Massenomics Podcast - Ep. 544: The Voltra Changed How We Think About Home Gyms

Episode Date: September 7, 2026

We made the greasy little move of adding digital resistance into our gyms in the form of Beyond Power Voltras. We share our initial thoughts! EliteFTS Use code MASS10 to save 10% on most orders! BearFoot Shoes Use code MASSENOMICS to save 10% on every order! Juggernaut AI Use code MASSENOMICS to save 10%! The Strength Co Get some Go-To Plates!

You know, thanks for what you do with your podcasts and all the rest. You're doing a great job. I hope everybody keeps tuning in. You get a lot of good info, a lot of insights, understandings of how to get strong, how to stay strong, how to use your strength. You do a great job, dude. You make things better than they are in real life, I think. If you don't follow Massanomics, you all do it.

Social media, website, everything. Massonomics. What's up, everyone? We're back, you're back. We're all back for episode 5444 of the Massonomics podcast. lifting podcast about nothing. My name's Tanner. My name's Tommy.

Tommy, do you think anyone's listening for the first time ever? I often like to think about it. Do you think this is the one, 544? I'm going to go on a limb and say there's at least two people listening for the first time ever. You think our title topic has drawn someone in this week for the first time? They are just swarming in with this title topic. Well, if that's you, if you're here for the title topic, let me spare you in 30 minutes. Just jump to the comment section.

YouTube and complain about how we don't have time stamps and how we rambled about nothing but stupid crap or 40 minutes before we talked about the one thing you wanted to hear us talk about. And I'll save you, I'll save you like the next eight weeks of your life. You're either never going to listen to another one again, in which case, see you. Or you're going to end up loving this and this is going to turn into your favorite part. And when we get to the title topic every time you get back,

Dang it, I wish they would just talk about the stupid crap again. They're on task. I hate this. So, which reminds me, we have a brand new sponsor of the show. I don't know if anyone's seen this and or heard about this. It's elitefts.com. Yeah, our friend Dave Tady said, I want on this massonomics train. I want to be a sponsor.

So he said, you know what, Dave? You're in. Now you all can benefit by going to leadfTS.com. We've got a discount code. It's mass 10. In addition to that, they're actually running a Labor Day sale. It's already in action and it's 20% off. With a $200 order, you use Labor 20 at $200 anymore and you save 20% off.

Not sure if you can stack our code with that or not, but it won't hurt anything to try. Thank you, Elite FTS. This episode is also brought to you by Juggernaut AI. Juggernot AI is the smartest program for you since 2009. and Juggernaut has been your trusted training resource helping tens of thousands of lifters all around the world. Juggernaut AI just released one of their biggest updates to the app ever, and that's coming from someone that's used it for close to five years now, maybe actually five years now.

Big improvements all across the board, some quality of life things, some new features. I highly recommend you check it out. And if you're not familiar with Juggernaut AI, you tell the system, tell the app about your goals. It's going to create an individualized program made just for you. you and it's going to create adjustments every step of the way to make sure you're getting the most out of every training session. I've used Juggernaut AI to help me hit some all-time PRs across my lifts. I highly recommend it. I think it keeps training fun and engaging. If you haven't tried it,

use CodeMassonomics at Juggernaut.aI.com. And you can save 10% on the lifetime of your membership. Juggernaut.A.I. Dot app. CodeMassonomics will save you 10%. Thank you, Juggernaut on AI. Wow, we got a lot of stuff to, wow, wow, we will. We have a lot of stuff to get over. I wonder, do we get to this big Darko winner announcement first or do we just hold that off? I think we should, maybe that went out of the way. Okay, so what was the contest that Darko was running in conjunction with via Jim Radar? So Darko, the marketing mastermind that he is over there, said, hey guys, I have this business. Have you heard about this? It's called Darko lifting. Like, oh, you're the guy behind dark old lifting up.

All right. Okay. Makes a lot of sense now that. Yeah. How did we not put that together sooner? This is crazy. But he wanted to run a little contest and he just said, I'm taking care of it. I just need you guys to be able to provide me with a list of people. And the contest was anyone that owns a piece of darko equipment that adds it to their

gym radar profile gets one entry per piece of equipment. If you leave a review, you get another entry per review left. Is that all of them, Tanner? Claimed pieces. What did you say? For review, for each, each pieces of equipment that you own and each, uh, piece that you claim or each piece that review your review. Those are your two entries.

Yeah, that's right. And so some people, some people got like 10, 15, 20. I don't know. Someone might even have 30 entries on, on theirs. Um, and the price package, it's pretty freaking sweet. What's the price package, Tanner? Oh my gosh. You get, uh, a big darko gift card.

Was it $500? I think so. Darko lifting. You got the Beyond Power cable attachment. You get $100 gift card from Massonomics. And I think you get like a $200 gift card from a different company of your choosing that Darko just has to approve. Yeah. So probably not.

It just can't be from his most hated competitors. Nemesis. Yeah. Yeah. It can't be from his arch nemesi. And so I think the prize package is that over a thousand bucks. Yeah. And there was a lot of entries.

A lot of people claiming stuff on Jim Raider. are leaving Darko reviews. And we provided the full list to Darko. He did the magic of selecting a random winner out of the hat. It was a really big hat. A huge hat to fit all these people. And do we have a winner, Tanner? We have a winner.

This just in. The Grand Prize winner does happen to be a Masonomic supporting member. It was not. Is it me? It is not you. And it is not me. So this contest sucks. I was really hoping we would win this thing.

No. And Darko did the selection on this. We were not involved. We got him the full list exported out of Jim Radar. And he, they used their magic over there to select the winner. The winner is big Mark, big speed bump on Jim Radar. It's a no excuses quarantine gym. He is a Massonomics Discord member. I think his handle in-death Massonomics Discord is Speed Bump.

You can find them on Instagram. at Speedbump Media. And he is the winner, grand prize winner. So do you know what the name is Jim is on Jim Radar? Yep, it is a no excuses quarantine gym. Oh, that is. Okay. Yep.

I know I've looked at Mark's Jim before. I just got to see it again. Ah, yes. Yes. This whole gym. Yeah. So he's the winner. Winner winner.

A chicken dinner. Dang. Congrats. That's. Yeah. Quite the honor. Quite the prize package. Yeah, we need the next company out there to step up and do that same gym radar giveaway contest idea. Because we love it because I got a bunch of people being active on Jim radar claiming Darko equipment and probably some other equipment and leaving reviews. So it's great.

Win, win, win, win. Awesome. Speed bump win, Darko win. Jim Radar win. Great stuff. You want to know my favorite account to follow on Instagram currently. It's a lifting account. Really? And if you're not following this, you need to. Everyone, get out your pen and paper.

Several of you are following this account already. So you won't need to do anything, but this is my favorite lifter on Instagram. Love this guy and his videos. It is Matthew Smith at Matthew underscore Smith underscore 33 is the best. Big Tank himself. Wow. Matthew Smith.

Never seen him before. Yeah, Matthew Smith. I don't know if I've ever sent you any. Yeah. So there we go. Somebody in the chat knows the 225 special. Okay. So I'm reading his bio.

He is a digital creator. Oh yeah. Brandon Doyle knows. Put it up. Can I read his bio for everyone here? Yeah. Grasen knows his page is amazing. Best bench,

415 pounds, best incline bench 370 pounds on the autism spectrum, age 39. Yeah, he's on the autism spectrum. Like he definitely, I mean, it's noticeable in that way. The dude's freaking awesome though. And the comments are great.

Everyone's super positive on his page. And he's freaking strong. Like today he benched, I think, 375. You know, he's, but you got to see. So what I love about it is he trains like, in a living room basically is what it seems like. And he has the most controlled quietest on racks and re-racks on the bench.

And when he deadlifts the bar, he could not possibly set his trap bar down any quieter. And like he's well known for how quietly he rewaxed the bench press. Like he obviously at one point in time was told he needed to do this quietly in the space for it to work. That's my assumption. I'm just assuming a bunch of things. And he,

through that, developed the quietest rewraps. It's like well over 300 pounds. Yeah. Yeah, 325 for a triple and he's setting it in like it's fine, China. He has some of the craziest control on his lifts that you will ever see. And everyone sounding off in the chat, because I can tell all these people have seen it because he says, you know, he talks before he does a lift and he says a lot of stuff like, put it up, put it up, get it up.

And he'd be like, big tank, one in the tank, baby, one in the tank, baby. I hit follow. So I get my updates. I have DMed him and asked him if you would ever consider putting his living room gym on Jim Ray or because a lot of people would love to see it. And did you get a reply? No, I have not got it. Yeah, that's the other thing.

Jake mentioned it to the TVs. Like there's no music and he doesn't put music over the videos so you can hear the sound and there's always like Young and the Restless or some there's like medication commercials going on in the background all the time. Like the least possible

motivating background noises ever. Like if you get lift to these you are extremely exceptional to be able to power through, like to be excited when that's going on behind you. Yeah, he is pretty jacked. Yeah. Yeah, these, this trap bar deadlift, I mean, he's setting it down like it's like he's doing a negative, you know, it's very, very controlled.

Yeah. Put-da-d-do. Okay. And then when he benches 225 for reps, it's the 225 special. Oh, is that what it is? Yeah, I don't know, you know, I don't know why that's the same. Yeah. 225 for 21.

That ain't easy to do. No, I think he did 22 here a little bit ago, actually, too. Yeah, I know he's, I think he's deadlift. I think he's done like well over 500. I don't know if I've seen any 600s, but like, I mean, he's, his deadlift is like 550 plus, I think on that trap bar. And like I said, his bench, I know I've seen 375.

Yeah, I like the comments are good. And the bench is not a nice bench. No, that's what I was going to say. It's nothing, it's nothing fancy. No, but I want it on Jim Radar. Yeah, that would make me happy. Yes. So that's big Matthew Smith.

Great. What did I say the handle is? Matthew Smith underscore 33. Matthew underscore Smith underscore 33. Yeah. Put it up. Awesome. Okay.

I'm excited to dig into this little deeper later. Yes. Did you go to a copy? concert. Oh, man. Standing or sitting? Okay. Well, they get mad at you.

So that's, okay. So that's part of the story here. Chris cross applesauce and they didn't like that. Well, so this place, we heard of this, it's this new venue in the region.

It's called the Mystic Lake Amphitheater. Have you heard of this thing? Basically red rocks of, I mean, I mean red, Red Rocks is Red Rocks and it's nothing's even comparable. But I mean, I guess it's probably as good as you get from being in like Minnesota.

Right. It's a cool venue. It's a cool venue. Definitely. No, nothing compares to Renrocks though. But so my father-in-law, he retired earlier this year. And as a little surprise gift,

his daughters decided we needed to go to a little concert. And so they bought him tickets to the Doobie Brothers and Santana. And they bought these tickets quite a while ago, but the concert wasn't until now. So we had kept it a surprise until just a few days before. And so this is in Minneapolis for people that don't know. And so we get there. And of course, we had to make a little stop at the casino.

Have you ever been to that casino, the Mystic Lake Casasert? No, I don't think so. I can't think of when I would have been. I didn't realize how big of a casino that was. It's a very, very large casino. So we spent some time there. Did you strike it rich? Um, no, I'm not much of a gambler.

I'm pretty terrible, actually, so I don't even really bother much. Father-in-law, he likes some gambling, though. Know that you have to know when to hold them and know when- Well, that's part of the problem. I also don't know what any of this, um, um, what the hell do you call it? Any of the hands are. So that also doesn't really work in my favor for holding and folding when you don't even know what the hands are.

Uh, yeah, I suppose you just don't know when to hold them more. I don't even know when I should be holding or folding. You don't even know when to walk away or when to run. Yeah, it's just the Austin Powers. I too like to live dangerously. I mean, I can play blackjack, but otherwise. Yeah, he's like, it's like 20. Hit me.

Sir, I suggest you hold. I too. Like to live dangerous. Was he at 20 or 21? I think he's at 20. Because number two has the, you know, the x-ray eye patch on. So you can see it's like, I don't even know what the hell.

He was at like 19 and he hits because he knows there's a two there. Yeah. Austin Bowers said a 20. But anyways, so we make it, we go to this concert. And what's immediately obvious is that the average age at this concert is like 60 plus. You know,

like the average age might be 68 at this concert. And the number of people under the age of 60 is just like 0.1% of the people there. It's a very, very, excuse very old, which makes sense. But the concert's going. What was really funny is we're well into the concert. My wife looks at me and she's like, man, not a phone in sight. Everyone just living in the moment.

