Weights and Plates Podcast - #20 - Everything You Need to Build a Killer Home Gym

Episode Date: January 28, 2022

Robert and Trent nerd out about every lifter's favorite topic -- gym equipment! Bars, racks, plates, accessories... they discuss everything you need to build a simple but extremely flexible and useful home gym where you can make gains for years. As with any of this equipment of this nature, there are certain tips and tricks you learn over years of experience, and Robert and Trent share their thoughts on the best equipment configurations on the market today.   Weights & Plates: https://weightsandplates.com Robert Santana on Instagram: @the_robert_santana   Trent Jones: @marmalade_cream https://www.marmaladecream.com    

Welcome to the Weights and Plates podcast. My name is Robert Santana. I am your host along with Trent Jones, my co-host. Hello, good morning. Today, we're going to talk about, you know, a rather boring topic for some, a rather important topic for others. We're going to talk about equipment and what you need to build muscle and get stronger. Dude, what are you talking about, man? This is, equipment is exciting. Well, yeah, I mean. Everybody loves gear. I mean, yeah, for guys like us, we try to find excuses to blow money on it. Yeah, exactly. So what I'm hoping is that we record this episode,

and then you convince me that I need to buy another barbell. My favorite was our colleague, the legendary Paul Horn, when he still had his gym in L.A. I remember he got fixated on the power blocks. Have you seen those? Oh, no. Is that for doing like uh board presses or no it's the dumbbells that like you know it's just one uh little dumbbell and it like

can go up and wait you know and just pull it out oh yeah yeah it's like you like dial it up and then you dial in the weight kind of like that but it's like it's a square yeah and then you you know you set the weight you want you pull it out and it was like squares slide into each other you have to look it up. Okay, yeah. I've seen the Bowflex version of that or whatever they have. I was in LA two years ago now. This was before COVID.

I hung out at the gym afterward. We lifted and we hung out and talked afterwards, and he's like, what about the power blocks? I'm like, what the hell are those? Have you seen those, dude? They go from whatever, two and a half or five to 200. He's like, they're $2,000. I need that. I need it. Well, I mean, that's probably cheaper than what you can buy a whole set of dumbbells for. Oh, it is. A whole set of dumbbells from zero to 200 with the half pound increments from zero to 50 included cost 15 grand

pre-covid so probably 20 to 25 now oh yeah i believe it i believe those were the rogue urethane ones that are round not hex you know yes yeah yeah the globe globe style oh they're yeah that's um yeah i love we i think we all love, all good strength coaches love a great set of dumbbells, but that is the big problem, right? They are expensive and they take up a ton of space and they're awesome, but that's a good segue. So that is outside of the reach of most home gym owners, myself included, probably just don't have the space, even if I had the funds to buy a full set of dumbbells. So what we're going to talk about today is what you need, sort of the minimum equipment that you need to do real effective strength training in your gym. And this is, I think this is a good time of year to do it. There's a lot of people who are trying to get

started up with a new program. They may have found strength training for the first time, and you're just now getting into what this whole idea of starting strength and how to program and lift like a real strength trainee for the first time. And that also means you're probably going to need some equipment that you're not familiar with and that you may not have. So we're going to help you out today. not familiar with and that you may not have. So we're going to help you out today. We're going to talk about what you need to do this right and also not spend a fortune and be able to do it in a reasonably small area. So let me start off, before we get started, I have done this. I have put

together a full setup in a 10 by 10 spare bedroom. And I'm talking about like, I had a full power rack, two barbells, I had 650 pounds of plates, I had micro plates, I had the full deal platform, and I fit it all in a 10 by 10 bedroom. So if you have something that small, even you can do this. Yeah, absolutely. When it comes to equipment, I think the first thing you want to ask yourself is what your goal is. And if your goal is to get stronger, any equipment you use needs to be incrementally loaded, which means you have to have the ability to make it heavier and heavier each week. You could play the set game all you want, but you know, you can't do a hundred sets a day. Eventually, eventually it's going to take,

you know, it's going to take too much time to add more and more sets. And then it gets to a point where the weight gets lighter as the sets go up higher and it's the, your minimum intensity is not meant. And I'm not going to tell you exactly what number your minimum intensity is, but there is a minimum. Weight has to be a certain amount of weight in relation to your max on the bar, machine, dumbbell, whatever implement you're using to make progress in terms of building muscle and getting stronger. So you can't do 100 sets and sit there and brag about your tonnage or your volume, you know, because you've met your MRV, you know, your maximum recoverable volume. You got to draw the line somewhere, you know.

