everywhere he had a friend who was a welder so they like custom welded some pieces you know just having Metallica playing it was just like my intro to the scene
Starting point is 00:06:36 I had powerlifting USA magazines all over the dinner table and you know deadlift secrets by Westside Barbell and Louie Simmons videotapes, playing in the background, like, okay, that's how I grew up. My, although I played hockey, and so my goal was to play collegiate hockey. And so I trained with my dad growing up. And that was kind of my intro to training. Over time, I learned I love the training more than the hockey. So I started training more and more. I got into CrossFit. And that's how I heard about you guys. We're like the same people okay okay did you play did you play hockey or something else yeah i left home when i was 14 to go to prep school in massachusetts to go play i left when i was 15 yeah there you go where'd you
Starting point is 00:07:16 play at i played in st louis for the junior blues triple a blues and then i ended up at lyndonwood university there you go um that's where I ended that's funny yeah that's a similar my dad totally taught me how to my dad didn't squat 700 but he totally taught me how to squat and uh that was that was squatting was the thing that I was better at than playing hockey same yeah I enjoy I enjoyed the what I found is I just enjoy the training aspect more than the actual like competition part I I like to practice. So I left and started doing that. So I started my first home gym because I was living in a duplex. I was training for CrossFit and I wanted to get some like double days in. So in the morning I do some sort of like steady state cardio or something, lower intensity stuff. And then in the evenings I'd go do other training.
Starting point is 00:08:06 Well, over time I found like, oh, I'll just add like a little piece of equipment here, a little bit here. And then eventually I was like, man, like I want a lot of this stuff. I don't do anything halfway. I'm a gear guy. So it's like, I want just like everything,
Starting point is 00:08:20 but there's no way my wife who is in nursing school and I'm putting her through it, like, no way she's going to be like, Oh, yeah, just, you know, fill our whole house full of gym equipment. So I was like, Well, maybe there's a way that I could do this and get it subsidized in some capacity. Maybe I can get this equipment for free. So what I did is I started a basic website, I wrote a couple articles, and I'd send them to companies. I'd be like, Hey, this is my quote unquote portfolio. This is my work. Um, I think it's really good. I'd love to do it on your product. It's an honest review. Uh, but you know, people
Starting point is 00:08:55 are going to be searching on Google for your product review if they're not yet. And this could be something that could drive traffic to you and people, these companies are always looking for more business obviously. And free promotion is great. So I started with like jump rope companies and massage rollers and, you know, all this like, you know, silly stuff. And over time, just grew it over time to where, you know, the website we now receive right around a million uniques a month. We do about, last year we did 22 million views on YouTube.
Starting point is 00:09:24 And then our Instagram has grown quite a bit too. We also have a community on Facebook, and it's just something that's kind of snowballed out of a passion and a joy for doing something like this. I feel like we are in like a legit renaissance of the garage gym in that there was like our dad's parents, or like the parents generation that uh i remember we had a barbell and like just metal plates but it was on plyboard and and i was in the garage that would get destroyed nowadays you can't be lifting on just pure plyboard and then all the
Starting point is 00:10:04 crossfit or and then all the crossfit or and then all the garage gym people that like had like their hardcore culture in their garages found crossfit i feel like that was like the beginning of it was like all the people that work really really hard in their garage just started migrating to crossfit because that was like the language that they already spoke. Now we're all back in our garages and they're because all the equipment. So I don't know how easy it is to make, but it's so easy to get compared to where it was 20 years ago. It allows us to have such awesome places to train. I mean, the rack behind me, it just goes up on the wall.
Starting point is 00:10:41 It doesn't take any space. If I didn't have the platform in here, it would be nothing. It's like a five inch wall ornament coming on the wall. It doesn't take any space. If I didn't have the platform in here, it would be nothing. It's like a five-inch wall ornament coming off the wall. Well, CrossFit started in the home gym or in the garage. If you look at the early CrossFit Journal articles, a lot of them are about, hey, there's not CrossFit affiliates everywhere. There isn't this huge model that we have. How are you going to train these lifts? Well, really all you need is some gymnastics rings.
Starting point is 00:11:05 You need maybe a pull-up bar, plates. It's like a Spartan type of training system. Over time, companies have latched onto that. Rogue Fitness is one. I mean, you look at Bill Henninger. He started in the garage gym. He started with CrossFit. And if you look at the old actually CrossFit forums,
Starting point is 00:11:23 you can see Bill starting his company. I mean, you can see him like talking to people like, Hey, what do you think about this? Do you think somebody would like this? What about this box? Where can I get this manufactured? Yeah. Now they're this huge company, but that's how they started. So it started in the garage gym as more Spartan. And I think now, because like equipment is so much cheaper, a $200 barbell today 10 years ago would have cost at least a grand, right? You would break them. Exactly. Yeah.
Starting point is 00:11:52 The sleeves would fall off all the time. You have to like spin them back on. Definitely. They have the lock nut on the end. Yeah. But today you can get a bearing bar with a good amount of neural. Yeah. It's made in China, but it's still still gonna have tensile strength of 200k psi i mean it's gonna be a great bar for most people for you know 250 bucks shipped to your door so because of that now people can fill
Starting point is 00:12:16 their gyms they can get programming and training online from companies like you guys and you know be able to build the body they want tackle their dreams uh of you know their health and their training um in their garage so yeah it's pretty cool but how long did it take before your your garage was just completely full and you needed to find a bigger space or start putting it in your house or i'd imagine that would happen pretty quick if some if you were just sending you stuff constantly yeah it's continual so it started with a one-car garage I eventually moved to a two-car garage filled that up really quickly I moved to a three-car garage filled that up really quickly so I now own a 3,000 square foot personal training studio that's just filled with every
Starting point is 00:13:01 piece of equipment you can think of. I have my three-car garage and then I have about 15 or so friends who have garage gyms that are basically just my equipment they're borrowing. My goal, we're getting ready to move and I'm going to build a warehouse and I'm just going to make it just a huge mecca where I put all the equipment and hopefully have people come train for fun. I have so many things on my wishlist. I need to come visit you. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It's like, it's like a, it's like a playground for adults that like to lift. Yeah. It's so fun. All right. Well, we got to start this thing back at the beginning for people that are listening and like, what are the essentials for building a garage gym? Like, how do you, because there's, there there's if you go to your instagram page there
Starting point is 00:13:45 are so many things you can buy but where's like the the best place to start and and i guess places to go find find that equipment yeah i i mean i'm a barbell fan barbell is i you know i wrote an article for starting strength i called it barbell is king i think the barbell is king I, you know, I wrote an article for starting strength. I called it barbell is king. I think the barbell is king. You know, we're talking about progressive loading, overloading, linear progression. You can add weight, you know, slowly over time. It's kind of like the basis of strength training. Yeah, adjustable dumbbells and kettlebells and all these sorts of things are great. But I think the barbell is really the foundation and should be the foundation for most strength training.