And it was no phones out. It wasn't because they took everyone's phone at the, it was amazing. I'm actually, you know what, there is no phones out. There is no phones out. Like the lady in front of us occasionally would break out her phone and take a picture. and I mean, I swear to God, she rubbed butter on her lens before she went in there. I was going to say, and she probably had it facething the wrong camera. Like, it was taking a picture of the back, like behind her.

It could not have been dirtier and more smeared of whatever she was taking a picture of. But, okay, I will say, so the Doobie brothers, they go first. And it's one of those things where just with all old bands, you're like, okay, what is this going to be like? Who's even left of the band? Is it any good? Um, Dewey brothers were surprisingly good. Like,

they were just, they're up there just. How old are they? I think they're all in like their 60s. Like late 60s, early 70s. And it's, some of the original members aren't in it anymore either. But, um,

dude, they were, they were good. They were good. And what caught me off guard is, um, like, I don't know,

we're a few songs in. And all of a sudden, this guy with white hair is just, just ripping it on the piano and his voice is crazy. I'm like, who is that up there? And they're like, Michael McDonald, ladies and gentlemen. Oh, nice. So he's up there just doing his Michael McDonald thing.

And that was surprisingly good. And I'm trying to remember, Tanner, tell me if you can remember this. I was going to look this up before. Is it in the 40-year-old version where they work at that electronic? Okay, have you seen that movie? Yeah, in the 40-year-old virgin, he works at the electronic store. Yes. Oh, are they playing Michael McDonald all the time?

Isn't that what it is? Yes. I just looked right now. Yes. He's like, if I hear this Michael McDonald's saw him one more time, I'm going to burn this mother down. Yeah.

Okay. I thought that's what it was from. I didn't look. But, dude, Michael McDonald man, the guy's got a voice on him. He's,

it was great. Anyways, they get done. I don't know who'd go first. It'd be, if it'd be, uh, the Dovie brothers of Santana.

I, I didn't know. So the Dewey brothers go first. Like, it's hard to know who, like the prime actor. Yeah. It's certainly like,

the way his time treats people and all this. Right. And so Santana comes out and it was a straight up jam band, man. He had a lot of songs that went like 10 plus minutes, I feel like. They just went on and on and on. But dude, I had to look. The guy's like 79. At this point, he has to basically sit down for the entire concert.

But he's sitting down and just ripping away on the guitar the whole time. Like it's the most mellow, insane guitar solos. nonstop one after the other over and over again. And, yeah, it was actually really freaking good. It was really good. So who was the best out of the... Well, I mean, the Dewey Brothers, you can sing along to their songs a little better.

Right, right. You know, Santana, they had some greats. Like, they, and I didn't realize this until the end. His wife was the drummer. And they, she had did some crazy, like, drum solos. They let, like, everyone do the thing. We're, all right, the bass player. Now the guy on the trombone, let's let him do the thing.

And, like, it was just really, really good. And you want to know what song they ended it with? Oh, yeah. Can you have any guesses? No. They ended it with the 90s classic, smooth. Oh, of course. That might be the only Santana song I actually really know.

Didn't have Rob Thomas there to sing it. Yeah, yeah. So what do they do then, though? They just had another guy that was the vocalist. Does anybody sing? He doesn't sing. Right. So they had this other guy that was like the vocal.

I mean, he was a good vocalist, though. Yeah. And actually, he'd sing and then he'd play the trombone. When you were saying the Santana thing, I actually forgot that song. So I'm like, I don't really know Santana songs. Like, I don't even know like, but yes, that song, I do know. Yeah. And it's funny because while it's playing, like at one point, I think when it was like starting

the show, they're like showing footage of him at Woodstock in whatever year that is. And it's like, man, this guy has been around. You know, he was at that. I don't know if it was the original Woodstock or whatever, but, dude, this guy's been, you know, Black Magic Woman is one of the more, Maria Maria. Oh, yeah. My wife and her sister are wondering if they're going to play that one. And, yeah, they hit that one.

So it was, it was good. It was really, really good. All right. No one yelled at you for standing. Were people standing or sitting? Almost no one stood at all. People were definitely sitting at this thing. So you would have got yelled at for sure.

Yeah, he would have yelled at. But then I saw, I'm like, damn, they got, like, checking out this venue. Like the lineup, it's like next week is Slayer. The week after that, Lil Wayne, the week after that. Or I think last week it was Dave Matthews band. It's quite an eclectic, eclectic lineup they get there. I guess they let anyone in there. Apparently they actually do.

Okay. What about the toilet tracker? Is that related to that at all? Oh, no, that's not right. We'll talk about that later in the show. Okay. We're not ready for that yet. We're definitely not ready for that one.

The world's not ready for that. We've got to warm people up to that one. Yeah. Okay, that's fair. Well, this week's episode, we're going to talk about our Voltra first impressions, of course. We're going to talk about some other new equipment in the gym. That'll kind of go along with it hand in hand, I suppose. So before we get to that, should we do supporting our supporting members in a certified training facility of the week? Hell yeah.

Okay. Supporting our supporting members. This is a relatively new segment of the podcast. This is just going to be the 44th time that we've done this here in. season two of the show. I mentioned this briefly last week. I want to mention it again. If you want to support Massonomics

and you're not a supporting member yet, I don't think you want to support Massonomics that bad because that's the best way to support Massonomics. It is the way it keeps our George Foreman grills hot. It keeps our sparkling waters also hot. What other temperature do we like specific things? It keeps our hose from the garden, or it keeps our water from the garden holes cold.

Well, but hot right away at first. And then it's cold if the hot runs through. Really hot and rubbery at first. And then cold and it's kind of rubbery still. But any other temperature specific apple pies. If you're an old school podcast listener, it would keep app. I've got a few requests to bring the Massonomics apple pie back.

You know, I saw that apple pie on the Massonomics podcast. So there's something to the temperature of that. Hot pockets or pizza rolls. You know, we like those extremely hot, like scalding hot on those, you know, not just a little warm.

I like to, you still only like my coffee hot, but then Tommy introduced me to ice coffee. And now I also like it cold. Yeah, he's been living the high life over here. On coffee, just as long as it's not in between.

I drink a lot in between coffee, too. Oh, you have room temperature coffee. It starts hot and then I just don't drink it because I get distracted and then it's room temperature and then I just drink that. Is it still a little warm or? Oh, no, God, it's very much room temperature. Yeah. I mean, they're talking like hours old at this point. I actually, I mean, I've talked about it. I don't want my coffee piping hot. Well, I can't be too hot. This is. I know, but it's always is. I get it. When they give it to it's like, here's this like on drinkable beverage. Well, yeah, yeah, for sure. I've been on this like thing where I get all stages of it though where I pour it hot. I get a few sips. I forget about it. then I drink it at room temperature.

I turned the burner off and then about 1 o'clock in the afternoon. I'm like, I need more coffee, so then I put it on ice and finish it up. So I get the full life cycle, you know. You want to know my work trick for the coffee? Yeah. Grab my, actually, depending on what time of day is, I have a certain mug for depending on which time of day it is that I use for coffee. Is that so people know they don't have to look at the clock.

They just look and see what you're carrying out. Yeah, they just know which coffee I'm carrying. my earliest morning coffee, I use my little, it's a little dainty. It's called a milk glass. I think I've showed you these before. It's from 1975. What's on that one again?

It says, mine says, actually mine says South Dakota wheat growers. Oh, 1975. It's actually for circa 1975, milk glass. So it's a 51 year old for the company that I work for.

And I go, so that's my morning one, because I like it. real small. It's like an eight ounce. So I just fill that up a little four-quarters. So I get like five or six ounces out of that. And coffee tastes the best out of a milk glass coffee. All right. I'm sold. They are. The coffee out of that just hits. What do you say? It used to be a proper country and they had a little secret to doing it, right? Yes. And so what I do, here's the process. Take that to the carath. Fill it up with my.

my three quarters, half to three quarters, two thirds of three quarters, go to the shitter. I say shitter. Usually I'm just going pee. Go pee, wash my hand. You know, if someone else is in there, wash my hands. You guys all know the drill. You know, if there's someone else in there, you wash your hands. It's not a psychopath.

If someone's in the shitter, then at least turn the faucet. it on so it at least sounds like you're washing. Just stand in front of it for a really long time. I've got a scenario for you. If you don't work in an office, so it's hard to say, but like, you've been in a bathroom before, a public bathroom. I have been in a public bathroom.

It's different, though. I'm just thinking if this applies to anywhere. I know what you're saying. It's one where you're in a bathroom with people that potentially are acquaintances or might, you might know, yeah. Okay. So here's the thing. you are at the urinal. Someone else has already finished up and is washing their hands.

Would you ever take longer? Like, just be like, be slow to button up your pants for the other person just to be gone before you go to the next station where they're at. Just to have every station be only you. Yeah. Yeah. If you're like, you're listening and you're like, yeah, that guy's wrapping up. Yeah.

Would you wait five extra seconds? Oh, absolutely. I would do everything. always do. And I don't know if that makes me an insane. No, I don't. You know, I probably am socially insane in some ways. No, I would always, yes. All intentionally wait just not to, you know, not to have to talk to the person. Yeah. Well, yeah. And I just, I just want to have all of it be as close to be in my space as possible, you know? Yeah. Yeah. I do actually wash my hands. That part was the joke. But what's not a joke is I will take extra time.

like all like I'm just standing there. I'll just like be pretending to be finishing going to the bathroom just to avoid that person because I'm like, oh, this is just going to be a few seconds different. Yeah. So that, you would do that though. Like that's normal. Oh,

yeah. Yeah. Okay. Because I feel like some people definitely don't do that. And I almost feel like they're not giving me that like if it's the roles are reversed, they're not doing me the courtesy of doing that same thing. Well, yeah.

I'm like the appropriate thing is for you to just wait just a second and I'll be out of here. Right. We don't want to start a, depending on the bathroom situation, we don't want to start a line at the sink here or whatever. You know, a line, let's take turns getting paper towels together now, you know,

that whole thing. Yeah. Then when I come back for the bathroom, I grab my coffee cup that was already full, and it's got that couple minutes of cool off period. Then by the time I walk back to my desk, chugging. It's kind of ready then for a few sips at that point.

Yes. I think those ideas. Dr. Jake and some people that were asking, how many extra shakes do you give in the waiting? Like I actually am just not even doing anything. I'm just kind of like just purely standing there waiting. You know, I'm just just waiting.

Or here's another example. If I was in the toilet area and someone's finishing up washing their hands, I'd just sit there and tell them. I'd be like, no, you'll just have TikTok blasting on your phone. They're like, oh, he's on TikTok again. People do that. I'll go to the bathroom and there'll be people in the urinal full of, on at my work with full on audio going.

Not accidentally. At the urinal? You're saying or in the toilet? Like in the toilet. In the phone. Like in a stall you're saying. In a stall. Yeah.

Okay. But with full audio. That surprised me at work that you would have the audio going to because it's like, oh, you're just really taking it enjoying yourself. And it's weird because obviously everyone's looking at their phone on the toilet. but at least, like, you have to at least pretend you're not. Like obviously you're doing that, but could you at least pretend that you're not doing it? Yeah, it's like we can't all be all at our cubicles with TikTok on full blast here.

It's the illusion that we're busy, you know? Yeah. Also, a lot of times I get a kick out of this. I don't do this, but, you know, most people at my work have a headset because they're on the phone a lot. and they'll come into the bathroom, like walk in in a conversation. No way, really? Go pee, wash their hands out.

Yep. And still on a conversation the entire time on their headset. Like, you can't tell me the person the other line doesn't hear water running at multiple points during that conversation. Yeah. Yes. All right. I'm learning all types of things, I guess.

Yeah. Well, I think it's wild when people have the. audio on their phone because if I'm in the stall and I'm on my phone and my audio on my phone accidentally goes off for a little bit just for a split second. I'm like, oh my God, that was the most embarrassing thing that's ever happened to me. Like I have to kill myself inside this stall now and never come out because someone heard that I had my phone out. People are starting to just not care about audio on their phones in public. Like it's speakerphone all the way, all the tick-tocking, all the games you want to play, just full blast on it. Like I'm starting to see it.

more and more all the time. Dude, when I went to that public gym, kids would, like kids, high school kids and even younger adults, they would just be like, oh, don't have headphones. I'm just playing my music on my phone while I'm working out today. And I'm like, that is insane behavior. No, that's not acceptable. No, it's crazy.