Eventually, it becomes a shitty endurance stimulus. And I say a shitty endurance stimulus because, you know, even if you do 100 sets, you're still not going to match the number of strides in a one-hour run, you know. Right, yeah. So basically not doing anything well at that point. you know? Right, yeah. So basically not doing anything well at that point. You're not doing strength well, you're not doing endurance well. No, you're just, you know, fucking around with weights and, you know, that's not a good use of your time. So, you know, this idea that weight training, strength training, weight training, whatever you want to call it, needs to feel like cardio is flawed because of that fact. You know,

you can't, it's not very good cardio if that's what you're doing. And number two, it's not a very good strength stimulus. So you're just moving weights around, getting very little out of it. You're not burning a lot of calories and you're not really building muscle doing that. So you have to be able to incrementally load it. The barbell is the gold standard. Why is the barbell the gold standard? Because you can incrementally load a bar, one or two pounds.

And sure, you can do that with some machines too. You can leg press a whole bunch of weight. You can hack squat a whole bunch of weight, but it's not going to train the muscles of the back and waist the same way that a barbell will because you're fixed in a position. When you're moving a barbell in space, you have to contract your abs, your obliques, and all the muscles of your back to stabilize the spine while you move. So you lose that even with a machine that allows you to incrementally load. That's what makes barbell training superior to machines.

The next thing somebody's going to say is, well, what about dumbbells and kettlebells? Sure, yeah, you have to stabilize your spine when you're using dumbbells and kettlebells. There's aspects of using dumbbells and kettlebells and things like that that are harder because you're only using one side of your body and you have to stabilize the rest of it. But what happens when a dumbbell gets too heavy? Let's say you use a loadable dumbbell or you get the magnet weights that you can put on the end of, you know, a preloaded dumbbell or whatever. Or power blocks. Or power blocks. Or power blocks. That we need, by the way. Right, yes. Horn needed them. He needed them. I think he got them, but he didn't go up to 200.

I think he just went to 2.5 to 100 or 5 to 100. I don't remember how they were. Dang it. But he definitely didn't get the 200. But I remember seeing them. They were like, the next time I visited, I started cracking up. He needed those. He was like, I needed those.

But you know what happens? Okay, so once you get to about 100 pound dumbbells and uh you know and let's say that first of all let's use an exercise like uh you know the deadlift okay uh first of all you can't drag that on your shins uh even with the lighter dumbbells you know you have a greater moment arm between the dumbbell and the middle of your foot, the load in the middle of your foot. You can't get it as close. And even when you do try to get it close, it's awkward. You know, it's not like a bar that sits flush on your legs.

So it becomes a different movement. Sure, you could still train the hip extensors, you know, the same way. You can move through that range of motion. It's not quite as efficient. But what becomes a problem is it's not unusual for a man to get his deadlift up to, you know, the same way. You can move through that range of motion. It's not quite as efficient, but what becomes a problem is it's not unusual for a man to get his deadlift up to, you know, four to 500 pounds, a woman, two to 300 pounds. So you're, are you going to use 150 pound, 200 pound, 250 pound dumbbells, you know? And what do those look like? They're huge. Eventually they get so big that they're awkward to manage. You know, you might throw your back out taking them off the damn rack, you know?

Yeah, yeah. So they're just not practical. As a practical matter, they're not good for developing raw absolute strength. But they're useful, and you can do stuff with them. They have dumbbells that can be loaded, too, and you can microload them, you know, add half a pound each side each time if you're doing presses. With presses, you can't go as low as they get bigger. So you lose range of motion there. So that's the problem with dumbbells. Kettlebells run into the same problem. They get too large. They become awkward,

right? Different type of stimulus. Yeah. The other thing that I've noticed with dumbbells in particular is that, you know, often when I use dumbbells, the way I use dumbbells with my trainees is to have them do, mostly they're doing presses with them. They're doing benches and overhead presses, but they're doing them for higher rep sets, so maybe 8s, 10s, 12s, but they're doing them as intermediate lifters. a long process of lifting with the barbell first and developing a big base of strength. And so one of the problems that they have to overcome when they first start using dumbbells is that because they are freely positioned in space, they're sitting in both of your hands and they can move independently, it takes a lot of conscious effort to control the dumbbell to execute good technique. And that's just not a good way to start a strength program. If you don't already have excellent technique with bench and press using a barbell, your odds of doing it right and doing

it well with a heavy dumbbell are nil. It's just not going to happen. Exactly. And you really don't want a dumbbell that goes the wrong way and pulls your shoulder, you know, in a bad direction, right? That can get bad in a hurry. Whereas with a barbell, your misses are going to be much, much, you know, smaller. They're going to be much less impactful if you do miss. So you really need to develop your technique with a barbell first if you're going to be much less impactful if you do miss. So you really need to develop your technique with a barbell first if you're going to do effective dumbbell training anyway. And then of course, as you mentioned, they're super impractical. I mean, now they have, as you were talking, I was looking this up to see if somebody's finally

invented this. They have dumbbell weight bar holders. So if you want to bench out of a rack and not have to like kick it up off your quads there's an option now but then the question becomes how do you get them on there when they're 200 pounds or 100 pounds you know or even right like after about 80 pounds they start to get harder and harder to manage so it's like okay i like this idea of having it out there but i'm gonna need a second person to put them up there safely when they get heavy enough, you know? Exactly. Exactly.