Starting point is 00:14:26 I think for some people, you know, there's different views on it. You know, you have people like Dave Tate who owns Elite FTS. And he talks about building a home gym as a supplement to the workouts you do at the commercial gym and building it backwards. So he's like, you should start with a GHD and a reverse hyper so you can get some of this extra work. And then, yeah, do most of your training at the gym and it was kind of like supplementary for me I think you should start with a barbell and rack and plates yeah because there's just so much you can do with I mean the amount of training like you know for our content there's so many different pieces of equipment we're reviewing and types of equipment and gyms we're
Starting point is 00:15:02 showing off but the reality is most people all they you know, is a barbell plates and a rack and maybe a flat bench. And once you have a decent barbell and some plates, like the majority of the other stuff is built for using the barbell with it, like a landmine there's there's just many other pieces that you know if you can go get a set of bands now all of a sudden you can use the barbell with bands and you completely change your entire home gym experience right off the bat by spending an extra 60 bucks but the barbell really is like the basis um do you have like a favorite squat rack is that that i've gone cheap, like really like Amazon. You probably, if I say the word Amazon and squat rack, you probably know that janky thing
Starting point is 00:15:52 that I've almost killed myself on, but it works. Yeah. Yeah. Well, I mean, it's all about your budget. My favorite, like racks, if I was going to just send people to one company, it's rogue fitness. They're USA made due to the amount of you know volume they do their shipping is lower than anybody else their prices for american made equipment is lower than anybody else their
Starting point is 00:16:13 prices compared to like chinese competitors isn't um but you know if if you're just like i want something that's going to last for the rest of my life um and i can pass it down to my grandkids i'm never going to have to worry about, is there going to be like attachments that will fit it? You know, as you upgrade over time, Rogue's really the, they're the leader for a reason. That said, there's so many other options. Rep Fitness is making amazing, you know, like imported equipment that's, you know, very similar to Rep or to Rogue. It's just cheaper prx behind you if you want a fold down rack there's no better you know more compact system than a prx rack yeah it just
Starting point is 00:16:51 depends like what your budget is and your space but i think for most people you know any of those companies are really going to feel that need yeah where the innovation um i, kind of like from where you started your channel and acquiring, did you ever see this foldable rack coming? Like, did you know that that was going to be part of your ability to build a home gym and then fold an entire gym into five inches off the wall? No, it's genius. Yeah, because, I mean, the fact of the matter is everybody else was looking bigger and bigger PRX was looking, okay, how can I make this as practical as possible?
Starting point is 00:17:29 Which is how can I still park my car in the garage? Cause you know, there's people like me that want to fill their whole three car garage full of equipment so you can hardly fit your body in. But there's a lot of people out there, they want to be able to, you know, park their car in the garage still and live a normal life. And training is just kind of supplementary to everything else so something like that is genius and you can see how you know useful it was by how many you know they sell i see them everywhere and that's really they have some other unique products but that's their landmark product
Starting point is 00:17:59 that's the one that you know does so well for them it's a yeah it's a great design they were on our show i wish i had the number right now but they i want to say probably like a month maybe two months That's the one that does so well for them. Yeah, it's a great design. They were on our show. I wish I had the number right now, but I want to say probably like a month, maybe two months ago. And they had like a three-month delay in shipping because they were selling 30 times the number of racks once uh the pandemic hit like once quarantine happened they 30x like the next day and i was just like man how do you even keep up and good thing you got shark tank on your side people that know how to scale things 30x in a day yeah yeah well 30x is great but that's only
Starting point is 00:18:42 because that's how much they were able to keep in stock. The amount of traffic change is really much more than that. You see a lot of these companies, they're trying to keep up with demand and they're selling a lot, but the only reason they're not selling more isn't because they're the people that want to buy it, just because like you said, they can't keep it in stock. It's just like- Did you notice a massive uptick on your site once the pandemic hit? Oh yeah yeah just like all these companies them saying 30 times that's very in line with the amount of you know referral traffic that we're getting yeah it's crazy the the thing is that i want to say though is there was definitely a spike but there was this thought by a lot of people that once things kind of simmer down people aren't going to be interested in home gyms anymore.
Starting point is 00:19:25 That's not true. Like if you look at our traffic, it's not like, okay, we're in a trough now. It's here and then it may be curtailed a little bit down, maybe, and then it's pretty consistent. I'm sure there's a lot of dudes out there that like watching the NFL. Turns out it's one of the biggest sports in the world. Whatever.
Starting point is 00:19:44 Guess what? I don't have a man cave. I have a gym in my garage, and I like to tinker with it. I don't have like a recliner sofa that I love. So I don't go spend $1,000 on the recliner with the cup hole. I don't know what that is, but I will spend all the money to make this cooler incrementally and i feel like once people have it and they realize i mean look i think i said at the beginning of the show
Starting point is 00:20:10 but over like 80 of our people like following our programs are in their garages they're not just going to spend all this money and go back to the gym in six months because it's no this is way more convenient if you can come in and hit it hard for 20 or 30 minutes your drive time just to go to the gym in six months because it's, no, this is way more convenient. If you can come in and hit it hard for 20 or 30 minutes, your drive time just to go to the gym is going to double the time commitment. And you're probably going to a gym and you're probably working hard, but it's just a different experience. It's not your experience. It's kind of like this communal thing, and most people just want to get in,
Starting point is 00:20:43 hit it hard, go home. And home is easier when it's right next to you. Oh, without a doubt. I feel like the initial stage of starting a home gym is the hardest part. Like once you have something and you consider your garage to be your new gym, you're going to keep building it out. You're going to keep buying more stuff. I feel like if you really like lifting weights,
Starting point is 00:21:01 it's going to be hard for you not to want to continue to buy more stuff. So the pandemic like had so many people that didn't have garage gyms start a garage gym, and then they're going to keep buying stuff to fill it up for many years. Oh, without a doubt. Yeah, and we're seeing something that's kind of unique in that this hobby has transformed from just performance-based to the enjoyment of the activity, the purchasing, the rearranging, all that sort of thing. Before, I think the original garage gym community, it was all about, okay, let's make DIY stuff. Let's just make stuff that we use. The color, like all that sort of
Starting point is 00:21:38 stuff doesn't necessarily matter. And now we're seeing it. It's kind of like car guys. Like they want the rack to be a you know you chose red because it looks better than you know black you've got orange walls because maybe it's something sensory that like gets you woken up or something but it's different than just plywood walls where originally that was kind of what it was it's just spartan so people are going from okay this is a place that i really want to spend more time in so I'll make it enjoyable for me to go out there. And then two, like, I want to have fun with it. I don't just want to like use it.