That is not acceptable. Basically, your phone shouldn't have a speaker if you're in public. That should be the rule, yes. Also, don't even have, don't even be, don't even talk. on your phone, not on speaker phone in public. No, that should also be, again, it comes back to the thing. I actually think it's wild, the conversations people have in public. Like, the things I hear people say.

Like, it might not be the most intimate details of their personal life, but it's stuff like, I would not ever say that out loud in front of strangers. Like, I'm just like, and that other people, it's completely not, like, they're the most comfortable. And I guess I suppose that's a good thing. They're very comfortable with their, in their own skin. Is that a good thing, though? I don't know.

Well, to me, it's psychotic. Yeah. I'm like, you're talking about fairly private stuff, just like really loudly in public. Issues with your children and your spouse and all this in public on their phone. Yeah. So then when I come back, the coffee's at the right temperature. Yep.

But I have a different, my coffee that I have before lunch, if I go lift over lunch, I have that of an old minority. coffee cup. Oh, for like the glory days. Yeah, that's like, that's a cup that I left at my work. When I worked there the first time, I left for a few years. I didn't work there anymore. I just left it in a cupboard. And I came back a few years later and that cup was still there. And I'm like, yep, right back at it. Got the old cup. Hello, old friend. I'm like right back in the same office with the same coffee cup that I left here even. Nobody even bothered.

And just so people know what? And like three years, nobody, nobody's, my coffee gum. I was going to say it wasn't like you've got a few months. We're talking several years here. So supporting our supporting members is one of the number one ways that you can support us. And one of the things that we give back to you is you make it on supporting our supporting members. We also have just, I'm just saying just started to begin to talk about the next supporting member gift. I mean, it's going to be a little while as Stained.

once famously said. But we got some ideas. The wheels aren't not, the wheels are not, not in motion on the next supporting member gift, I would say, right? Yep. And it's going to be a good one.

It always is. If you sign up to become a supporting member. But this week, Big Matthew, he's starting his new job for Bungi. Bungi North America. What is that? Bungi, North America is a grain company, actually.

Okay. So I'm not unfamiliar with Bunging North America. They're big, I think. They might, I don't know if they're a big international company. Oh, yeah. You know what? Actually, I think I heard that they won an award for the best grain company ever, I think. Ever made?

I don't even know if they're, maybe they're, I don't really know much about them. They may, maybe they're not even a U.S. headquartered company. I'm not even sure. I can't remember how big they are. I think that they're big, though. Okay. Big Kyle. got third or no wait you didn't get third his third and final child is out of diapers oh so he got

his youngest child out of diapers so no more diaper changing that's a big one having a big day not buying diapers always feels good yeah there's just the next thing though like anytime that you're done buying anything for anyone you know then there's just the next thing there is but I would say when I look back um there was a point where we're buying a lot of diapers and a lot of formula and that adds up to several hundred dollars, many hundreds of dollars per month. And I don't have that expense anymore. And I like that. Yeah, daycare helps take care of some of that.

But I was also paying for daycare at that time, too. So I was doing all of it. Yes. Okay. Well, then you got to eventually buy a Ford freestyle. Well, let's just say, in comparison, a Voltra is pretty cheap compared to those things. We're going to talk about prices that people complain about. But, dude, buy one.

Don't even get me started on college tuition these days. Also kind of cheap compared to daycare, to be honest with you. Everything is almost kind of cheap compared to daycare. Also pretty cheap compared to daycare. We're paid for two college tuitions at the same time, but it's more than that. And there's no education, there's minimal education. Education is at a under five-year-old level. Big Gary and Big Toby.

had a Phoenix meetup. Oh, man, I saw that. I wish I could meet up with people in Phoenix someday. Guy can dream. Big Tyler finished third in his OSG online qualifier. That included, he did a 412 pound axle cleaned and press. Oh, that's it, huh? And a 755 pound three rep max axle deadlift.

I've been doing axle deadlift, 755 on the axle for a triple. It's a lot. If anyone's not. Sure about this. That is a lot. That's, you have to be pretty strong to be able to do that. Big Matt, a big Dutch mat passed his bike mechanic course.

Nice. Big Dan Eager tied for six out of 35 in the 105 kilogram class at SC Strongman Corp Nats. And in the process, he qualified for the Arnold Amateur Strongman competition. Nice. So we'll be seeing you in March in, in the Bull. bus. There was a crew England meetup. It looked like Big Jose, Waffle Iron,

Bam Bam, Derek, and formerly college Matt, all met up at Waffle Iron Gym for a, you know, big session of shenanigans. There was even some pole vault involved, I saw it. It looked like they got the pole vault pits out even. So, you know, I don't know if there's dodgeball involved or not. Big Kurt and Big Gary did the Rocky Mountain Regional Championship, Chip grip contest. Big Curd won his class.

They also went to Chili's. They want their baby back, baby, babe, babe, babe, baby, baby, or was it Applebee's, actually, I forgot. Was it Red Robin? I don't know. Either way, they were dressed up pretty nice for it. Okay. Matt in the hat, Pablo and Matt Sanchez all competed together, Pacific Northwest crew.

Dodzilla competed in a competition. I don't have the specific details of what comp it was, but I know one of his events was a strong man style world strongest man style squat where he did five 50 for 11 yeah dude that was crazy yeah supporting member number one and big scuba steve passed his a and p class in a starting medic school this week's guest on unpaid and underrated the uh special guest host was big lauren the loco and then the guest was big Matt Wallace of Massonomics gym tour fame. I got to ask you something about this, Tanner.

I don't know if you know, but Lauren said he learned about how to unmount the Voltra by watching our video. I have to admit I did already know how to do that. How did you, I just want to know, how did you learn how to unmount the Voltra? I think I just read it in the, because I read the quick instructions sheet when I got the Voltra. It was in the little, there was a little fold out white piece of paper. Okay. And I literally read it in there. Like I read like the, you know, there's maybe like 10 things that you can, you know,

the most basic stuff and that was one of them. So I absolutely did not read that sheet. I did not look at that. Okay. You know how I learned how? I don't know. How did you? There's a giant sticker on the top of the Voltra that tells you how to mount and unmounted.

That is how I learned how. Okay. So is it still like it's a permanent sticker? It's like a permanent sticker on it. Okay. I don't think I've ever. actually no. Maybe I have noticed it. And there's pictures and everything. It's a giant on the top of the Voltra. That's why I didn't know if that was a newer sticker or if Lawrence just never looked at

that before. It was wild to me that he goes into setting blocks. If that was how it was, I would say, man, they have overlooked some major details on this product. So for anyone listening that doesn't know, you can unlock the Voltra by pressing both buttons at the same time and twist it. Yeah, you have to hold both for like three seconds and it comes loose or something. Matt Wallace, though, good guest on our Bridey Little Sister podcast, unpaid and underrated. You could be a guest on there if you become a supporting member and get involved in the community. And then our Drunken Uncle podcast, Half-Baked Thoughts on Training, this week featured a preview of Eddie's Highland Games competition that he's putting on out there.

Big Edward, good luck at the Highland Games comp. That's it for supporting our supporting members. Yeah, you weren't talking about jailbreaking the Voltier. No, I was talking about, I guess I said how to unlock a Voltra. What I meant is how to release it from the mount once it. Yeah, to undock it. Yeah, to undock it. Yeah, you just push it into the mount and it locks itself in.

And then when you want to take it out, you hold both buttons. You do have to, if you just push the two buttons, do you still have to turn it, though, don't you? Or do you not? Or do you not have to turn it says hold both buttons for three seconds and turn is how you unlock it. I'm not sure though if you just pushed it and didn't turn. I don't even think I've never even tried. I just, I do it without you thinking now. I feel like I just push both buttons.

I hear it make a noise and I turn it and it comes out. And then you turn it. But if you just didn't turn it all and just went like this, would it come out? Probably not. I think that a little turning motion is what really releases. Yeah. Yeah.

Okay. All right. This week's episode also brought to you by Barefoot Shoes. Check them out at Barefoot. Store. They've got the All-American Bearfoot. foot boots and man, these things mix and match a rugged, rugged outdoor styling with just like a classic contemporary. Those are opposite words, I guess, but like, just a classic and contemporary.

They just look good. Whether you're, they're timeless, actually. That's what I'm trying to say. You know, they're timeless boots. They look good in the sense of classic or contemporary. You can be wearing these boots. If you walk up in these boots, it's like Jackals, Jim. When you're in Jackals, Jim, you don't know if it's 2002 or 2026. Yep. When you wear these boots, I don't know if it's 1912 or 2026 or somewhere in between. Or 3012, for that matter. Yes.

It could be 1984 from the famous science fiction novel. The Big Brother put everyone in these boots. Yeah. What other years? What's Space Odyssey? what year is the space office? 2001. You could be partying like it's 1999.

It could be whatever year it is in 40K. I think that might be 40,000, I think, is what year. Is that like the year 40,000? That's what I've been told. I don't know, though. Yeah. That seems like a long ways away. It's not close.

Like these other things are like, oh, this is going to be what it's like in in 1984. And they're like, well, this is what it's like in 2001. They're like, well, this is what it's like in the year 40,000. Yeah, we're going to jump ahead a few steps here. You know, moral of the story, they'll still be wearing all American barefoot boots. And you could be too by heading over to barefoot. Store using discount code massonomics and saving yourself 10%.

Now what do we think about a certified training facility of the week? Yeah. God. You know, I say this every week. but it's just so hard to pick one because they're all so good. They're all so certified. Did you know this? That they're all so good.

And some of these, I swear, we've done certified training facility of the week with these things. And I click on them and it's not. And I think what it comes down to is I just look at it every week. And I think, oh, I'm going to pick this one. And then I change my mind in the last minute and I don't pick that one.

Okay. I think we got one here. that's uh hmm oh nope i was going to pick one here but it was on rep rant repeat i feel like that's double dipping now yeah they already got their they got their time in the lime light it's like that's enough we can't give anyone too much shine yeah that's why i'd seen that one before okay okay okay okay okay okay okay okay okay okay okay okay big head okay okay okay okay okay we don't need to be doubling up on these some there's thousands on gym radar yeah okay okay let's go with All right.

I'm going to go with, where the hell did that one go? We're going to go with Clear Coat Club. Ah, Clear Coat Club. That's one are our neighbors to the south. Oh, up in Toronto, you say. Well, if you're playing along at home, you can refresh now and you will notice

that that has the designation of certified training facility of the week. All right. We're ready to hop into this thing. Yep, let's do it. Okay, Clearcoat Club, Toronto, Canada. This gym was started in 2020, 375 square feet. It is a basement gym. They enjoy some powerlifting, bodybuilding, and strength training.

There's a lot of equipment in this thing. They got 73 pieces of equipment. Their top brands, number one being rep, two being rogue, and three is Oak Club. These are all some pretty premium options. there. So I think we're going to see a lot of good stuff here. And when we look at the photos, actually the owner, owner's Clearcoat Club, no bio available.

No gym description either. Okay, all right. I'm just really going off of photos, I guess, then. He said the pictures do the talking. Pictures are worth a thousand words. And Clearcoat Club, it is a very literal name because this gym is full of what appears to be clear coat racks. I guess technically they could be stainless.

They actually span like the entire gym in all directions. So that's what's kind of crazy is that this, these might be the longest, the widest racks I've ever seen in my life because the very first one, it's, so he's got a functional trainer that's probably, I don't know,

is it eight feet across? He's got both the Ares and the Athena. Yeah, so he has, he has this functional trainer. He has the dumbbell storage inside the trainer, because it is like eight feet across or whatever the width is. Right.