Because you get to figure, okay, I have, what, a 310-pound bench, so I'm probably going to get past the 100-pound dumbbells for a handful of reps if I actually want to go heavy with it, you know, if I were to train them. So it's nice to have that, but it looks like I'm going to need a partner once I get past those hundreds if I want to place them on those racks safely. Right. So the barbell solves all of these problems, solves all of these problems very neatly. It's very ergonomic. I've had women as small as 4'11", and women as tall as 6'2". Use the same barbell to lift weights. Same thing with men. I've, I've coached men as short as five, five and men as tall as six, six,

and they can all use the exact same barbell and load it to where they are with their strength abilities at that moment. So that means for smaller women, they might start with the empty bar on a lot of exercises and add two and a half pounds at a time. And we can do that with a barbell very easily. By the same token, a guy who's 6'6 and giant, he might start with 225 pounds in the bar for his squat. That might be his first squat, his very first workout.

And then he might be making 10, 15-pound jumps for a while on the squat. We can do that too on a barbell. It's trivial. It's super easy to load it as finely as you need to or as much as you need to. And these bars can't be broken really either. You can put 1,000 pounds on them, and they're not going to take it take it in stride. Especially if you have a pretty decent bar, you know? Especially if you have a good bar. So the barbell really just solves all these problems. And by the

way, if you are a smaller female and, um, you know, some, some women cannot press the empty bar on their first workout or even their 10th workout, there are smaller barbells too that you can use. And they're really easy to get ahold of nowadays. You can buy 33 pound barbells. Your standard barbell is going to be 45 pounds. You can, you can buy 33 pound dumbbells. You can even, or sorry, barbells. You can even buy a 15 pound aluminum barbells now that can be loaded up to like 65 pounds. So as you're working towards, if you're in that position and you can't lift the empty bar over your head, then you can buy a small barbell that's relatively inexpensive and load it until you get to the point where you can press the empty standard size 45-pound barbell. So, yeah, I think the biggest thing with people is they're just scared of the barbell. Oh yeah. You know, it's, I, I, it makes so much sense when you really look at the pros and cons of lifting a barbell versus just about

anything else that, uh, it really just comes down to people have a certain perception of what barbell lifting is. And it's scary because we tend to think of like big hairy men with you know a million plates on each side you know yeah that's right exactly that's just not correct you know it's not it's just not correct so you know the general perception is that a barbell is for big fat hairy guys that are squatting and dead lifting you know five six seven eight nine plates on each side, and that dumbbells and kettlebells are safer and that they're better and all this other shit, right? But, you know, the barbell saves space.

It's cheaper. You can lift it. It's the most ergonomic device in the weight room because you could load up several hundred pounds and pick it up right against your legs, over the middle of your foot, over your center of mass. And you can't really do that with other types of lifting equipment. So I think it's very useful for developing strength because it's very efficient. You can reduce injury, provided you're doing everything correctly. Yes, it's very technical, but try lifting a heavy dumbbell. That also becomes very technical.

The thing is, most people don't let it get heavy. So basically we say the barbell is the gold standard. If you have a barbell, plates, a power rack, and a bench, you probably have what you need. If you can get some sort of pulley attachment to do vertical pulling like pull-downs, that's useful because many people can't do pull-ups or chin-ups out the gate, you know, need to develop that strength. So I've been really promoting that. There's a lot of cheaper options than getting a weight-stacked pulley system that's several thousand dollars. You can, you know, get something that's, you know, not quite as convenient, but gets the job done of letting you pull weight down from over your head. head. So I think that those items are the bare minimum.

And, you know, it depends on what your budget is. I mean, you might not be able to afford to get yourself very strong in the near future. So I would just start with a barbell and some plates so that you could at least deadlift, you know, maybe clean and press, you know, even if your clean's not the prettiest, just, you know, make it good enough to get it up on your shoulders, you know? Exactly, exactly. So that's the main takeaway here is that the barbell, everything in your home gym, to get the most progress that you can and to be able to do the most variety of exercises, you're going to need a barbell. And everything else that you buy in your gym is going to be built around that barbell. And so, yeah, let's talk about what kind of, you know,

what we would recommend for someone getting that setup that you just described. So just to reiterate, you need a barbell, you're going to need some plates to put on the barbell. You're going to need a rack of some sort to put the barbell on if you can to do this would be for squats and presses and bench presses the deadlift can be done from the floor and you're going to need probably you're going to need somewhere to put those plates like some sort of stand or rack to put them on and then this is optional but highly recommend is you're going to need to build some sort of platform to put the weights on so you don't crack i'm gonna probably say it's not optional uh you probably should get a platform because you're gonna want to bolt this down so you know if yeah