Starting point is 00:22:11 Like I want to like show it off and like, you know, but it's a more beneficial to your health hobby than spending that money on going out to drink with friends or like buying a fast car or some of these other things that like, because we live in such a prosperous country, we have the ability to spend money on. Dude, I want you to come to my garage gym right now because the way my neighborhood is set up, this that you see behind me is also seen by every single person that lives in my neighborhood.
Starting point is 00:22:42 Because it is, if you look in from the street as you drive by there's this giant orange wall and by far the nicest garage gym in the neighborhood and there's I had one of the moms drop her basically drop her kid off and go he needs to learn how to play lacrosse can you make him strong and I was like I wonder how you thought this was the right place. Maybe it's because this thing's gorgeous. But I think it's also more than just like the equipment you buy. Have you really tapped into like the people that are able to like really have a successful gym? I feel like there's, it's very challenging to actually create a place in your house because your house is so normally – like your garage is normally like a storage facility. And then turning it into a place of hard work and training is kind of a tough process.
Starting point is 00:23:35 It's like getting comfortable working hard in your house. Yeah. Well, I think it's a mental shift, and we have to remember in training – and you guys have talked about this. Your training isn't just about your physical body. We're training mental too, right? Like we're trying to be like increase our iron will. We're trying to push through hard things. And it's very hard to train by yourself, at least in comparison to like the, you know, energetic like feeling you get from training in a crossfit class there's something
Starting point is 00:24:05 about like all these people around you training that like motivates you you're competing against other people it's something else entirely to be in your like dungy garage nobody else is around like you may be having a bluetooth speaker or something it's cold like the barbell it's like you know right now it's like 10 degrees outside so it's like the barbell's ice cold like it's the opposite of what your commercial gym feeling is but it's good for you you know it's producing something that it really you're really trying to train anyways you're trying to like most people aren't training for sport in their garage gym most people are training for their life they're trying to improve the way they handle their kids. They're trying to be better in their jobs, all those sorts of things. And honestly,
Starting point is 00:24:48 training alone is great for that because you're going to have to learn to do things on your own. Because the fact of the matter is most things we do in life, we do on our own, whether that's in your business or your job or your family, there's a lot of alone time. So you're training that out in your garage. So I think it's a good thing thing although it's a hard thing to overcome for a lot of people i uh i know most people gospel gyms they've seen kind of like the basic everyday equipment but i'm curious people probably send you a lot of more obscure products that maybe are not quite as popular uh what have you seen lately in the last couple years that you you got it and you use it and you went wow like how come more people don't have this yeah I think I think one piece that's really versatile
Starting point is 00:25:30 and we've seen it grown a little bit is a belt squat and not so much because it's just the belt squat portion but I think a belt squat is kind of a one it's a replacement for a lot of people for a leg press it's not a perfect one-to-one, but you know, people like leg press and hack squats and things like that, which is really like the footprint for that is kind of impossible to do in a garage gym, but a belt squat can allow you to have an ancillary movement to your, you know, back squat with a bar. But there's also like a lot of additional things that can be done with it because it's just a cable coming through the floor. So there's all sorts of like curls and presses and things like that that can be done with it because it's just a cable coming through the floor. So there's all sorts of like curls and presses and things like that that can be done with them that I really like.
Starting point is 00:26:09 There's also another piece that I think is going to get more and more popular. I've seen a few companies come out with them. We're testing a couple prototypes right now from other companies, and that is the flywheel system. Have you guys seen like the Eccentric K-Box or K-Poly? Yeah, Ben Bruno has one in his garage, which is training some of the most famous people in the world. So there's something to that.
Starting point is 00:26:30 They are fantastic. I think for people that like, they just want one piece of equipment. They don't have a ton of space. Like the amount of different workouts you can do with a K-Box is tremendous. Like there's just such a variety because there's just basically a
Starting point is 00:26:45 cable coming through the floor. They're very hard, but the, the, I don't know, the, the versatility available for that piece of equipment is great. And there's all sorts of stuff like that, that I think are like replacements for people that don't want a functional trainer in their gym or like all these bulky equipment that, you know, you don't have a ton of space. You've got a little money you can spend. Something like that works perfect. One thing we really need to get better at, and I'd love to know if you found a good option, is the, like, is the row. Going pull down, seated row, any of the cable attachments i find for a very a word that probably they're just janky i feel like i'm gonna break them every time i'm on one i never want to spend money on
Starting point is 00:27:35 them because i look at them i'm like this is just not a long-term solution to have you found any um any cable any solutions to kind of like like a setup that doesn't – I don't have all of the room. So what do I use for a cable machine? Yeah, so there's a lot of DIY solutions out there. We made a DIY cable pulley on YouTube. We got a guide for it. It's like – and I agree with you. It's like do I use that?
Starting point is 00:28:02 No. I mean it's not all that great right it's just cheap you know it works okay like there's only like one spinning wheel pulley system and you're like i don't know i'm laying on the ground trying to just it's tough so there's a there's a couple options out there there's one that we've got. We've got a review coming out called Ancor, and it uses these – I don't really know how to describe it. It's tiny. It's like a rectangle.