And then on each end of the, basically the dumbbellbell racks, he's got the other upright to do a functional trainer in there. So he has this wide one there. That one then connects. Basically, it's an open,

there's another cross member that goes across to make room for a door. And then that connects to another power rack, which then has another cross member that goes, I can't even tell. Does that just go all the way to the wall? It just goes to the,

rack that then goes perpendicular to it. Oh, does it connect to that rack? I couldn't tell from the angle here. Well, all the way to the very back, I think. Yeah. Oh, yeah. Okay. So it does. It just, it connects over to the next one. It has to jog over like three inches to connect to that one. Doesn't it? Isn't there a little kink there where it? I think so. It's a very unusual setup. I mean, and then these all have, are these black, did Black Widow do these? Because they have the little spider web thing in them. I don't know if that's, I don't know, that's hard. That must be, it's some custom piece he's talking about in the corners where the cross members meet the vertical uprights. He kind of like a little gusset in the corners. Yeah, of this spider web. It looks really cool. Yeah, so looking at the first photo, though.

And then he's got the hex lighting above. He's got nice flooring in. The walls are, I can't tell if this is like a dark navy or a dark gray. So everything looks really, really good from an aesthetic standpoint. What else does he have, though? Okay, let's look at the next photo. Now that one's very low-res. Okay.

Is there... Oh, yeah. He's got a leg extension. I'm not sure what one that is. Do you know what machine that is, Tanner? Both of these? Oh, let me take a little look. He has two different machines here,

and I'm not sure what they are from this angle. Yeah, he's got... He's got the signature fitness glute bridge. I don't know if you can see that on there. Is that in that picture? Would that be the one that's like the hip thrust here? Oh yeah, that's what that is. Okay.

Interesting. I haven't really seen one of those before either. He doesn't have his leg extension leg curl listed, so I'm not sure what that is. Okay. And what's this other one? He has like an abductor adductor machine. Yeah, I don't know who whose that is. And then he has the scout rogue over hyper leading against that door.

That is tucked in the corner there. Yep. What looks like a sore next bulldog pad there? What's the dumbbell set? great question let's see he has those are rep pureth here I think

we got a full set of rep purethane dumbbells yeah those are nice those are really good a lot of wall control a lot of attachments I see a mutant metals UDA up there I see some bands I see some type of trap bar I can't tell what one it is

it's some type of open trap bar got the mutant metal snap back just a fully kidded out rack between the two here. He's got it. Is that the Aliko Deadlift platform or is that a different one? No, I think that's a different one. Maybe it's just custom. Yeah, it might be.

A lot of bars. Does he have that Jim Leco, what are the hell they call their like Camber Bar? Yeah, he's got the American Barbell California Bar. He's got the Black Widow 2-inch Axel that I have. He has the Jimway rackable curl bar. Yeah, not that one. He has the American Barbell El Pridino. Oh, or the.

Oh, yeah. That is it down there. Yep, yep. Yep, I do say it. Which one did you ask about? It doesn't have that one listed. It's whatever that one is. It's like the Jim Leco.

Didn't, uh, did, did Kevin have that in the Kev Cave cave? I think so. Yes. Yes. Seems to be like one of the favorite camber bar like benched camber bars that you can get. Yeah, I do think that that's what that is. And, uh, that's, it for photos. Only five photos, but that gym is a looker. Yeah, it is. And that's clear coat.

The clear coat club. I know it's clear coat, but do you think you could get strong inside the clear coat club? Oh, hell yeah. Yeah, we're getting super hell of strong in the clear coat club up in Toronto, Canada. Okay. Could you hear my dog right there or not? No, I didn't hear anything. What was it? You let one rip? No, I don't know if he was, if he was yawning or howling, but I've never heard him make that noise before. Hacking on a ham bone back there? It was very weird. Also, he got shaved today, and my daughter is terrified of him now.

She cries whenever she sees him, so we got that to deal with. Might take a minute to recalibrate. Yeah, things aren't going good at the moment. Well, Bernie never liked me very much, so. No. No, but he also didn't cry for a long time whenever he saw you either. No, that's true. He doesn't really bark at me anymore.

No, now he doesn't even really care at all. Yeah. I think he just didn't like when I was there regularly. He's like, this is a little too frequent. He's like, you've worn out a few times. Yeah. He's like, okay, that's better. All right.

What do you think about a title topic? Yeah, should I kick some people out? Yeah, give all these guys the boot. Did you read the middle ad yet? I did, but you've got one to go yet. Wow. Well, I'll do that, actually. I know which one we got, so.

This is the Strength Company. We've set out to build a better barbell plate on American soil. We ended up here at Wisconsin's legendary Wapaka Foundry. With over 60 years of ironworking experience, the Foundry had the knowledge, technology, and processes to build our weights to our exact specifications. The Strength Company plates are slim but rugged, smooth but easy the grip, and electrocoded for durability and to look great in your gym.

This is the next generation of American Idol, only available from the Strength Company. Head over to the Strength.com. You can get notified when they're America 250 plate drops. They also, I think, depending on when, you hear this, they had a sale on 100s where I think you get $100 off, a pair of 100s. So check it out, the strength.com. All right. We're ready for the title topic.

This is, you know, a lot of people are like, I'm listening for the first time. You made me sit through Tanner's bathroom routine. You made me sit through a Doobie Brothers Santana concert breakdown. you made me sit through God knows what else. And finally, 53 minutes in, I get to hear about these damn vultras that I came for. But then the loyal listeners will say, man, that was great.

We got to talk about the Doobie Brothers concert. We got to talk about Tanner's bathroom routine. Yeah, it's called perspective, people. It's all you frame it. So what is the title topic? Oh, God, I thought you had it this week. Isn't it just, is it just Voltra first impressions? Yeah, something like that.

So this is, we made a YouTube video about this, but this is just talking a little more in depth about. A little more casual conversation around it. Yeah, and the YouTube was more kind of showing some things and all that. But we're going to talk, you know, we've had now the Voltras for a couple weeks at the time of the YouTube video. We really only had them for a few days. so it was very, very fresh. So we may have some additional insights,

some things that we can talk about a little more now that we're not under quite as much of a YouTube presentation crunch as we were before. Right, right. So we can tell you the real dirty truth that we hate them. I can't stand them. Just kidding. E-waste.

That's what we call it around here. Yeah. So what are your Voltra first, what's your biggest first impressions after using the Beyond power of ultra. So do you feel like it's what you need to finally get strong? You know, to a certain extent, I actually, it's, it is the dumb thing where I'm like, you know, it's accessories.

Like, it is accessories at the end of the day. But I'm like, God, I feel like I'm just hitting accessories so much harder than I ever did before. Like, yeah. And that's to me is what the sign of a good, a good machine, a good device, a good strength tool in your gym is, is something that you can like use to lift and work out harder. And I feel like I'm doing that. So that has me very optimistic.

Has me very pumped on it. And not only do I feel like I'm hitting exercises harder, but I also am having a lot of fun doing it too, because I feel like I'm doing it in a different way than what I've been used to for some variation of the last 20 some years, you know? Yeah. Well, if it gets you to do something, isn't there value in that no matter what?

Well, yeah. And I mean, also with me. So, okay. One of the things I've thought a lot about is a lot of the content that I've consumed on Voltras are from people that have very elaborate gym setups where they have a lot of machines, a lot of space, a lot of tools in their toolbox, you could say. Right. They're at no shortage of resources. In fact, I would say actually basically everyone that I've ever seen have a Voltra, it's just one of a thousand things that they have in their gym. Yes.

And I think I have a really nice gym. I love my gym. I think my gym's perfect for me. It's really nice. But in the scheme of things, my gym is pretty small and compact. I mean, I know there's people with smaller gyms than me,

but we've been to a lot of home gyms all over the country. There's not many home gyms we've been to that the gym area is smaller than mine. And what I just keep loving about the Voltra is it has unlocked so many options for me that I didn't have before, because I didn't have a full functional trainer. And it's just, it's just, it's like, I feel like it's bought me so much space.

And I touched on this in the video, but like, I really feel like once you have this, I don't, like, I just don't feel like I need my lap, pull down low roll machine anymore. Because I can do both of those on the Voltra. And it's like, that was, it's a great, it's a great commercial grade unit, but I don't, I don't need that anymore space in my gym.

And so all of a sudden now it's, kind of unlocked like 20% of my gym space could technically be freed up, which when you already have a small gym, 20% being freed up is a really, really big deal. So that's been one of my absolute favorite parts of it. It's just like, I'm like,

oh, I have so many more options now potentially. That's one thing that I underestimated about it before having one. I mean, obviously this is like the enormous part of the pro of it, but actually how versatile it really is. where it's like, oh, no, this really can do all of, you know, this can do these 30 things. And if you have the right mount set up, that basically is what it comes down to.

If you can put it in the right place, you can make it do a lot of stuff. And I would even say, okay, that's a, oh, God, there's so many random places I can run with this. But you also talk about the mount. I think for the most part, depending on what you're trying to do, I mean, mean, for me, I could get by with one mount easily if I wanted to. Two mounts is nice. I have three mounts. I only use two.

Like, I can do all my exercises with two. And really, you also on your rack already had front extensions off of the top of your rack. Yes, I had those two. Yeah. So, because if someone doesn't have those, it makes, you could still do it without because you could like mount things in, you know, in between rack posts.

Yeah. You know, still use one mount. but you have to have to have something to be able to mount it high on your rack. Yeah. Yeah, that is, yep, that is a necessity. But I would say now, you know, that was so many of these videos that I consume, it's like, yep, you need all these mounts, you need all this stuff. And I'm like, now that I've done it, dude, I feel like I'm getting amazing workouts in

and I'm not hardly limited at all. And I basically use their trolley system mount and I use the darko quick mount. and I could get by with just the Darko Quick Mount. Yeah. Do you have a preference between those two? Well, my Darko Quick Mount, I just keep permanently mounted up high. Okay. So then the trolley one, it's not, like that one's not, I could get by with either one.

Just the trolley one's easier to move up and down. Right. Rather than having it mounted up high. So I use the trolley one to go up and down. But if I had to pick one, I would pick the Darko one because one, it's cheaper. it has the mounting point for the pulley on it if you want to do the pulley trick. And it also just, you just pull the pit and move it.

So yeah. So overall, though, I guess you didn't even maybe say it, but you've been a big fan of the, I actually have been a very big fan. And yeah, you can go back on this podcast.

We have the one episode. I don't know if it's talking about like, I think the thumbnail is like you being Morpheus with the red pill and the blue pill and one's the Voltra and one's the weight plate. And I think in that we came to the conclusion like, it's just a mobile weight stack basically. And yeah, actually it's not a bad description of it. It sort of is a mobile weight stack.

I guess I underestimated how nice having a mobile weight stack actually is. And how mobile it is. Yeah, and how mobile it actually is. Yeah. And then the other thing that just downplayed the whole time, I shouldn't say downplayed, but really didn't get until you use it, is having those modes, those eccentric modes,

you know, reverse chains, regular chains. the mountain mode like until you've lifted with those man it's okay so with that actually this is one thing I've been thinking about a lot I am I'm by no means the more stuff I read online I there's some people that are to me like way too deep into the world of cable and cable feel and all that shit you know yeah um like that's all they want to talk about is how the cable feels and I'm like well I've heard some people like I never even considered this a criticism of the vulture I I saying I never it would have never been a thought in my head where it's like, oh, yeah, this, like, I like a steel cable on a pulley has one feel attached to a weight stack.

And this has a different, I'm not saying like the weight and the resistance and the strength curve. It's not that. It's like the actual feel of the. Yeah, the friction of the thing. And it is, like, it is slightly different. Like, to me, it's slightly different. Like in practical case of lifting, does it make any difference? No, absolutely not at all.

You know, like, it just doesn't feel like a small. smooth cable with whatever that rubber coating they have on it. It doesn't have, I shouldn't say it doesn't feel like that. It feels damn near the same as that. But once you really, really think about it, you're like, yeah, maybe this does feel a little different. But what actually to me is the bigger difference is that in any cable, like I think everyone can relate to this example.

You're on a lap pull down, no matter what. If you try and just really rip it at the beginning of the movement, you get, you get momentum. Like you do get like a dead zone in that, you know. Like, especially like take it, take something like easy for you. I don't know. Like put 80 pounds on it and pull as hard as you can. Right.

Like once you get that going, there is momentum into that you've introduced into the system. And like if you pull it hard enough, that initial pull just might pop it all the way down to your chest and you don't need to do anything. You know, and then you catch it on the way back up before it slams in or you just let it slam in because you're at a commercial gym

and you don't care. Like, that's not. Fuck them. I don't buy the shit. Not my machine. Yeah. That's right. I came here to break machines and chew bubble gum.