i mean yeah you're gonna need a platform you're gonna need one you know you could probably get away with it in the beginning uh so you know I can see where you're coming from, saying it's optional. But you're going to need it when the weight gets on there, and the weight's going to get on there faster than you think. Yes, absolutely. If you get a stand, obviously you're not going to bolt that down. And a stand should be a temporary fix before you get something that's a little bit better. You don't have the room of a big weightlifting gym to drop a squat behind you and fuck up your, you don't want to fuck up your bars anyway. So, you know, you also want spotter arms. Which you will do if you drop it. And you want spotter arms. Don't be cheap on

those. You know, I mean, the power rack usually brings spotter arms that, you know, go through the holes. But if you have a stand, you should buy the spotter arms separate so that you have spotter arms on your stand. You don't want to die during a bench press. Now, here's an optional piece of equipment that, honestly, I think should become mandatory if you get your bench press heavy enough if you train it, is the adjustable monolift. Because it allows you to lift off your bench right over the start position. Typically, you have to lift the bar from behind your head, which can lead to shoulder tendonitis for some people. Actually, it's technically biceps tendonitis. It manifests near the shoulder, so proximal biceps tendonitis.

Adjustable monolift eliminates that because you could roll the bar up over your chest, push it straight up, and then the arms swing out of the way versus you having to do this awkward movement behind your head to get it over your chest. That can end up bugging your joints. movement behind your head to get it over your chest that can end up bugging your joints. So, you know, that's something that you should put on your wish list early on and keep it in the back of your mind because one of the best things you can buy for a home setup when you're lifting by yourself, it also removes other humans from the equation. You will never need a spotter if you have a monolift and safeties. Yeah, that's a great point. Yeah, I'm lucky I've got my wife is she's good at handoffs. She knows exactly how I like the handoffs. Yeah, that's a great point. Yeah, I'm lucky I've got my wife. She's good at handoffs. She knows exactly how I like the handoffs. Yeah. I've been bench pressing with an adjustable

monolith for two years now. It's prohibited that anybody squat with it because you need to walk your fucking squats out. But we all love it. I have two of them now. A member made one for my starting strength rack on his machine shop. And it's great because I never have to involve anybody in my bench press. And I think meat should be run like that too. Spotter arms, two spotters, one on each side and adjustable monolifts so the lifter can lift himself off without any effort. Yep. I like it. I like it. So let's talk a little bit more about the rack really quick and some basic... We're not going to go through the whole market of like stuff you could buy. Cause there's,

there's a ton of racks out there. There's a lot of companies now that are offering, you know, basically different variations on tried and true designs, but I'll give you sort of what I think are some of the gold standards of racks and you can go find the one that matches sort of, of the gold standards of racks and you can go find the one that matches sort of, you know, matches that, you know, and, uh, and fit your budget too. So I think the gold standard for a home gym is the Rogue R3 power rack. It's, um, you can look it up on the Rogue's website. It's, it's just simply called the Rogue R3. It's got four posts, which means that it's going to have pin and pipe safeties that basically go between the posts.

And that's what he's talking about, the spotter arms. In this case, these are just like pipes that can be moved up and down the rack to accommodate whatever you're doing. If you're doing squats, you can set them a little higher. If you're doing bench,

they're probably going to be a little bit lower. You can do rack pulls on them by setting them even lower so So the bars, you know, on your shins, uh, all sorts of stuff you can do with them. And it's extremely sturdy. You could park a massive truck on top of it. It'd be fine. Um, so it's going to handle whatever weight you're putting on there. And the, the coolest things about the R3 is that it's two things, two cool sort of extras that a lot of power racks don't have. The first is it has hole spacing in the middle of the rack that's one inch from center to center of the holes, which means that you can put, you're talking about taking your bar out of the rack on the bench press.

Well, one of the problems you run into with racks that have let's say two or three inch hole spacing is like one one notch is way too high the other you can barely get it out of the pegs the next notch down is way too low and you have to do like a massive shrug to even get it out of the pins it's just a huge pain well with the one inch hole spacing it's you can put the bar exactly where you want it for your arm length every time, which I think is great. A lot of racks don't have that and they all should have it.