Starting point is 00:28:30 I wish I had one in front of me. Oh, yeah. They just did it for a rowing machine. That's called Whipper. That's called Whipper. Very similar. It's kind of a similar amount of space, but this is designed to replace like a Kaiser functional
Starting point is 00:28:45 trainer. Have you guys heard of Kaiser with pneumatic pressure? Okay. It's like that, but in a much smaller package. It is awesome. And you add weight with like these small discs. You can add like 10 pounds at a time. Works really well.
Starting point is 00:28:57 It's not priced very well. I think for most home gym owners, it's going to be overpriced. But I think as they like build and grow something that's in that capacity um i think mike boyle is actually one of their investors uh out of massachusetts i think he's got kaiser machines all over exactly so it's kind of a replacement for that so that works well there's others too like rogue has their slinger which attaches to the top of a squat rack cross member and then you can add a pulley down at attaches to the top of a squat rack cross member. Then you can add a pulley down at different increments on the squat rack upright to do rows and things like that.
Starting point is 00:29:35 That's a challenge that a lot of companies still haven't solved. I think they will because that same argument that you provided is one that home gym owners all over are saying. I don't want to put a functional trainer in my gym. I don't want to put a lat pull down. Why do I need to use weight stacks? I've got all these like olympic plates they're too expensive to ship they take up a ton of space let's come up with something else that uses the equipment i already have a squat rack and plates and we'll see it it's just a matter of time yeah i think that the the lat pull down has some i'd give it like a c at best uh for the things that i've i've really seen but the seated row or any horizontal pulling cable it's not even i haven't found anything that seems remotely worth
Starting point is 00:30:17 buying yeah most people are just replacing most people are just replacing with barbell movements you know like the landmine you get a t-bar row or there's like lever arms people are just replacing with barbell movements you know like the landmine you get a t-bar row or there's like lever arms people are using like the adjustable jammer arms for like you know rows are like my favorite thing that i don't get to do that often i could just sit there and pull on that little cable forever as soon as we go to the globo gym it's the first place i go no matter what see the piece of equipment i miss the most is the hammer strength low ISO rows. You know which one I'm talking about where it's like it's got the pad in front. Yeah.
Starting point is 00:30:51 You can do like 10 plates on each side. Yeah, you just feel incredible. Yeah, I like those. See, for those things, yeah, I don't know if they'll – I guess going to kind of like Dave Tate's thing, like you have to go to a global trip. They're the only people with a budget and space to be able to put stuff like that together. I think for now.
Starting point is 00:31:10 I mean, this is what we're – so Hammer Strength. I talked to Hammer Strength a couple weeks ago. Their market is all universities and collegiate and commercial facilities, right? Well, what happens when suddenly nobody's going to football games suddenly the you know the departments that decide how much money gets sent to the football program suddenly he's not sending as much money well those they're not spending money on equipment right like that's one of the first things to go so hammer strength is going to have to figure out like how do we navigate this situation so
Starting point is 00:31:45 companies like that are entering into the home gym space with all this money all this r&d time all these engineers that have been designing solutions for commercial facilities they can now use that for a home gym and i think i think we'll see some unique stuff some unique attachments and things like that because the squat rack is so stable there's so many different things you can attach to them the uh you mentioned earlier buying a bench and uh last week we were down at sore necks and they got my 319 because they created a inclined bench that hangs off of the squat rack that what's it called bulldog pads yeah they totally got my money i saw it on instagram and i was like that is exactly what i need and then as we were interviewing burt he was standing and it was directly behind him in my eyesight for two
Starting point is 00:32:41 straight hours and i was like yes are you trying to take all my money right now? Fine, have it. I think that that is like innovation at, you know, I don't really need a bench anymore. Like mainly because I'm not a power lifter that is benching a lot of weight in that thing with a set of dumbbells or for rows it solves a lot of problems for so I just don't have to do barbell rows again yeah well the holy grail for home gyms is the maximum amount of versatility you can provide in the smallest amount of footprint so something like that that uses the uprights of the rack you've already got it doesn't take up floor space right like you can just stick it in a corner whereas with a bench unless it's a stand-up bench it's basically laying
Starting point is 00:33:28 out on the ground and taking up you know three by four you know it's taking up some my desk space yeah yeah it's annoying so something like that for people that are using mostly dumbbells works tremendously well you can do it on one side for like presses you flip over on the other side you use it for rows uh for like seal rows and that sort of thing it works yeah it works incredibly well i love it it's expensive for what it is yeah it's like this little thing 320 plus i gotta pay for shipping well i don't think it's out on the market yet but i got the brand new one uh that has three different attachments in it you're probably you probably have it uh it's got three different attachments in it so you can change the angle at what you're pressing or pulling from
Starting point is 00:34:09 and when they brought that out i was like yeah take more money if you want it i don't care this looks even cooler it's got more fun stuff to play with yeah um you meant you mentioned dumbbells a minute ago and having a lot of bang for your buck on a very small footprint i got a a set of power blocks and some select tech dumbbells that they're both, they're both fantastic for many reasons. Have you tried any other, any other types of, of selectable weights, kettlebells included? Yeah, good question. So I, we have a review coming out on the best adjustable dumbbells next week. I bought all the top models. I think I've got maybe 18 different adjustable dumbbells in the garage right now. So PowerBlocks, Iron Masters, MX Selects, Bowflex,
Starting point is 00:34:53 Black Iron, anything you can think of. Anyone that you can find, if I can find more, I'll buy them. I got them all in. There's a lot of good options out there. I prefer, personally, PowerBlocks. I think PowerBlocks are my favorite. there's a lot of good options out there i prefer personally power blocks i think power blocks are my favorite uh that said there are other reasons i would recommend others like iron masters are really great because they can go really heavy they feel more like a traditional dumbbell where power blocks they've got like the side rails that go around your hand and can feel a
Starting point is 00:35:21 little bit awkward so some people that are used to like a fixed dumbbell, maybe don't like them as much, but they're so quick to change out. I've had a set of power blocks since I first started my garage gym. And back then I was doing like swings and dumbbell snatches and all sorts of just stuff, not taking care of them at all. And they still work like they did on day one. They're just like, they're amazing amount of like movements that can be done in a very small package because i've got a full set of uh fixed dumbbells in my garage uh that i like training with but if i look at that set the amount of cost the amount of space it takes up versus a power block set there's no reason to recommend something like that versus power blocks or any other adjustables out there uh because they're just how do you feel a little space about the adjustable kettlebells they look they look not
Starting point is 00:36:09 trustworthy i don't like them i don't like them i don't like them because i just look at them like i don't know the dumbbells i love them kettlebells because a kettlebell is is different than like a dumbbell in its use you're not just using kettlebells for than like a dumbbell in its use. You're not just using kettlebells for swings. You're using them for snatches, so it's going to be sitting in your front rack. You're using them for – or I mean cleans. Then you're going to use them for snatches, which then is going to be sitting on your wrist.