A lot of bubble gum, and you're almost out of machines. But the biggest difference with the Voltra is, from what I can tell, you can't, you can't introduce momentum into it. Because there are electric motors, it always keeps some level of resistance on the cable. And I guess I haven't done an extreme, because, you know, I'm lifting loads there. So I haven't done the extreme example of, like, you know, putting 50 pounds and ripping it as hard as I can. But even just that little thing of, like out pull the resistance. Yeah, just that little thing of how you can like lean back a little and pop it and get it going.

You don't ever really get that on the Voltra. So you're getting this way more even like resistance profile the whole way through. And then you add on eccentric at the end where, okay, you got the rep done. And normally you can just, all right, bring it on home. And it's like, no, no, the eccentric, depending on where you said it can get very challenging. So you got to actually fight it on the way back in. Yeah. And, dude, it's good.

just it's really, really good at that. And I think that's one that no matter what your thought is on the Voltra or not, I will say that until you've just actually used it. That's just one that it's like you kind of just have to take someone's word for it, which is hard to do. But that is probably the biggest game changer with that is hitting both sides of it. Yeah. You know one thing, this is very in the weeds on the whole thing because I really like the

eccentric mode on the Voltra. And I think like ever that one's the easiest like additional mode to just, mess around with and understand and to be like, yes, this is adding, I can add weight. So when I'm doing the eccentric portion of the lift, it adds to that. And then you have to focus on that portion of the lift way more than you would otherwise. But, you know, when I do normal lifts, say I'm doing a dumbbell curl or a cape, just a regular cable curl on my, you know, a lot of times I'll cue myself, like I want to do the eccentric slow and kind of get some of that anyways. what I've found is a nice cue this shouldn't ultimately be any different

but when I'm now after using the Voltra I feel like it's helping me it gives me this additional cue on my other exercises now when I'm like my cue in my head isn't go slow on the eccentric it's like oh I'm using the Voltra and it's going to do that thing where it kicks in

and I actually have to fight the eccentric like I have to be prepared before because like on the Voltra when the eccentric kicks in you have to like be prepared for the eccentric every time. Yeah. Especially if it's like an aggressive one. If it's minor, it's like,

you might not notice it much. But yeah, if, if you're adding any amount of weight, like you will have to fight that back and be, yeah, it's like you're finishing the concentric and you're like already like, you're like, oh, no, I know it's coming. So I'm going to like beat it off of the start. So I feel like I do that with traditional weights

that I've used that same cue. And it actually works better in my mind. It's just a, this is a totally minute in the weeds thing. but I just like that cue. I'm like, oh, no, it's like I'm fighting the eccentric overload. Even when it's not there, it's still a valuable cue for, you know, the supplemental lifts. And that kind of turns into the thing of what I thought a little bit. It's sort of the, it's the mind muscle connection, you know, that people talk about.

And, dude, I feel like I'm getting it more than I ever have. Like getting the pump and all this in ways that I never have before. Even like tricep extensions. I just took, I just used the other day. I don't normally use this. but I have that rogue, or sorry, the rep, like cable curl bar, you know, one of the top attachments on Jim Radar. And I just use that for tricep pushdowns.

And like it's easy. Triset push downs are one that's really easy to like get momentum, like to get that thing going and get momentum and then you, you know, you let it come back up and it's good. But with this, it keeps the constant tension. So you're pushing it down. And then on the way back up, the eccentrics, the way it fights back in. And I'm like, dude, this is probably the best tricep pump I've ever had from tricep pushdowns ever.

in my life. And, because I had, I had been just doing way more dips and some other things because I just felt like I couldn't, either I wasn't getting the right attachment or I just wasn't, I couldn't get the weight to a spot where it just felt like I was really getting a good triceps bump. And I had that the other day. I'm like, dude, this is good. Like, I'm feeling it right now.

And that's, I could say that same thing about multiple exercises, but that's just one example of one that I've done a lot over the years. And that was probably like one of the best feeling sets I've ever had. What else about the Voltra then? Okay. So there is absolutely this level of experimentation with it because you now, at least someone like me who didn't have a functional trainer before, you now kind of have every option available. So that is a part of it too of like, okay, how do I even? I didn't have all these movements.

Like, what do I want to do? And for the most part, they've all been pretty good. Like I've liked that a lot. it's been interesting for programming because I am on a bridge block on Juggernaut, which tends to be a little more hypertrophy focused, a little higher reps. And, you know, Juggernaut doesn't have a Voltra mode in it. So what I've been doing is Juggernaut does have bands, though. So I've been basically putting in my eccentric weight as a band weight.

And that's been one way of me to help me keep track of it because it does get kind of tricky. You look at it. You're like, oh, I did 25 pounds on this one single arm accessory last week. but then what did I do on the eccentric? And it's like, oh, well, we did a 15 on the, you know, we'll put a mini band in there. And so that's been one way I've been trying to keep track of that. And it has helped from that perspective. I do like that the Voltra at the end doesn't really change my lifting at all, but it's cool to see.

It does give you like your total load lifted through the week or through that workout. And I've found for the most part for me, you know, just with this phase of training that I'm at, the total amount lifted is usually between like 14 and 16,000 pounds in a session. And, you know, it just depends on how many accessories you have and how many reps you're doing. But, you know, it is a little higher rep for me right now. So that number's been interesting to see. The battery life has been an interesting one too. I've, I got the first time I used it.

I got three training sessions out of it. Now, I shouldn't even say three because I have. had a few messing around sessions where I was just playing with the thing and seeing. But I'm getting about three sessions out of it before the battery burns out, or I shouldn't say burns out, before this the battery gets to a point where you got to recharge it. It's almost a week's worth of lifting. Yeah, for me that is. I do three training sessions in a week.

And so for me, that is a week's worth of lifting. I can definitely see on the days like where you're doing heavier exercises like a lap pull down. And then you're adding some heavier eccentrics where you're getting closer to that 200 pound mark. Those days are definitely burning it up fast. I don't know if the garage has been pretty hot lately too, so I don't know if that plays a factor in it. So that's been interesting just to see how the battery goes.

But yeah, I mean, one workout, super. I mean, getting through three workouts easy with it. Like the time the battery ran out with me was on workout number four. Don't, I did learn that basically at 5% the battery's basically done. Once you get down to 5%, it's like, it's pretty much, it pretty much like stops you from doing anything. So that one was a little bit of a learning lesson there. because it did happen right towards the end of a workout.

And I'm like, I guess this is just done now. Yeah. Which was fine. I got other stuff in my gym. But that was one. And then the thing, it does get hot. Like what, you know, it probably doesn't help when it's 90 degrees and also high humidity.

So, you know, the ambient temperature is already up there. But you start doing some heavier lifts with it. And there's a fan in there that kicks on and starts running. And it gets warm to the touch for sure. I was surprised by that. I didn't know how that would go. But, yeah, there's some heat in there. there. I've, you know, I've had, it's, I've changed my opinion on a lot of different things about it from, not surprisingly, when I don't have it and don't actually use it. I've got opinions. And then after having it, some of those has changed. And one of the, because we talked about the big, big strength of it, of its versatility, being able to do all the things in a, like, I just feel like in a small, like relatively small or relatively, you know, not a home gym with a ton of machines and stuff like that.

the value of it is really high. Like where I'm just like, I'm starting to reframe the cost. Because I'm a relatively cheap person, generally speaking. So I, depending on the situation, I mean,

it's all relative to everyone and everyone's different personal situation. Like $2,200 is a lot of money for a piece of gym equipment. But there's also tons of people that spend that much on various machines for the home gym. So relative to that, is it expensive?

I'm like, well, know because you can do a lot of different stuff with this. Like just to compare you, like, it's hard to say what you even compare it to. It's sort of in a league of its own. And I mean, there's more competitors coming out. But if we're just going to say this box being, you know, its own thing, you know, if you look at Jim Radar, how it stacks up to its category, you know, the category we've

decided that it belongs to is a machine category. And it's the number one machine on Jim Radar, 184 gyms have it right now. The number two, I'm just going to read the top 10. number two is the West Side Scout reverse hyper. Number three is the freak athlete hyperpro. Four, Bell's a Steel Cable Tower. Five, the Rhino. Six, Titan leg extension, leg curl.

Seven, Temple of Gaines, multi-flight. Eight, compact, or force USA, leg press, hack squat. Nine and nine is a Macaolo, towerette leg extension. And 10 is the GHD, the Rogue Abrams. And when I look at that list, Um, now after I've used it, the Vultra, I would pick the Vultra over a cable tower over the Bells is Still Cable Tower like every time. Every time. And, you know, that's, I think the Bells is still cable tower is about a thousand, depending on the setup you get. It's the Voltra's twice as much, more than twice as much. But I would pick that over that over, I would pick that over, I would pick the Voltra over the Rhinelstil over the Rino and the Bells of Steel Cable Tower together. I would pick the Voltra over the Bells of Steele Tower together. I would pick the Voltra over the Bells of steel cable tower, the rogue fitness rhino, and the temple of gains multi-flight. I would pick it if you said, hey, you can have these three of the Voltra. I would still pick the Voltra because

in my home gym, I don't have room for all three of those machines. At which point, it's $4,000, $5,000 cheaper than those. Well, yeah, because those, you mean, and yeah, you're talking about like, yeah, like you said, five or $6,000 for the machines right there. And I think the Voltra can basically do everything those can and probably even a little better. depending on how much you want to tinker with stuff and set it up. And it takes up actually zero space. Like it doesn't add any space to your gym where the rhino's enormous. The multi-flight for what it is is a small space,

but it still takes up probably like two by four. You know, it probably takes up eight square feet. The bell is still cable tower probably takes up another four square feet. This does all those things. And then when you don't use it, you can just leave it on your upright and you're still zero space in. And now granted, if my home gym was, two or three, you know, if I had three stall garage, that was nothing but gym, I would probably

pick those things. But when you're like me and you actually are incredibly limited on space, it gives me so many options that I didn't have before. That's right. That's why I think the more limited you are on space, the better it is. The value of it is. And the better and better the value proposition becomes where I'm like, no, this isn't expensive. This. I mean, yes, it is. But like, it starts the value that you get out of it becomes the smaller space you're dealing with, the more value you get out of this. And that is why at Massonomics Gym, this is not all that useful. No, not really. Like in Massonomics Gym, it's you have force curves available. To me, is kind of what it is. That's basically it. Otherwise, you have the tried and true commercial

version of all the stuff and unlimited space. Right. Right. So the only, real addition is A, the novelty, which I guess is a real thing for some people. You know, like sometimes novelty will get people to do stuff, at least for a while, and then be the you know, the different, playing with the different modes of the force

curves. But outside of that, I mean, a mass, mass, dynamics gym is a way extreme example. It is. It is. You know, the biggest home gym times two or three and, you know, the variety of equipment. But that, like, highlights the, highlights that to me. Where I'm like, oh, no. And then when I

about this in a really small, like I've considered other options for me to use it for. And I'm like, oh, no, like if you have a very constrained home gym, this can open the door to a lot of different stuff that you couldn't do otherwise. I said those three machines. I said, Bell's a steel cable tower, a rhino, a multi-flight. I mean, the other one that basically everyone has in their home gym of some variety is a lap, pull-down low-row machine. And I mean, this is better than like all four of those. And that, those four machines in your gym along with a rack, it's like you need a full garage stall to do all of those.

Or you can just get a rack in this thing and you can also do all of it. And you're in like, you know, a quarter of the space is what that was before. And the other thing is, you know, I'm saying, okay, $2,200 for the unit. Depending on your rack setup, you might need an upper arm or something for it to mount to. Otherwise, you can get by with a single mount. And like, like, if that's all you gave me, I mean, that's for the most part what I'm using. The Voltra in a single mount. I get by on that just fine.

I have no desire at this time at all for another mount at all. You know, maybe something pops up in the future. But right now, I'm like, nope, I can do the training I want to do with this. And so for that, let's just, I don't know, you're in for $2,500 or whatever. I look at something like just leg machines, you know, like this GMWD leg machine, leg extension, leg curl. I like it a lot. It's a great machine.

It's $1,000. I personally have sworn off leg extensions. Don't like the exercise. I don't care for sitting on my ass and doing that thing. So I have this thing that's taking up like eight square feet and it's to do just leg curls. And I'm like, dude, that is such a waste of my valuable, valuable space. Yep.