I agree. The second thing I like about the R3, it's not unique to Rogue, but Rogue does a really good job with this, is that you can buy a ton of different attachments for whatever else you want to add down the road. So you're talking about those monolith, uh, you know, attachment rogue makes a monolith. If you want to do dips, you can buy a dip bar that attaches to the rack. The rack comes with

a chin up bar, but if you want like some sort of fancy other type of chin up bar, you can get that. I mean, there's just like, there's, there's hundreds of different things you can attach to the rack. Um, so I think that's great for a home gym because you know, it's upgradable to infinity and, uh, it's pretty much always going to meet your needs. Yeah. I like the, uh, I like the R3 Rogue rack. It's pretty good. Um, you know, obviously if you have a bigger budget to play with the monster series is a lot nicer i like the bigger holes and the larger safeties and just seem sturdier um but uh you know i don't recommend that as a baseline it's you know if you want to spend some more money get a nicer rack you know the rm series is pretty good if you want one that's deeper you can get an r4 or an rm4

i don't like the light i I'm not thrilled about it personally. You mean the real, like, the budget series that they do? Yeah, the one in the middle. You know, it's coated like an R3, but then it's got the 3x3 uprights like a monster. Oh, I got you. Yeah, okay. So there's the monster series, then there's the monster light series, and then there's the R series. Yeah, the R series is the infinity series, I believe. Yeah, believe yeah that's right yeah so you brought up a good point there um this is

important if you plan to train with a significant other or just other people in general strongly consider the r4 yes over the r3 so one thing that that you probably won't think about until you actually get the thing set up is if you want to have two people lifting at the same time on a single rack, the problem you're going to run into is the diameter of the plates banging into each other when they're racked. So let's say you've got two people squatting in an R three, right? It's 36 inches from post to post. That's how deep it is. So it's fine. It seems like it's going to be fine. You can have one person outside the rack, one person inside the

rack. But the problem you're going to run into is if both people have 45 pound plates on the bar, then as you back the bar out, as you take your squat out of the rack with a 45 pound plate and your buddy behind you has a 45 pound plate on his racked bar on the outside they're going to hit each other and you're going to have space so if you want to do that the r3 the r4 is deep enough it's like an extra foot deep so it's enough to have somebody working on the outside somebody working on the inside without running into that problem and having to strip the bar down for every set, which is, you're not going to want to do. Now that said, I actually have an R3 in my current home gym, but we're in a big garage and I have enough space to basically center the rack on the platform that

I have. So I have a standard eight foot by eight foot platform. We'll talk more about that in a second. And I have the R3 right in the middle of that platform. And my wife and I will work out together, but we lift on the outside of the rack. And what I've done is I've gotten two pairs of spotter arms that I can put outside the rack. And so you can do that together. She squats on one side, I squat on the other side. That's fine. You just can't have somebody squatting inside while another is squatting outside, unless you get the R4. Does that make sense?

Yeah. And even with that, if you get the R4, then you have to get two pairs of spotter arms because the tubing will go through the hole in the front of the rack. And if you're at the same height, you're not going to be able to put spotter arms inside because the tubing will be inside the hole that the spotter arms would need to go into. So you just wouldn't be able to use the tubing to have spotter arms on the side because the tubing will be inside the hole that the spotter arms would need to go into. So you just wouldn't be able to use the tubing to have spotter arms inside the rack, most likely, unless you have different holes. But even then, the spotter arms on the outside, the top part, the metal sheet on the top would probably hit the pins if they're close. Yeah, that's a great point. That's a great point. Because the spotter arms, you know,

so you can go look up, if you're not familiar with what a spotter arm looks like, you can get on the rogue website and just look at it. It's different from the pin and pipe safeties because it has like a long, the cross beam that attaches to the rack is quite long. It covers like five or six holes. And so whereas the tubing that just covers one hole, like you just poke it through one hole. And so, yeah, they and so yeah they don't they don't really work well together on the same rack so that's just a consideration if you plan on having multiple people working on the same rack just think through all these little details um because it it's a little bit more complicated than it seems like at first blush um you don't

have to get the r3 or r4 by rogue by the way i only bring up rogue because they're kind of the gold standard in my opinion in terms of quality and they have all the features yeah they're but if you're if you're on a budget there's other stuff out there yeah they're you know they make they make other stuff here and they have a lot of options and a lot of stuff you can attach to them it's's pretty convenient, but, uh, you know, there's other stuff out there. I have a starting strength rack at my gym. I like it, but I had to, you know, buy some custom items to make it work. I had a, um, one of my members, a welder made me some spotter arms to put on the outside. So I like to squat outside the rack. Um, and it'll make

spotter arms for that. And, uh, then i had another member who went the distance and made me a monolift attachment adjustable monolift that uh attaches to the to the starting strength rack so i can have a monolift i can use now it's real nice too he did a really good job nice yeah but uh you know it just had to go through and do custom stuff and i got lucky they were members the first guy you know i didn't pay 90 bucks i think or 100 bucks for the spotter arms because we were buddies. But, you know, it would probably cost you like two or three if you hired a welder, maybe more, you know. Right, yeah. The amount of steel he used because we dropped like 600 pounds on it to make sure it worked.