Starting point is 00:36:37 Like the adjustable ones, they don't work like a normal kettlebell. They don't sit against the wrist well. They don't sit against the front rack well. So if you're using them for, say, like you just want a kettlebell. They don't sit against the wrist well. They don't sit against the front rack well. So if you're using them for say, like you just want a kettlebell because you want to do like suitcase carries or farmer's carries or swings or something like that. Yeah, it may work. But I think for most people, I would just suggest getting like a 35 and a 53 pound kettlebell, maybe a two pood if you want some more weight and then you get an adjustable dumbbell set. I actually, anytime someone asks, I always recommend people get a kettlebell that is
Starting point is 00:37:09 one size smaller than they would normally swing because most of those people are coming from like a CrossFit gym and they're just thinking about doing swings. And then once you get your garage, you start playing with it and you realize, realize well i can't do anything except swing this so like pressing it they don't really press it now all of a sudden they can't go overhead with their 53 or their 70 but they spent 140 on uh like a 72 pound kettlebell and you're like well you should have gone with 44 and had more fun with it like you're not going to just go do a turkish get up with your 70 all of a sudden yeah uh i think that's something that i learned the hard way with that 53 over there where i realized like i've kind of backed myself in the corner of only being able to do like five
Starting point is 00:37:56 movements with it yeah i i do think kettlebells all could be a home gym essential but i would definitely put adjustable dumbbells in front of those. I totally agree because I have a bunch of kettlebells and don't have adjustable dumbbells, which I really wish I had. Now that I've spent the money on this bulldog pad, I'm definitely going to go spend the money. How do you, is there a place that you could actually get the adjustable dumbbells anymore up to the 92 pounds?
Starting point is 00:38:22 Cause I only really see the 52 pound is the select tech ones yeah the 552s both like select 552s yeah those are the only ones that and they're not even those are the only ones that you can purchase online right now because they're in stock but even those aren't in stock like you basically what you do is you're back ordering and they're going to come in three to four months once they get a shipment over. So PowerBlock, Iron Master, even like loadable dumbbells from Rogue or Fringe Sport or some of these others, you really can't get them because everything's out of stock. So you see this on the secondary market where everybody's trying to – they see the supply. They see the demand, so they're just raising prices.
Starting point is 00:39:03 That was going to be my next question. How do you feel about the fact that right now one of the best businesses you can be in is reselling new gym equipment? It's like you're just the second distributor. You're just – it's brutal. People pay like $3 a pound for bumper plates. Yeah, I know. It's ridiculous. I'm a capitalist, so if people want to pay that, why not sell it for that much?
Starting point is 00:39:26 On the other hand, it's annoying when you're purchasing because it's like, man, I just want to work out. Why can't somebody throw me a bone and just sell it for less like what it used to be? Yeah, I was looking up. I have a C2 over there. I was looking up trying to find an erg like a year ago holy crap am i not paying two thousand dollars to sit on a c2 erg when i know exactly how much 998 dollars they cost on that website and i found that one because my or my wife's cousin had two of them and he was like well i don't really use one of them.
Starting point is 00:40:05 And I was like, I'll just pay you full price for it. We drove it from New Hampshire all the way down to North Carolina. Probably is a little aggressive. But it was the only place that I could find one that wasn't trying to just gouge me for used equipment. Well, the other thing this has spawned is all these companies that were never in business. They just realized an opportunity was here. And so they decided to start making gym equipment or not so much making basically white labeling gym equipment. So they're importing equipment that's like the others that are out there and they're just trying to sell it because
Starting point is 00:40:40 they realize there's demand for it. So you're seeing a lot of like off brand copycats of concept to rowers, skiers, bikers, you know, air bikes, all those sorts of things that are from companies that like, the funny thing is a lot of these companies that are coming in, they're offering lifetime warranties, but the reality is like that company is only going to be offering that lifetime warranty for their life, not your life. So, you know, it's like, how, how, how beneficial is that? is only going to be offering that lifetime warranty for their life, not your life.
Starting point is 00:41:08 So, you know, it's like, how beneficial is that? Yeah. I think also when you expand just a little bit outside of the garage, companies like BeaverFit are doing some really cool stuff with like storage boxes or shipping containers, connecting them. Have you seen some of that stuff that's coming through? I know it's a little bit grander than your own garage gym, but still tiny spaces and crazy amounts of equipment and really creative.
Starting point is 00:41:35 Oh, yeah. Yeah, I love BeaverFit. They're doing some really cool stuff. They're attaching rigs to the top of shipping containers. They've got this thing called the Shred Shed, which is kind of like a metal closet of sort where they put like all these bumpers bars adjustable dumbbells you open it up and like a rack folds out and it's like oh my gosh i got a home gym right here yeah really cool stuff uh we actually like we saw that that was a thing so we built a a shed gym i've got a
Starting point is 00:42:02 garden shed in the back of my house. So we did a video on basically turning your shed into a gym. Dude, I was going to totally ask you about that. Go ahead. Finish what you're saying. But I'm so excited you brought that up. So it's just a 10 by 12 shed. You know, we're seeing people turn their sheds into home offices because people are working from home.
Starting point is 00:42:21 Why can't you turn your shed into a gym? Really, all you need if you're doing barbell based training is you need about nine feet wide. So you have a foot on each side of your barbell to put weights on. And then beyond that, maybe like five feet. So a shed makes great sense. Like depending on how tall you are, you can overhead press. If not, you can sit down to press. Squatting is fine as long as your foundation is strong enough which most of these are yeah most people are lifting i wouldn't suggest like you know doing a lot of olympic lifts where you're dropping away from overhead but if you're just dead lifting put some mats in there like yeah go at it i watched that specific video kind of trying to figure out how i was going to
Starting point is 00:42:59 build this thing and and make it exactly what i wanted and some multiple times to the point where I felt like like if you're redoing your house you end up on like Mr. Build It's like YouTube page you're like maybe I could just redo my bathroom in 18 minutes like he just showed me so easily and I was watching your video and I was like maybe I should just get a shed in the back. I don't even need the garage. I could just build my studio back there. That's an awesome gym you built. Like zero space. Thank you.