That, I kind of lost my part. We're even going with this. But just from a space to value to price ratio here. Yeah. Yeah, that's the, that's the comparison. Space price, you know, like, that's where... And some people have unlimited space. Right.

And so it's like, yeah, like, I totally understand the argument that the Voltra's not as valuable to them. Yes. And also people's training styles. If you like doing a lot of machines, I get it. You can hook the Voltra up to machines. And some people probably, that's great. But I, I'm just, I'm starting to realize more and more as time goes on, I'm actually not a machine guy at all. I never used machines at the commercial gym.

I basically never used machines at Massonomics gym. gym. When I went back to a commercial gym, I basically didn't use machines. I got a machine in my home gym and I like use it like once, maybe twice a week. And I'm like, why am I even wasting space with this? Yeah. You know, I want to sit on my ass all day at this computer. I don't need to go my gym and sit on my ass some more. A little more. A little more ass. Is there a way that people use your GMW leg extension leg curl and they hook the bolter up to it? Well, I was, someone made that comment. and I'm not sure how you could do it with that one because you would need to hook it to the weight horn,

but then it does, it kind of has like one inch holes on it. I think you could put like a band peg in it and like mount it to like a band peg or a weight horn that goes like through. But I don't care, I just don't care enough about that movement to even mess with that. To go through all of that. Yeah, that sounds like what I'm. To get like a different strength curve, I guess is what you're trying to get out of it.

I don't, yeah, I just don't care enough. Like, if I'm actually concerned about getting stronger, I'm just going to do a lift that's actually going to make me stronger, you know? You know what I'm saying? Yes. Trust me, the reason my hamstrings aren't strong enough is not because I haven't been doing enough seated or lying leg curls. Like, that's not the reason I'm at a plateau is because of that.

That's not like holding your deadlift back or something. And also, my goal here is in hypertrophy. Like, maybe if your ultimate goal really truly is hypertrophy, not like having an easy workout, but like if your goal really is hypertrophy, then maybe some... Important distinction there because some people's goal is just having a easy workout. There's a very important distinction between like kind of having a chill workout.

Some people might hide behind the word hypertrophy. And to them that means just doing easier shit. Here's a good example. Some people, a lot of people. Here's a good example. You know, I'm scrolling through YouTube the other day and I see this video of Will Tennyson and what's the guy's name?

That was at the Temple of Gaines booth that had the world's largest legs we've ever seen? Yeah, I don't know. Yeah, what the hell? He makes the torque wedge. Is it Nick? That might be right. God, I cannot remember his name. At home gym con and I just, I don't even know.

Seems like a great guy. Yeah, he was really nice, actually. Pretty knowledgeable on equipment. And he had, I just scrubbed through the video quick. They had like his top exercises or his top whatever for hamstrings. And he's like, or for legs. And he's like, oh, I got to have my leg extension. I got to have my hack squat.

And I got to have this. And I'm like, you know what? that guy can have all three of those machines because his legs are bigger around than my waist. And he's not doing it to take it easy. He's doing it to murder his legs. Yes. I can guarantee you one leg day

that he puts in more effort than most people, me included have probably ever put it in a leg workout, you know, in our entire lives. Yes. But he's at a different level than your average person here. Yeah. I don't know. All that's a really long way to say,

that I just, for me, the Voltra bang for your buck just seems insane. Like the more I've used it, the more I'm like, yeah, this is just really, really good at all the things. Yeah. Oh, so what else? What are the criticism? I'm just thinking what if people criticize the price. Like, I mean, it's valid.

And it just all comes down to value for you based on your space and stuff like that. It's the same thing. It is expensive. It's a lot of money. A lot of the gym equipment is, though, too. So like, yeah, that just depends on your situation. That's, yeah. Some people think you're insane for buying a new rogue barbell because we're like,

$300. You can find her used barbell for $75. $75. And it's like, you can't even hardly talk about budget because everyone's budget is just so insanely different. Like it's, right. I agree. One person is doing everything they can discreet by. And one guy has like a mansion with five cars. And it's like, yeah, this means nothing in the scheme of things to this person. What are the major criticisms? The biggest one would be, here's the two biggest ones.

Longevity. How long is this going to last? And we can't say it on that because we don't know. That one's very interesting. It works really well. I know. I know that when it's new. It works really, really well. This one's interesting to me now because there's a couple things that I've been thinking about here on this as well.

I'm a Peloton guy. I don't even care that much about cardio. I think the Peloton's good at what it does. I enjoy using it. I pay like 50 bucks a month for the damn thing. So last year I spent $600 to have this thing. I wouldn't say I got $600 with a value out of it. I probably got a few hundred dollars with the value.

I would prefer to not be paying $600 a year to use a Peloton. Volta doesn't have a subscription. So that's cool. But it does have a lifespan. And I don't know how long that lifespan will be. You know, there are replacement parts. You know, with a lot of electronics, it comes down to software updates come out

and it becomes obsolete because it's slow. It's behind, you know, it's not up on standards. It's a security issue. Time marches forward. I don't, I don't picture the Voltra having some of those, like I don't picture Voltra being like, yeah, you can't use your Voltra anymore because it's a security. flaw in it and uh right you know we can't let you have the weight stack like that seems like that

won't be an issue so it really feels like it comes down to will the battery and cable still work and does like the motherboard and the thing not fry um so the battery and cable can both be replaced cables like 50 bucks whatever that's fine with me battery i think is like 300 which is more annoying but i also have a lot of lawn tools that require expensive batteries too so i guess That's not unique to the Voltra. That's just part of life there. The more interesting one is, you know, five years from now, this thing burns out at Fry's, something happens.

I don't know. Someone spills water on it. You know, my kids are out there. They knock over a five-gallon jug of water that I keep next to the Voltra at all times. Spills all over. A gate-rade. Smoke shoots up, yes. The kids give me a Gatorade bath because I just,

just squatted 500 pounds with the Voltra. You know, they're just so, everyone's so hyped for me and my family. Yes. And, and we try it with Gatorade. And so then I look at it and be like, okay, well, I guess we're starting over.

Do I buy that again? And right now I feel like the answer would be like, well, yeah. Yeah, I'll buy that again. Because, I don't know. People buy a thousand dollar phone like every two to three years and no one thinks twice about that. A lot of people also spend a lot of money on laptops every couple years.

And no one thinks twice about that two, So I'm like, is this just part of the electronic cycle of what it takes to to be a person this day and age? Right. And if it lasts for six years or five years, do you say, well, this costs me 300 bucks a year? Right. 400 bucks a year, depending on how long it goes. Right. And at that, I'm like, if it goes for 10 years, are you like, well, this costs me 200 bucks a year.

Now I need, now I start my next 200 bucks a year journey. That's, yeah. And like, even even if you got to like, say how people spend them. Okay, we go to a lot of gyms where people have five, six, seven, ten, twenty barbells in it. I mean, I would pick this over 20 barbells any day.

You know what I'm saying there? Yeah. Like in a home gym, because in your home gym what is 20 barbells? I have three barbells and I'm like, I only use mostly one of them. Sometimes I use a second one just to say I use something different. But, yeah, I mean, I have no, like my gym wish list.

I had barbells on it on gym radar. I deleted some off. I left two on them. I don't even know. I like, I've no desire to even own these at this point. Yeah. Like it doesn't unlock anything new for me.

It doesn't give me any new capabilities. It's just like a collecting thing at this point. Right. So I've like lost any desire to even have any more barbells now. Yeah, I just, it just really, really,

when you have a small gym, unlocks a ton of capabilities. And that I think gets lost on maybe some of the people telling you about it because a lot of people talking about it online have everything. And so it's just another drop in the bucket. Where for me, actually being in that scenario, it's really made me realize that is it's greatest strength. Do you have any desire to have two Vultras?

I've been thinking about this, actually. And so far, no, not at all. Like, not one bit. And I have to think about like, what would I do with two? And there's the generic, what everyone does with a functional trainer peck fly.

And I'm like, I don't care about peck flies. I don't know anyone that does peck flies that's strong. That's what I'm not saying you can't be strong and do peck fly. They're probably out there, but I'm just saying, I've met some really strong guys that you've been massonomics gym, for example. I don't know. I've never seen them do peck flies. Like, I don't, like, good.

Correct. I'm going to do like 50 other chest exercises for him to be peck flies. So that's my first thought on that. And then it's like, well, I guess the way most people use it is once you get two, you can start using it for like barbell, movements, you know, because you can actually hook it up to your barbell. Right. But to me, I guess I don't even really have much of an interest in that.

As someone that now has. Either from what I've. Yeah, that has now used the Voltra, knows how my training goes. Like, no, the barbell, my version of the barbell movements is doing the barbell movements. I don't like to use bands. I don't like to use chains. I just like to do the freaking barbell movement. That's, maybe I'm old school.

Maybe I'm just a purist in that way. But I like the barbell movements being. the barbell movements. So I have no desire to even hook up my Voltra for that. I'm sure it's probably good. It's probably good if you have the money to do it and you set it up. But it's just, and like I see people do it with like a Smith machine too where they'll rig it up.

I'm not a Smith machine guy. I have no desire for a Smith machine at this point either. So, yeah, I guess maybe if somebody had a Smith machine, it would be cool, maybe. But by the time you had a Smith machine and another Voltra, you've made a pretty big investment at that point.

Well, my Smith machine. machine wasn't very expensive. Yours, yeah, free motion Smith machines. They're like giving those things away. So just be on the lookout for those. Find the right deal. Mostly is the labor of getting it into your basement. Yeah, you'll never want to move it again.

But, yeah. Okay, one other thing, I want to make sure. We've got to make sure we're talking all the negatives with Voltros because there's a lot of people that really like to drive the point home. So there is the price. That's highly subjective to the person.

Yeah, but there is the long. which is unknown for the valid concern but it's going to be an issue with anything in the market. A lot of people like to complain about the warranty. I had a comment on YouTube on that and I'm because I even did some research. I'm like, seems actually fairly standard for, I mean, it's tricky if you're comparing against gym equipment. If you're comparing it against electronics like a built like,

I'm like it seems to be the industry standard actually. Yeah, I mean, I got, I don't know. I just bought this. camera from Canon for two grand. I don't know what the fuck the warranty was on that. I still don't to this day. I bought five Canon cameras in the last 12 years. I don't know what a single warranty is on any of them. I bought

someone, I don't know how many thousand dollars worth lenses. I don't know what the warranty on any of those are. They said like, oh, if Beyond Power really believed in this, they do more than the one year warranty. And I'm like, that doesn't seem to be true for Sony, Apple, like go down the list.

I looked at basically every major electronics brand and I'm like well apparently none of them believe in any of their products what I mean what are they supposed to do guarantee all of these things for 10 years like that's not the way electronics work I don't know and to that point you know we talked to the the beyond power team about like lifespan and some things and what they put because they're they just said it's really hard to put estimates on things because they go some people their Voltra uses they use it one day a week for a few accessories and yeah I mean they could be doing single arm tricep push and they could be doing single arm curls.

And they're like, and that battery might last them over a month, you know, and that's their usage. And they're like, and there's other people that they use it for every single lift they do in every single workout and they work out five days a week. And they're like, those two are just so opposite extremes that they're like, it's, and they're like, and we actually see people do both of those. And like, so that's why it's really, really hard for us to say what your life cycle can be on any of this stuff.

And I understand that point. Yeah. So the same thing with that. Like, like, you know, one year of the person that's just doing some really light accessory stuff versus one year of the guy that uses it for five movements or for five sessions every single week. I mean, you're talking about like years difference in use right there. So I can understand that. It's, that is a hard thing to explain there.

But I think what's really interesting with the Voltra more than any other piece of fitness equipment I've ever seen is there are people out there that freaking hate the Voltra, hate it and want to see it fail so badly. And it's one thing if you're like, nah, no, man, digital resistance is not for me. I get that. I get that if that's your approach. I actually think there's nothing wrong with that approach. Like, if that's your thought, that's fine.