And then the monolift, that thing would probably be a grand easily, that adjustable monolift. The way that guy made it, he milled it down real good. He used his machine. He has a machine shop in his backyard. It's like a hobby of his. He didn't charge me for that, which was nice of him. I would have paid him,

but he's like, no, it was a gift to the gym. I'm like, great. That's awesome. Now I can do everything in the starting strength rack now. The thing is I have a Brown Brothers original, so the holes are a little bit more spaced out than the starting strength rack you can buy today at Texas Strength Systems. Okay. You have the original bobby brown johnny brown rack

yeah yeah or johnny brown brothers welding uh that's the last one he ever made um oh yeah that's cool that's a little little piece of history yeah so that that's he's referring to uh in the back of the starting strength book i I don't know. Was it the third edition where Rip put that in? I don't remember. It's been there for a while. He's had those racks for ages. Yeah.

So, so Rip, you know, it didn't used to be, you could, you could easily get squat racks. I mean, they weren't, you didn't have Rogue, you know, 20, 30, 40 years ago. So basically Rip had, had some local fabricators build his racks that are in his gym in Wichita falls. And that's the, the Brown brothers rack. So yeah, I mean, those are great. I've lifted on those at Wichita falls many times. Um, that's a great rack to, uh, Titan makes a decent rack. Um, if you're on a budget, it's, they basically copy everything rogue does and then make it in Asia, um, for cheaper. So, you know, it is what it is. But they, if you're, if you're really on a budget, you can get that. I have some clients that have bought a rep fitness

rack. I've seen those. They seem to be pretty happy with it. You know, it doesn't have all the nice hole spacing and that kind of stuff, but there's another option for you. I don't know. We, you could go, we could go down the whole list, but basically you can go look at the racks that are out there that are available to you because we don't know at the time of this recording what is going to be available when you're looking. So that's going to be up to you to figure out what you can actually get your hands on. But take a look at that Rogue as just an idea of what kind of features you'll want and you'll be pretty well set there. So we've mentioned the barbell a lot so far, but we haven't actually talked about barbell specifics. What do you usually recommend people

get if they need their first barbell? Well, don't get an amazon.com $80 barbell, first of all. Typically, you want a power bar, ideally, or an all-purpose bar. You know, another option. Rip is a huge fan of them. I don't like them. I prefer more aggressive knurling, which is the, you know, the textured portion of the bar. It's called a knurling. And you have to consider that you're going to have to pick this bar up to deadlift it. And you want something that's going to stick to your hands real well. I don't like a soft neural. Some guys do. You figure it out as you lift.

So typically a good lifting bar, the reason I recommend a power bar is because most people aren't going to do cleans. I hate to say it. I wish more people would do cleans, but some people can't clean. And the amount of time necessary exceeds what the resources allow. So you don't need an Olympic weightlifting bar. So I guess let me back up. There's different types of bars. You have a power bar, which is a powerlifting bar, has markings that are 33 inches apart, which is the maximum legal distance

you can grip the bar in a bench press. Hence why it's a power bar for powerlifting. Powerlifting includes a squat, bench press, and deadlift uh the knurling is typically a bit more aggressive the diameter of the bar itself is about uh 29 28 28 and a half to 29 millimeters typically closer to 29 um and uh we have what seven inch sleeves on the end to put to put plates with two inch holes across them right yeah so they're yeah and the the loadable length on the sleeve is usually a little bit more i think it's longer than seven seven feet oh no it's seven feet it's seven feet i'm just talking about the sleeve itself you can put it on it'll have like yeah and actually actually i don't know i mean i think maybe you could load about the same amount

but the total bar length is seven feet yeah uh the other thing about the power bar is it's going to have, it's going to have a neural in the center of the bar where you would put it on your back in a squat. And that's, that's pretty important because, um, the other types of bars that you'll run into, like the all purpose bars and especially the weightlifting bars, like you might find at a CrossFit gym or an actual weightlifting gym, those generally do not have a center neural. And that can be a real annoyance if you're trying to squat and there's, it's just smooth in the part where you put it on your back. Yeah. You know, if you have any trouble with keeping the bar racked on your back, which a lot of people do, especially guys that are, you know,

not very flexible, then having a nice sharp neural that sticks to your shirt is really nice on the squat so yeah so that's that's another good reason for getting a power bar but um but there are other bars out there you know if um if that's not available to you like the weight lifting bar generally going to be it's going to look the same as a power bar except for it's not going to have the center knurl and it's might have a slightly different sleeve on the outside for loading. But importantly, it's going to feel different in your hands and on your back. When you have a decent amount of weight on there, a weightlifting bar that's designed for doing cleans,

snatches, jerks is going to have a pretty decent amount of flex and give to the bar that you really don't want on most of the lifts right it has it yeah it's basically going to whip on you and uh it's kind of hard i mean you'll you'll if you have ever watched weightlifting you can see it right when those guys rack a clean and they're sitting there in the clean position in the rack position of a clean you can see the bar just sitting there like or the weights just bouncing on the ends of the bar right it's just that's the whip right and what they're trying to do is they're trying to time it such that when they go for the jerk they time it so that the