Starting point is 00:43:33 Do you have a favorite gym that you have built that you end up going to the most? I like my personal training studio. I mean, it's big. It's 3,000 square big. It's 3000 square feet. It's commercial space. Honestly, I built it with the intention of I needed storage for equipment. And also, like, it'd be cool to have another place to film and create content. The issue is that gym has kind of grown to the point where there's always people there, which is a good thing. But I don't get to train there as much as i'd like but there's just so much
Starting point is 00:44:05 cool equipment and like unique stuff there uh that you know our clients get a train on and i don't get to as much but yeah eventually it'll be all be in one space we are recording on february 10th we don't have to time date ourself for when this uh goes goes, um, it's cold in garage gyms right now. And I put a post up in our like diesel dad, uh, training group and I'm in North Carolina and I immediately felt so soft because people from like Canada and Minnesota are chiming in and they're like, dude, it's like 40 in your gym. Are you kidding me? How do you keep a barbell warm? Like what is like the best heating solution?
Starting point is 00:44:50 I'm the person when it's 110 in the south and a billion percent humidity, I turn the sauna on, which is right back there. And I finish the session and I try to go sweat even more and see how long I can make it at 160 degrees or 150 degrees. But I don't do well in the cold. How do we heat these things to get the barbell from freezing my hand? Yeah. So there's a couple of things. Number one is if you're just looking for a barbell warmer, there is one called Thermobel. It's basically a weighted blanket that zips around your barbell. Kind of actually PRX. They're just one of the distributors for them so yeah it's a unique idea the other thing is like what i used to do before my gym was heated is i would just bring the barbell into the into my house at night and if i was planning on training the next morning i
Starting point is 00:45:36 just bring it back out because it's going to be warm and that's generally what you're touching um so if you're touching that it's fine but. But the three heaters or the two heaters I recommend are one, a mini split. That's what I have in mine. It's one that heats and cools. It's a little bit more of a spendy option, but it's very nice, very easy to use. And then the other one, which I think is what I used to use and what most people use is a propane top heater. So you just take a propane tank, you put a top heater, you can get them from Harbor Freight or Amazon really cheaply. The only thing is you want to make sure you have ventilation. Obviously you're training, you don't want to breathe on all these fumes. So make sure you like crack your garage door, but you put that bad boy in front of the squat rack, you're going
Starting point is 00:46:17 to be warm after your first couple sets, you'll be taking your layers off. So yeah. What is like the coolest thing that you've seen that's that's coming out soon um is there any are you allowed to talk about anything like the r&d products that you've you're kind of testing out uh some of them i have ndas on uh let me think some cool stuff that whipper fit that you know you had mentioned that rower skier yeah thing that is that really gonna be able to replace like a concept too i don't think so i mean yeah i saw i'm sure you've seen shane farmer dark horse rowing he he tested it out and said it was really cool but i didn't know like how cool it really was yeah yeah i mean yeah yeah i a lot of those guys rich fronting said it was really cool too. You know, you got to read
Starting point is 00:47:06 between the lines, how much of that is promotion and how much is the, they actually think it's cool. I don't know. I think it could, I think it's a cool idea for home gym owners that don't have a ton of space and don't want to spend a lot of money. However, if you're used to using a concept to product, I highly doubt it's going to have the same feel and mechanics of that i'm loyal but i still think it's a cool idea so yeah that's pretty cool um there's a lot of cable attachments people like you talked about people are working on to add to racks i always like to see more of those um yeah i think have you seen anything in the way of like an airdyne that doesn't take up the size of the Rogue air bike in the garage?
Starting point is 00:47:48 I mean, those things – I almost want to go back and buy like a 1975 Schwinn just so it doesn't take up the whole front half of my garage. Yeah, the Echo bike is big. It's going to fall apart in five minutes. Yeah, exactly. It's going to be so ridiculous. They're all broken. I bought like 12 of them in a day. I took all of them in San Diego once we knew we needed them.
Starting point is 00:48:11 And then I looked over and day one, and the monsters in the gym had just ripped all the handles off. The panels were late. I was like, well, there goes all that money. These do not work. Well, the biggest problem with those old designs is they're chain driven so what happens is that chain has to be tight there's has to be tension on that chain at all time so it ends up falling off and there's two chains actually inside so ends up falling off if you don't loop it ends up like shredding it's just like not ideal so what
Starting point is 00:48:42 rogue did with the echo bike and schwinn's done with their ad pro bike is they add these self-tensioning poly group belts and these belts like they don't require any maintenance they stay within the track so there's actually a video of rob orlando back in the day like just absolutely demolishing this airdyne you know with a sledgehammer um which i always think about when i see like these new bikes because they don't really have many maintenance issues but they do take up a lot of space in terms of like removing that amount of space I don't really I haven't seen anything that replaces those I can't think of a way that they could there's just so much like power that gets put into those handles and the pedals especially
Starting point is 00:49:22 by some of these bigger athletes, like it's just, it's hard to like those sturdy. If they're also small, I feel like when rogue came out with theirs, it was even bigger and bulkier. Always is. That's their moniker. You know, it's like,
Starting point is 00:49:36 how do we make it heavier, bigger, blacker, and more expensive? More American. Based on my last comment, that's like the exact problem they were trying to solve like because those airdynes were like so rickety and they break all the time they're like we have to make this thing like thick and robust or people look at it and they go oh that's definitely
Starting point is 00:49:54 stronger exactly yeah on the flip side of that a company that i know you guys have experience with is a laco can you tell me i know you guys have visited Aleko. What was the, what was visiting? Okay. Sweet. What was visiting their facility? Is that the one you guys made on the video? Yeah. That's got my daughter's name on it. That's cool. Yeah. They let us, they let us etch whatever we wanted to in the barbell. Sucks for my next kid. They're not getting their own barbell. Should have been born first. Yeah. too bad you didn't get to go on an international trip before the pandemic hit and that's never happening again yeah uh they're opening a facility in austin i saw that yeah they just sent me records of the of the like uh the hq they're
Starting point is 00:50:37 calling it like the indoor gym and everything yeah that looks really cool dude a lego was so rad i've never seen the entire i mean how often do you get the opportunity to go see how a barbell is made um but also a lego like yeah they're the best um it was super cool a lot of the stuff that we weren't able to put in the youtube video was like the coolest part yeah um. Like the, how they test the, I don't even know the exact words, but how they test the, the flex in the bar.