It's totally unnecessary for a whole bunch of people. Oh, yeah, it is. Like if I'm using the word necessary, it's basically not necessary for anyone to get stronger, to get better. No, it's not at all. I mean, you can say that about necessary. If you're going to have that debate, you can say that about almost everything,

Yeah, I've been lifting for a really, really long time. It was getting by just fine without the Voltra. And if I didn't have it right now, it'd still be getting along just fine. It's fun. And I think it's unlocking some options I didn't have before, but it's not necessarily by any means. But I'm just shocked at the number of people that are like,

I can't wait for these competitors to come out and for Voltra to fail. Like, dude, that's such a weird take that, like, I don't like this. And I don't think Voltra's done anything to make themselves be a bad. Like, they haven't taken any crazy political stances. on anything. They don't have like some record of like abuses of human rights or anything. Like they haven't done anything that you would like define as objectively evil. But there's people that freaking hate this company and want it to fail so bad to the point where they're like, they've already decided that speedience is going to just speediness is like the savior.

And like I hope the gym nano is a good product because I think the gym nano being a good product makes Voltra have to try harder with whether it's their software. stuff better. Yeah, they're going to have to try harder with other things, like making their software better or having new firmware updates that unlock new things or lower their price or like do new things. Like, I hope there's 20 new competitors that come out that are all awesome because it's just going to make it better for us, the consumer. But these people that are like, nope, they're the top dog. They suck. I hope the company fails. And I hope this other one replaces them. I'm like, dude, maybe my brain's too simple, but I don't understand that positioning at all.

or that desire. It makes no sense to me. Here's one comment on our YouTube video. Can't wait for competition to take them out. This is the fuggliest gym product in any gym currently. And like that's their only comment, just like I can't wait for someone else to take them out, which is interesting.

And actually that is a common one. People hate how it looks. I don't even care how it looks because you know what I'm mostly concerned about is this a tool that helps me get strong. And that's my number one concern. And like somewhere like number like, I don't know, between number five and ten on the list is, what are the aesthetics of it?

And to me, the aesthetics are not offensive. Like it. I let further comment here. If you have three other devices similar enough, all $500 cheaper, beyond power will feel it. And they already are.

That's why they just launched the recent software update and their BS care plus warranty crap. Before they are forced to drop price, they try to offer more value, and that value is highly subjective. And I'm like, maybe I've drank the, I actually don't think I've drank the Kool-Aid on this because I could see where this thing makes good sense and where it makes absolutely no sense and everywhere in between. And I'm like, A, I've talked to these people and they didn't do a software update and change their warranty options because they're worried about a competitor coming in at $500 cheaper. Like I can honestly say I'm 100% confident.

That's not why they did that. They are genuinely trying to put out a good product. For a product that one is even out yet and people don't even know how it performs. Yes. And also as someone that's kind of played with some of these other ones, AI, first of all, I want to say, I think it's great. I want 100 competitors to come out and I have no allegiance to. I'm like, make them all better, make them all cheaper.

Like, yes, that is what we want. Yeah, my thing is just like, Okay, sub out the category of digital resistance. Now say, say this about any other product in the gym space. Oh, I hope rep fails. Their racks suck. You'd be like, yeah, you're an idiot. You know how stupid you sound?

And like, so like applying that same logic to this, you just sound so dumb when you say stuff like that. That's like to think that Beyond Power is shaking in their boots because there's, let's call a spade a spade, like sort of what feels like a little bit of a knockoff that feels a little bit inferior that's going to be a little bit cheaper. I'm like, here's my take on the digital resistance thing. And other people might be in the market for different reasons, but I'm like, if I'm going to go that route, I want the good one.

If I'm not going to go that route, I'm just not going to go that route and spend any money on it. And I'm like, I'm not doing digital resistance. I actually get that. Like, until some other are, if one gets proven really well, that's half the price, I'd like, yeah. Like it's just as good. And I'd be like, great.

Buy that one. Yeah. Just get that one. Yeah. I want that one too. I'm going to sell my voucher and get two of those is what I'm going to do. But as for now, I don't want a shittier one that's 75% of the price. Like I'm like, what am I?

I don't want to save $500 for one that's not as good. Yeah. That's my, but that's kind of my take on that particular product. But maybe they start to, they hopefully, the alternatives will start to get better. and they will and there will be more of them. Eventually there will be ones at price points that, like this one, no, is legitimately just as good. It's actually like a conversation I had with Tim at Jim Crafter.

And he made the comment, and this is not a comment from the hater. These were good comments from him. And he's like, I'm wondering if all those modes are just lost on a lot of people. A lot of average gym owners just need resistance and just won't take the time to learn the benefits of all these modes. And he goes, or does this make you a better lifter by forcing you to learn that stuff? And that's are all fair points. In my opinion, if I'm going, just me as a consumer, if I'm going the digital resistance route,

I want the cool one that does the cool stuff. Yeah. Otherwise, I just wouldn't want one at all. I would just go analog and use weights is kind of where I'm at on that. But there might be a market of people. And if the product comes out that I think is like bulletproof, really, simple and a fraction of the price, there's probably going to be a market for that too. You know, like it's just kind of a little bit different product at that point in time.

And maybe that's more what, you know, the kind of consumer he's talking about is after. I'm like, no, I can see that too. Yeah. Yeah, I could see. And I don't know, this is just me not knowing. I know there'll be people that claimed in all the ins and outs of how the factory and production and all the parts of this work. It is interesting.

Volter did tell us that they have their own. It is their own factory that they own. So, like, if you see anything that's claiming to be a ultra clone or knockoff or from the same factor, like, nope, it is our factory. Anything else is actually just a total counterfeit thing. Like, there's not some other factory that's producing these things. That was one thing that they told us. But it is interesting to the concept of, and I think this is kind of the way Fringe is going with it, is, you know, I look at, you know, they have what this 220 pound limit now. It's going to be going up again here soon.

I do wonder. 2.30, right? Go at 2.30 and going up. Oh, yeah, whatever it is. See, that's the thing. I don't even, I don't even go to that area right now. So that's the other thing, too. I'm like, for mostly everything you do with it, that's all, you know, because that's a potential criticism that is. Well, it is. And I'm like, dude. And for the most part, it's enough for, you know, generally the things you typically use this for. Yes. And I'm, I'm not the strongest guy in the world. You know, the last, but the last power lifting I did, I squatted like 530. I bench 340 and I deadlifted 530. Like those are pretty respectable numbers in most gyms. Yeah.

And I do my heavy, heavy movements with a barbell. Like I said, that's the way I want to do it. And then all my accessories, I'm just kind of doing on this thing. And I don't do very many. You're not trying to replace the barbell with this. And that's never been the goal. Yeah, that's never been the goal. That's specifically not their goal for what you want people to do with this either.

Yeah, I don't use any 230 pound dumbbells. Like I don't have any of those laying around. And if I'm doing anything heavier, I use the barbell because I want to do a barbell movement. So for me, like even already at 2.30, like that's totally sufficient and good. But I do wonder with the fringe approach, because I think that theirs is going to max out to like 80 pounds or 100 pounds. You know, like is there a market for like the Voltra light where they could put, can they put like, you know, a smaller, more underpowered thing, like cheaper motors, like just

a light version in every way and can like that knock the price down like 30 or 40% or something. Like, because I can see how a lot of people are like, 100 pounds, that's all I need on anything. Right. But I don't know if there's just like, no, at a certain point, you just need this level of motors just for the, just the, you know, the, the, the feedback from them, like the, how quickly they can react. Maybe you just need powerful enough motors to do that. And once you have motors that can respond that fast, that's just, they're just strong motors. So I don't know how that part works, but there seems to be a lot of people in line that just, you know, the ins and outs of how exactly this goes, or at least they think they do. Yeah, that's a good way of putting it.

Okay, is that the vulture in a nutshell or? I mean, we're going to continue to be talking about the vulture on and off. Yeah, we'll continue to talk about on off, but yeah, I've got some big plans for my vulture. Actually, I guess I didn't say it here and I'm not going to yet, but I got some plans for my... Yes, Tanner does have a lot more plant stuff in the works for his. Okay, I won't go into any details on this, but I have a very, very hot vulture take that I don't think anyone, I think there's something with the vulture that no one thinks about correctly. And I got to that conclusion very quickly. And I've even explained this to a few people

that don't lift it all. And they got to the conclusion just as fast as me when I just start saying some of the stuff. So stay tuned on that one, but I have a spicy bolter. Yeah. That's a spicy little vulture teeter. A spicy little bultr stick. But yeah, it's a, it's a, It's pretty sweet. It's pretty sweet little unit. What about some other new equipment that you've got in there? Dude, it's been just new equipment. We got time?

Are we going to talk about other new equipment? Yeah. Let's talk about other new equipment this week since we're on the equipment talk. You know, I've been kind of like in meat prep mode for the last several months here. So I've been holding off on new equipment purchases. So I've been treating myself a little bit. Now the meat's done. Been treating myself.

you know, I've been obviously bultrifying my life over here. Obviously. But I've added some new other pieces of equipment. Some of these will have more follow-up on as time goes on, but I've talked about the fringe fat axle already, right? Yeah, you got the fringe fat axle for a hundred bucks. Yeah, on the garage sale.

For a hundred bucks, take it all day. Full price, yeah, might have some complaints. But at 100 bucks, no complaints at all. I added those consuey grips that you have. I got those same ones. Which ones did you get the ones that are like the Swissis or whatever they are? Is that what they're called?

Like is yours the handle that's like a, no, it's the paddles. It's the paddles. Those are the ones you got, right? Yeah, I got both actually. Oh, no, I got this one. But the paddles for 50 bucks, dude, those things are pretty good. Those are good. Have you ever done it?

Have you done any pull-ups with the paddles? Yeah, yeah, I've done some pull-ups with them. It's been a long time, like probably since a commercial gym, you know, where most of them have like a cable crossover that have some. Yeah. neutral grip handles. That was probably the last time I did a pull up like that. And I'm like, oh, that does feel different on your shoulders and everything.

Like, it is a nice little stimulus. And I love the fact that it's not like a multi-grit pull-up bar where you're locked into one location. You can move them as wide or as close as you want. So like when my boy comes out and he wants to do some pull-ups, I can put those up there and I can slide them way in so they're good for him. Yeah. And it's like, dude, that's good. That's a great product.

I love that. Like I'll take a straight pull-up bar all day and just get these handles. Like that's how I feel about that too. Yep. That's a great one. picked up. We've had a few, I think, things showing this now the U4C, calf. What do they call it? The calf raise. Yeah, calf block. Or is they called the calf block? Let's get the product name right here. Pull it up on Jim Radar. Yeah, pull that up. U4C. The calf curve. I knew there was a better name than what I was thinking of.

The U4C calf curve. I picked this thing up the other day. I'd been looking at a calf block on Jim radar. for a little bit. And you know what put me over the edge on this? We were walking through Home GymCon setting up. I saw the booth there. This is like the first day. I walked over to it quick. I put my feet on it.

I'm like, ah, yeah, this thing is solid and good. Got home from Home GymCon. They were running a sale. Plus, you can stack code Mass 10 for a little more of a discount. I got this. I think mine after shipping was like $100, which I mean, for a calf block is not cheap by any means.

but in my mind you're probably getting the nicest one you can. And, dude, it's nice. It's a legit product. Did you get one for the gym too? I liked yours so much. I said, you know what? I'm going to get a U4C. So I got one in the gym right now.

Oh, you've gotten yours already? Yep. It's already there. It's good, isn't it? Yeah, I like it. It's good. It's a cool product. And it's none of those things,

it takes up no space. Yeah. You know, it comes out from the wall like four inches. Like when you have it pushed against the wall, you could even just tip it up on its side. It's, in a home gym, it's equally useful in a commercial gym because, like, people were using it on the Smith machine I've seen already. Oh, yeah. That'd be a good one on the Smith machine. I figured out massonomics

would be some people that are all over it. Yeah. Yeah, that's a good. I like that one. After seeing years, I'm like, oh, yeah, I need to buy this. And what's funny is I've been paying attention to this thing. I've had this kind of my wish list for probably three or four months. Right now it is the second most popular calf block on Jim Radar. It's behind the Oak Club Wessey. The Oak Club Wessey has 41 gyms. This thing has 40. I want to say when I first started looking at this thing, is that like 12 or 15 gyms. So it has climbed considerably in the last couple months. And even in the last two weeks,

it's gone up a lot too. So I would not be surprised if shortly after this podcast comes out that. Well, and we have a discount code. And we have a discount code. Yeah, yeah. Mass 10. We'll save you. But go through Jim Radar.