weights are are rebounding upwards in time with the the jerk so that they're not moving against the whip of the bar so you get that momentum yeah you get a little extra momentum that's great and all but you can't really control that in a squat and what'll happen if you try to lift with a weightlifting bar and you're squatting you know anything over 315 maybe anything over 275 is that you'll hit the bottom of the hole and you'll try to drive up. And then if the bar's bouncing in the other direction, if it's going downwards while you're trying to drive up, it just throws your balance all off. And it's, it's really annoying. Yeah. With a weightlifting bar, you know, the, your, it's different purpose. Weightlifting bars typically, um, are either the same price as a power bar, slightly more expensive depending on the brand. Rogue has offered a lot of

cheaper alternatives than what bars used to cost. Typically, a good power bar was in the $600 to $800 range, and a good weightlifting bar was around $1,000. And a lot of that has come down over the years because there's more options now. So a power bar from Rogue, like the Ohio power bar, is about $300, you know, depending on which one you pick. The other factor to consider is where you live. If you're in a humid environment, like if you live in the South or the Midwest, and you have a lot of rain and humidity, you might want to get one that has a zinc oxide coating, it's usually another $25. And it's worth paying for because you're not going to get a bunch of rust. Down here in the Southwest, we can get away with a bare steel bar, and it's probably not going

to rust. Although my bare steel Ohio power bar, the very first bar one of the very first bars i bought when i was in la that one did rust in los angeles because there was enough humidity there to rust it out so it's a little bit lower maintenance to pay that extra money for that zinc oxide coating which you know gives you that black bar presentation um so consider that as well. Then two, if you are doing cleans and snatches, you're eventually going to want to have two bars. You know, you don't really want to deadlift with a weightlifting bar. Weightlifters do it, but they don't max out their deadlift. You know, you want a bar that's, you know, got a nice diameter that's stiff and it doesn't bend so that you're getting all of the range of motion and not adding steps to the lift,

like pulling a bunch of slack out of the bar that doesn't need to be there. But if you're going to be doing weightlifting movements, you typically want to get an Olympic weightlifting bar, not, you know, the Bella bar if you're a female lifter, all these, you know, stupid specialty bars that, you know, you can use it for everything. If you're going to be serious about weightlifting, you want to get an Olympic weightlifting bar. Like Trent said, the knurling is usually smooth or usually a smooth center there's no knurling in the middle or a very soft one like the expensive uh elico bar it's they got a soft knurling you can barely see in the middle and i think that's just more to gauge where to place it i don't know i don't see the value in

it but they have it on the center of the bar yeah and uh typically those are about 28 millimeters for males, for men's weightlifting, and then 25 millimeters for female weightlifting, for women's. Yeah, that sounds about right. Sounds about right. Yeah. And it's a lighter weight, too. The women's bar is going to be 15 kilos or roughly 33 pounds. And the men's bar is about 20 kilos or roughly 33 pounds. Um, and, uh, the men's bar is about four it's 20 kilos. So 44 pounds. So yeah, no, it's worth the money. You know, they, they've come down in price

somewhat. I'm looking right now, the road training bar, I believe is a weightlifting bar is 360. I remember having to pay 500 and I'm pretty sure it's the same damn bar. Oh, here's the Olympic, the Olympic weightlifting bar. The bright zinc is five60. I think the original one, what the heck, which one was it? I don't even remember. Now there's one that's IWF approved. I mean, there's so many damn bars. IWF approved only. That's bullshit, by the way.

If you're competing in an IWF. It's a racket. It's a total racket. It's like, oh, we'll put our stamp on it. And I guess I buy 540. It went down, then it went up. I guess it went down, it went up again. Everything's a total racket. It's like, oh, we'll put our stamp on it. And I guess I buy 540. It went down, then it went up. I guess it went down. It went up again.

Everything's gone up this year. But at one point, I saw it. It was under $500. When I bought it, it was 525. So, yeah, no, everything's up. But, no, a good weightlifting bar goes a long way. They have two options there. You have, you know, you can get bushings, which are fine.

Most bars have bushings that allow the sleeves to rotate. Or you can go with needle bearings. They're these little long, finger-like-looking bearings that surround the perimeter of the shaft so that the sleeves can rotate more smoothly. Needle bearing bars tend to be more expensive. I have them in my gym because I find they're easier to teach the Olympic lifts with because it makes things a little more intuitive. You get a little more spin rotation on the bar, and that's what you want when you're catching a clean jerk or snatch. You want that rotation. You don't want that when you're doing strength lifting or power lifting.