Starting point is 00:51:11 Just a lot of the, a lot of the R and D stuff that we were able to kind of go back and check out. They didn't even let us go in some of the rooms, but yeah, their whole business and they're just awesome people. Like it was phenomenal. Yeah.
Starting point is 00:51:24 Yeah. What kind of testing stuff was really interesting like the they had those new dumbbells and they were testing them by they put it on a machine that was just on a big wheel and so it would pick the dumbbell up and then would drop it pick it up and then drop it and they're like we're gonna pick it up and drop it you know 20 000 times and then pick it up and see if it still works correctly all this i think is really interesting oh yeah yeah lego's cool they're you know we're talking about rogue which is like american made and you can compare them to like a ford you know american muscle car or something like that where in a lego i feel like a lot of
Starting point is 00:51:55 their equipment is more like a porsche you know it's like more i don't know there's something about it it's just got some history to it like nice form and function they're not trying to be as big as possible like you look at like say their seal row bench which we've got in it's just a beautifully designed well crafted like the welds are all nice the curvature i don't know yeah it's like it's just a different feeling it's nordic design um but it's still like extremely well built uh i just wish it wasn't so expensive for most home gym owners, but it's just, it's such nice equipment. And it's a real like contrast to like the way that a lot of companies like
Starting point is 00:52:33 Sorenix and Rogue do things here in the States. The other cool part about the barbells that we got to make. So we made our own barbells. That was rad. They take them to ship them and then we went to paris for three days on vacation with our families and completely forgot that we like made barbells and then all of a sudden my neighbor's texting me three days later that there's a barbell sitting outside my house and it's raining and i was like immediate freak out i can't be having my laco barbell that i just made that's supposed to be with me for the rest of my life sitting in the rain on day one
Starting point is 00:53:13 of its existence so i had to have like a neighbor come pick it up but the fact that they got it from sweden to my house in three days after i literally put the finishing touches on it. I thought it would be like at least two weeks. But they get that stuff moving now. It's great. Definitely, yeah. Well, they dominate Europe. I mean, they are like over the top in Europe. But I think with their move from Chicago to Austin,
Starting point is 00:53:38 like they're basically cementing, hey, America is going to be a bigger focus for us. And I've told them that for years. You guys need to focus more of your marketing here in the u.s like the home gym market like they're going to be more buyers for you um because a lot of a lot of the original thought was hey home gym buyers are just looking for budget-friendly equipment but that's not the case and so we're seeing a more in gym so it'll be cool to see what they do um yeah yeah the laco talking to them they were moving more toward outfitting full facilities for professional sports teams and
Starting point is 00:54:11 whatever else and not so much trying to get deeper into the u.s they basically said that like rogue kind of has that handled we're going to stick with europe and we're going to stick with with pro and in the college type sports teams yeah i think think the pandemic will change or has changed their mind on that. You know, I think that's changed everybody's mind on the market. There's a lot of these companies that that has been their focus. Sorenex is a perfect example where Sorenex has dominated universities. Like, if you go to a university and they don't have Sorenex, you're kind of like –
Starting point is 00:54:44 It doesn't even look cool. Yeah, why do you guys cheap out and go with a university and they don't have Soarnex, you're kind of like, it doesn't even look cool. Yeah. Why'd you guys cheap out and go with, you know, a different company? Soarnex definitely has that vibe. Like it, it feels like you have a strong, a really good strength team when you see their stuff. Definitely. And the, these tools, the reason they go all out with the colors and everything for these schools is the recruitment tools. So the kids going there, really the people that they're marketing to with these is, one, the alumni, but two, it's mainly the kids that are coming in that they're trying to get to go to their schools. So they're trying to make them look as cool as possible. So they're doing all these different colors, that sort of thing.
Starting point is 00:55:18 Well, schools aren't spending as much money on universities. What are you going to do? Well, there's this whole different market of individual buyers that like cool stuff too and like gym equipment. So yeah, we're seeing a lot more companies sway that way. Yeah. I'm curious. You mentioned the Kaiser machines, the pneumatic machines earlier today. Like, you know, first time I ever saw those was like 2006, maybe down at Athletes Performance in Arizona at Mark Verstegen's place. And I thought they were so cool. And now I, I kind of only see them like in, you know, mostly like physical therapy, orthopedic type settings, you know, Boyle and those guys have, but they're,
Starting point is 00:55:54 they're friendly to, you know, very conservative training and whatnot, but, but they're expensive. You know, they're, they're many thousands of dollars for essentially a cool cable machine. Now that, now that the that the garage gym scene is expanding and growing, have you seen anybody that's looking to compete in any way with any pneumatic type machines that could be affordable and used in a garage setting? Not pneumatics yet. We see it with flywheels. We've seen it with cables and squat racks. But I think that's still an untapped market. I mean, this industry, like every other industry, there's like the innovator and then there's all these copiers, right, that come in.
Starting point is 00:56:33 And I don't think there's been enough, I guess, perception that you can make a copy of a Kaiser and, you know, make a lot of revenue off of it. I think you could. I think if you could come up with, you know, a small compressor, those functional trainers take up little space and you're able to offer it at a more budget-friendly price, I think they'd be fantastic. And you also see the way that Kaiser adds those machines or adds those cables to their power racks. So they're using accommodating resistance like you would bands, but they're using air instead. I would like to see more companies come up with Kaisers that are smaller units,
Starting point is 00:57:10 use smaller compressors. The problem with their compressors is they can also be loud. So, you know, it's like a home gym setting. They ramp on, you know. So I think those could work. It's just finding a way to do it in a feasible model that's cheap enough. Yeah. One thing, and I'm losing the name of it right now. Oh, I remember just as I'm talking about, God, I feel so smart right now. Versa climbers. Do you have these in your garage?