You'll see that code on there. But I would not be surprised if this is the most popular cap block within a couple weeks here. In no time. And then one other piece that I, did add. And we will definitely have more content on this, but this one takes some time as I added an OVR velocity to the gym. And for people that don't know what this is, because there's probably some people out there that aren't familiar with this, it is, it's a, for tracking bar speed,

for tracking velocity, you know, back in the day, you might have called these like a Tendo unit. There's some other, what's it like, Bertruvian or Vertruvian. There's some other ones that have this. But where this one stuck out to me is, I'll go into the whole story on it. But where this one stuck out to me is the price on this thing is only $250. And in the past, if you looked at these machines are like $500, $600,000. And this one is, I mean, $250 is not bad. And.

Yeah, what's the end? If you go through, if you go through Jim Radar and click the check price button through the link, you have to click on the link, it knocks 25 bucks off of it. it. So it brings it down to 225. And I got this in the gym. Pretty pretty freaking reasonable. Dude, if you're, if you're debating between this and another barbell and you already have a bunch of barbells, don't buy another barbell. Buy this. It is actually very, very useful for your training. It has an app. The app is free. There's no subscription. So you're just, you're all in for 225 on this thing. I've used it for several

workouts now. Dude, this is surprisingly good. It works really, really well. I don't, I don't, so right now my training's weird because I'm doing a hyperch free block. You know, I'm not doing heavy, except first I'm like, why am I even going to bother with this? You know, I'm not doing heavy work, not doing heavy doubles, triple, singles, whatever. But what I started doing is I started doing, like right now I'm doing a lot of sets of like five to eight reps in it. Right. And what I really like is I love seeing how my velocity tracks through a lift, you know, like through from the first lift to, from the first rep to the last rep, how much of velocity drop. off, am I having? Am I keeping the speed up? Am I keeping it consistent? And also seeing that

consistency between reps. But what's really cool is in the OVR in the app is you don't even have to record yourself. Because I'm like, I also don't want to just be setting up my, because I've seen that. People probably recognize it once they'll see it as you can do like, you can record yourself in the OVR or report the speed from the device back to your, back to your phone. It will overlay it on the camera so you can see the whole thing. But I'm like, I don't want to set up a camera between every lift. You might want to do that occasionally during like heavy squat. Yeah, but I don't want to be doing that every time. No, I didn't realize you don't have to. You might want to do it on your top squats that day when you're peeking and stuff like that. Yeah, I like open up the OVR and I basically say like, hey, I'm doing a, I'm doing a, I'm doing a bench. I've done bench enough now that it has kept a profile for me that when I open up bench, it says, hey, here's your bench from this date. Here's your bench from this date. Here's your average volum. velocity across all sets. I can open it up. I can see the speed for every single rep that I did. I can see the drop off. I can see all of that. And then what it does is it gets a few reps in there

and it gives you what it thinks your estimated one rep maxes. And I'm doing submaximal work. You know, I'm doing. Right. I think, uh, I think the other day, I don't, I've not done a set over 260 pounds yet. They've all been between 225 and 260. And I got done with my set and I had enough data in there for give me an estimated one rep max. What was its estimated one rep max for me at the speed I'm moving the bar? 348 pounds. What did I do at my last meet? 344 pounds. I'm like, damn, this thing actually seems to be pretty good. And what the other thing, the part that I did not consider in my head is it gamifies lifting in a way that you want to move every rep as fast as you can because it's like, oh, I got to beat my score here. I got to see how fast I can move this. Or it not

not even that. It's like, oh, yeah, my first three move really good. And maybe I start to slow down. It's like, no, I don't want it to slow down. I want to keep that speed up as much as I can. So I'm absolutely lifting with some more speed intent than I ever had before, which is an unintended consequence that I didn't consider when I was getting this whole thing set up. So we will have some more in-depth videos on this as it goes on. But my early impression after having just, I don't know, six training sessions with it is I have liked this thing more than I thought too.

Yeah, I like that. I think I might get one of those. I think if you're into powerlifting at all, $225, like just buy the unit. You know what I like too is that it has the built-in screen on the device too that you can even just really simply see feedback to if you wanted to. Yeah, when you open up the device or when you have the device on, there's two buttons on it.

They're basically a left and right button and you can toggle through your reps. I mean, for anyone that doesn't actually know this, just really simply one inch loops around the end of your barbell, like after your weight. Yeah, so it's a box. And it's a box. It's a box with a string. The size of a, it's like a

three by three box or four by four box or something like that. And it has magnets on the bottom. So you put a plate down so it sticks to a plate on the ground. You lay a plate on the ground and then set this on top of a plate. Yep. And then you pull the string out. It has a Velcro strap that wraps around the sleeve of your barbell. You try to get everything as straight as you can, you know,

so that it's giving accurate as straight as they come. Exactly. accurate dimensions are, you know, lifting lengths for when you're moving things. And, yeah, I mean, it's super, super simple. And you wouldn't have to use the app at all. Like, you don't have to use the app. But it is a nice way to keep track of if I want to go back and see how my, how is my bench been moving.

How's my squad been moving? I can go and see my, you know, average velocity, mean velocity, like peak velocity. It's all in there. Well, during strength blocks of your main lifts, it would be very interesting to be watching what's going on there. Where this all came from is when I was peeking for the meat, I was using, you know, when you have a juggernaut subscription, they have an app called Smart Barbell where it basically does,

you know, it does bar tracking and velocity tracking just with the camera. And I tried using that more and more just to collect data. I wasn't even really paying that close attention. I'm like, I just want to see what this does. And after like getting close to the meat, I'm like, oh, damn,

there is a pattern emerging here actually because I'd never done it enough. Yeah. To where I'm like, oh, no, when I add 10 pounds, the velocity drops by 0.05. When I add 10 more, it drops by 0.02.

You know, whatever. I could see just, it was linearly tracking to where it was like, oh, okay, like, what's the slowest you can move a squat or a bench? Right. And it's like, okay, like, do I think I can move a bench slower than what they say is about the slowest? And it's like, yeah, found out, no, I actually can't.

So the number is pretty accurate. You know, as you become more skilled, you can grind them out slower and slower, but to a certain point, like you can't just like bench for five straight seconds. Yeah, at a certain point, it's like, no, no, this is just going to be a 30 second rep. Yeah, like it just doesn't work that way. Yeah. Yeah.

And so I notice this. pattern and I'm like, oh, damn, I could see the value in me is when you don't have training partners, I think I'm lifting hard, but this gives you hard data on like, oh, no, when you're moving your squats at 0.45, that's not an RP8. That's like an RP6. You have a lot more in the tank. And now you have numbers actually helping you inform your decision based off of purely feel on how you think things go. Like, that will always be a part of it, but this is like kind of a more neutral third party objective look at how things are going. And so I'm really excited to take this into my training for the next six months to a year

here and see what I get out of it. Geez, rick and multras and OVRs. You got so many things hooked up. That actually is a real concern. It's like Ivan Drago over there. When I'm like, get done with a lift, get done with a lift, put in the number on Juggernaut, switch her to over to the overr, put in the set, go back to Juggernaut while the timer's running. go back. As soon as I'm done with that, I'm going to get done with this.

You're just getting, I'm going to the Voltra. I'm like, okay, actually this is getting, I would not recommend if people are getting into lifting that they do any of this. This is way too much. But in the name of experimentation, trying a lot of things right now. Also, you could say like it totally prevents you from doing anything else on your phone. Oh my God. Yeah, I can't. No, I just have to get this data going and then get to my next set. When you're on a bridge block and everything's timed, like, yeah, you don't have time to be messing around. You put it in the numbers and you got to get on to the next thing. Yeah. Okay.

So that's the new equipment. That is the new equipment, yes. Jeez, you say you didn't have much over there. It seems like you're just packing it in. Well, it's funny. What I just said was I added a calf block, some neutral grips, an OVR, and a Vultra. I mean, it is a lot of things, but also in the scheme of things, it's not that much either. Right.

It's not that much of a space. No, no, nothing. Like, the OVR, here's the other thing. The OVR, the magnets on it. I just stick it on my wall control when I'm done. It just hangs right on there. It's got these super strong magnets on it.

You know, nothing takes up any space. I can add stuff like that all day. Sweet. Oh, we might have to bring her on home, Johnny. Yeah, we have this radar report here. Do we want to save that for next week or not?

Oh, I think we might have to save it for next week. That's fine. That's fine. Because that might be a little bit of a conversation. Yeah, I could see how I get, get going on that one for a while. Yeah, that one, that one's probably a convoy. I'd have a hard time keeping that one to less than 10 minutes.

That's what I'm thinking. Okay, well, we'll do this very, give me the radar report button, Tanner. Okay. The radar report button is, of course, right here. Ladies and gentlemen, can I please have your attention? Radar love. Oh, yeah.

Radar love. Radar Report. As of the time we were listening to this, we should have an all-new feature out on Jim Radar. Oh, this I like. Should I spill that beautiful bean footage? Roll that beautiful bean footage. Should we announce that right now?

Oh, that beautiful bean footage. Did you forget about parts two and three? Multiple times. Do we want to maybe give a teaser for that now and then we'll go more in depth on it next week? Yeah. Yeah. sounds good. Big new feature, new page coming to Jim Radar revolving around product releases,

pre-orders, what's available, upcoming stuff. So we'll talk more on that one next week. But by the time this is out, more than likely that page is on the website so you can be an early adopter. Yeah, we're excited about that one. Yeah, it should be very, very useful. Okay. Um, then I think that's everything. I think so. Support us in all the ways you support us. Buy our stuff. We still have horse doll mat grippers and horse stall mat coasters.

For like the first time ever we ordered enough. I actually have completely made all of the horse stall mat grippers as of this last Saturday. I have no horse stall mat grippers in production, which is awesome because I'm very sick of making horse doll mat grippers right now. So maybe just don't even buy any horse stall. Like let's let this supply just last a little while because I don't want to make any longer. Let it linger, maybe. Do you have to let it linger? I want to not make any more horse tall mat.

I need just a horse tall mat gripper break. Let my lungs recover from the rubber. You're going to go cold turkey on this one. Yeah, I mean, I'll get back. I'll be ready to hurt again at some point, but I just need a little horse tall mat gripper break. But we do have coasters and grippers currently available, and that's almost a rarely ever true. Look out later this month for some other new stuff as well.

And then become a supporting member, please. Use Jim Radar. If you're a listener to this, if you're a regular listener to the show and you have a home gym and you still have not added on Jim Radar, shame. Shame on you. Also, if you're a new listener and you just listen to us rant about Voltros for the last 45 minutes and you also don't have,

a profile on gym radar. What are you doing? Yeah. And here's what I'll tell you are not acceptable excuses. My gym's not big enough. I guarantee they're smaller ones. There's like 50 gyms on gym radar under 100 square feet. You know, that doesn't make, like mine's not cool enough.

That's not actually, like most people's gyms aren't cool enough. What's cool about the site is that it includes those gyms. So there's people like real people out of, there with real gyms, getting real inspiration and ideas for other people that are just like yours. I guarantee you have something in yours that someone else out there is going to be interested in or possibly have a question or get an idea based on what you're doing in your space. So not good enough or not big enough are not good reasons to not use gym radar. Actually, that would be a problem if people with smaller gyms or less expensive stuff didn't use

gym radar. Be a pretty fucking boring website. Yeah, I'm like, we want all, everyone on all into the gamut.

I don't know what other common reasons people say like, oh, I just don't want to take any pictures. You don't have to put pictures.

We'd love for you to put at least one picture because it adds a lot to it if you have at least something visual. I just don't have the time to do it.

Well, you make an account. The making of the account takes about a minute or two. Once you have that done, just make your, you don't have to add every,

single piece of equipment you own right off the bat. Like just make the account first. Then you can play around on the website, see some things. But you don't have to like block out five hours to add every piece of equipment and review everything you've ever used in your life. Like it's something that we hope you come back to as time goes on and check out routinely. Like you don't have to do everything at once and then be done. And also if you have any concerns about anonymity, you can make it as anonymous as you want to.

Yeah, you don't even have to publish your gym. Like we like it when you do because it's cool. people can see it, but you can keep it private. You can leave your location off of it or make your location relatively specific. Like that's all up to you. Like you can, your own profile, you can link out to other social media as you don't have to. But yes, just get on Jim Radar. Tommy, where do they find you at?

You can find me at Tomahawk underscore D. You can follow me at Tanner underscore Bear. Just make sure to follow Jim Radar at Jim Radar at Jim Radar HQ and Massonomics at Massonomics. See you.