Starting point is 00:57:39 Yeah, I've got one. Yeah. Oh, I want one so badly, but they have not figured out a way, and they're not popular enough yet for people to get that price point to a manageable. $2,000 is absurd for climbing a fake wall. Yeah, they're expensive. They're priced more like a stair climber. They're just very expensive, less like a concept two-rower. It really shouldn't be. Yeah, you look at the internals on there's a lot
Starting point is 00:58:06 of metal in there so there's like a lot of like mechanics there's got to be a way though i agree there's got to be a way that i mean you're just going up and down on it there's not a ton of resistance there's got to be a way to create some like cheaper version that attaches to the back of a squat rack or something for the upright like something like that i'd love to see that yeah i like i feel like they're nice i love them but they're so hard to find and they're so expensive i've been looking for one on marketplace for so long or someone that's just had one in their garage for sitting there collecting dust because they're so painful i mean i feel like that that piece of equipment has been wildly overlooked in many of the CrossFit spaces. If people are looking for pain, stay away from the airdyne.
Starting point is 00:58:48 Go VersaClimber. Yeah, definitely. You see them in strength and conditioning settings. There's a lot of NBA players. I see a lot of pictures of LeBron with Gunnar Pedestrian training him in LA. They use them a lot. They can be popular in certain settings, but like you said i i hardly see any at all in crossfit gyms yeah um we got to spend at least like 60 seconds talking about these new
Starting point is 00:59:13 tonal like attach it to the wall and you've got a hologram person trying to teach you how to do fitness we're not going that direction are we is that's not that's not the people that are listening to barbell shrugged is listen i'm a barbell guy people gotta know this i've got almost i've probably got about 75 barbells in my possession right now i love barbells it's all i used to train right but here's the thing once you use a tonal you realize like it's a thing it's going to be around a long time and it's really good. Yes. It's very good. This isn't like a, you know, like a Bowflex all in one machine. No, I wasn't expecting you to say that. No, dude, for the person that, yeah, I didn't expect it either. For the person that doesn't like to think about their training, they just want to go in. They want to press a button,
Starting point is 01:00:02 be told what to do and just like focus on the workout and get out. They are incredible. My wife is a perfect example of that. We have just a decked out home gym. She doesn't use any of it. She just uses Tonal, and she loves it. They gamify it in such a way that you just want to use it. I don't know.
Starting point is 01:00:18 Have you guys used a Peloton before? My sister has one, and one of my like neighbors i train yeah i have not personally used one but i see how addictive they are that's why you guys don't understand once you use one of these pieces it feels like you're in the class it feels like you're like you're in your home but it removes that like i'm training by myself type of feeling that we're used to in a garage. It's like, man, you feel like you're in a studio. That's why they're addictive. You're competing against other people across the world. There's all this music, everything going.
Starting point is 01:00:52 It's like, wow, this is like, you know, I got to go. So they're good. They're going to be around. They're going to come. I mean, they will. I hate to say it because I like the rack and barbell. I get it. The more people that are working out, the overall uh i just love yeah i just it's it's hard coming from like a real strength
Starting point is 01:01:12 conditioning background and seeing tonal and like cables coming off of a wall in your and with like a yoga mat and thinking that someone's gonna like really get something out of that but i actually i mean the fact that you think that it's, it's a thing. I mean, I know the Peloton is addicting as hell. I know people that sit, my sister's like a nut on it.
Starting point is 01:01:33 She, one of her like best friends, they had some bet and she got the girl that got in trouble. Cause she didn't need to work out every day and was in the commercial to do one of those cameo things, telling her how great she was doing i was like this peloton world is crazier than crossfit in 2010 yeah dude i what i would say is don't equate the marketing with the effectiveness of the equipment like i always thought you know
Starting point is 01:01:56 it's like this is chintzy like look at the people that like they have on there you know it's just like for stay-at-home moms like that i wouldn't have any interest i'm telling you i i have to have this argument all the time because everybody's like oh it's not real you know it's like you don't really like them do you i'm telling you they're so much better than i thought they would be um which you know kind of i don't know there's good sides and bad sides to it but yeah yeah right on dude where do uh where do people learn everything about garage gym reviews and see your awesome videos and literally learn how to build home gyms yeah uh i would start the website garagegymreviews.com uh you can find us on youtube uh at or garage gym reviews is our channel on instagram at garage gym reviews and the last place uh is our facebook
Starting point is 01:02:44 community we've got about 50,000 home gym owners on there. If you want to like, these are like the diehard. So these are the people that are just like all the random DIYs, their opinions, arguments on equipment, like how this became a thing. I'm still surprised, but it is an amazing place. So do you have people in there that are making like the cement in the $5 Home Depot bucket with three two-by-fours at different lengths and calling it a squat rack in their kitchen? Everything you can think about. Terrifying.
Starting point is 01:03:15 Like leg presses, you know, like log presses, belt squats, you name it. It's like it's – You found them. It's cool's cool love it Doug Larson found me on Instagram Doug C. Larson Cooper I appreciate you dude this is really cool you got a good gig man I'm happy for you glad things
Starting point is 01:03:34 are going so well thank you guys I appreciate you having me on I'm Anders Varner at Anders Varner we are Barbell Shrugged at barbell underscore shrugged get over to barbell shrugged dot com forward slash diesel dad where all the dads are getting strong, lean and athletic without sacrificing family, fatherhood or fitness. Make sure you get over to Walmart for everyone in Palm Springs,
Starting point is 01:03:51 San Diego, LA and Vegas. We are in the pharmacy. Get over right next to the proteins, three programs on the shelves. We'll see you next week, friends. That's a wrap.
Starting point is 01:04:00 Make sure you get over to barbell shrug.com forward slash diesel dad challenge. 21 day commitment to cut the crap. Eat right. Train hard. Barbell shrug.com forward slash diesel dad challenge. 21 days to cut the crap. Eat right.
Starting point is 01:04:15 Train hard. The busy dad's guide to boosting metabolism, burning fat and building muscle. Also want to thank our friends over at Organifi. Organifi.com forward slash shrugged. Save 20% on the green, red, and gold, as well as our friends at Bioptimizers, magbreakthrough.com forward slash shrugged. Use the code shrugged10 at checkout to save 10%. Friends, we'll see you on Wednesday.

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