That's where a good power bar works, and that's why they've created all-purpose bars like the starting strength bar or the B&R bar. You can do both with it. Rip hates when I say this, but I can still feel it when I use one. But there's a little more flex in the bar. And physics would dictate that because it's a 28.5 millimeter bar versus my Ohio bar or Aliko bar, they're 29. I think the Aliko is 29. Yeah. We'll check that. But, you know, the diameter can influence how much the bar bends. Now, it's not bending like a deadlift bar or even a weightlifting bar, but enough for a guy who's, you know, pulling on a power bar all the time to notice. So it's just my own OCD. A lot of people use the starting strength bar and love it. So you're probably not going to

even know what the hell I'm talking about. So I'm not bashing the bar. It's just a personal preference thing. We get these little arguments. Nick Dugadillo got really pissed at me for saying that it whipped. And I'm like, well, I'm used to using a freaking power bar. And I will say that, so the starting strength bar is, gosh, I don't know when they started making that for starting strength. 2019, I think. 2019. So it's just out, it's only been out a couple of years, but yeah, that's made by Buddy Capps in Irving, Texas. And I'm familiar with some of his other bars, which are, they're all great. I really like the starting strength bar.

I really like the starting strength bar. But prior to that, generally in the starting strength realm, we would recommend the Rogue BNR 2.0 bar, which is another one of those like, you know, kind of all-purpose bars. And I've spent a lot of time training in the Rogue, the BNR 2.0 bar. So I'm very familiar with what it feels like. And I swear the starting strength bar, every time I use it is whippier than the 2.0 or than the BNR. I mean, so yeah, take that for what you will. But yeah, those are, those are great bars and you can really like you're you, this whole

flex thing. Don't, don't get too caught up in it. You're really not going to feel it until you get into the 400s on the deadlift. Probably not. Yeah. You mean you'll feel it's a tiny bit in the mid threes, let's say, but it's not, you're not going to feel a whole lot of flex and it's not a huge step at all between that and a typical power bar. If you are interested in competition, where they might be using something

like a Texas power bar or Ohio power bar or something. So it's pretty easy to do that. What you don't want to do is if, you know, if you don't really have any aspirations to do the Olympic lifts, and you know, maybe you might dabble with some power cleans or something. What you don't want to do is you just don't want to get a weightlifting bar at first because that's going to be tough to do the main strength lifts on. So just get yourself a power bar or get yourself one of these all-around bars like the starting strength bar, the BNR 2.0, and you'll be fine. You'll be fine.

And for God's sakes, do not do what, uh, Santana was warning against. Don't get the Amazon bar. I know it says it's rated for a thousand pounds, but that's a lie. That is a complete lie. That's complete bullshit. They're garbage. Yeah. Globo gym bars are garbage too. That's why everything feels heavier when you go from LA Fitness to my gym. Right. Those are usually your options. Weightlifting meets use these plates they call discs. So they look like bumpers. I don't know.

I never looked at what's inside of them. They're rubber coated, but they call them discs. You're not going to buy those. They're insanely expensive. I don't think any weightlifters are listening to me ramble, so you don't need to worry about those. So we'll just kind of limit our discussion to, you know, bumpers and, uh, and, uh, uh, cast iron. Then there's the holes. What were those plates called? Oh, it's in the book. And I can't remember the ones with the one inch holes. We don't want you to buy those, but they're called something. What are they called? Oh yeah. I believe those are called, uh, standard plates. Maybe. Yeah. I think those are called standard plates.

And then the two-inch plates are called Olympic plates. Standard plates have a one-inch hole. You don't want to use those, you know, just because you found them in Grandpa's, you know, attic, you know, collecting dust. And they were free. I mean, you're not going to go very far with that. What you want are Olympic plates. They have a two-inch hole. They're not going to go very far with that.

What you want are Olympic plates. They have a two-inch hole. They come, and then we have what's called standard iron versus milled cast iron. I think they're both cast iron. Yeah, they're both iron, but the difference is you'll find some that are cast in a mold, and then they come out of the mold, and they just do a do a real quick grind and then they paint them and that's it. You know, that's, that's, it weighs whatever it weighs coming out of that mold. And there's, there's a pretty high, you know, percent tolerance in either direction of the stated weight on the plate. So if you pick up a

cast 45 pound plate, for instance, it could weigh 41 pounds, it could weigh 47 pounds, or you might get lucky and it weighs 45 pounds, like it says on the bar, but it can actually, you know, it doesn't necessarily weigh exactly what it says on the label, but there are milled plates. They basically will grind it down. They take it out of the mold and they just grind it down until it's within a very tight spec of the stated weight and that's usually like two percent is is like the york legacy plates um they they used to guarantee like it's plus or minus two percent

from whatever the stated weight is and usually it's in practice and the ones that i've weighed personally at various gyms have been tighter than that. I think they're tighter. They just can't claim they're calibrated. Right. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. And then you have the other, that's a good point. You bring up, there is a third type of plate you'll run into, but these are crazy expensive, just like those Olympic plates, the weightlifting plates, discs. You will see powerlifting plates that are calibrated, which means they're like plus minus a few grams from the state of weight, which is completely irrelevant. It doesn't matter.

It's only there for competition. So don't worry about that. Unless you plan on hosting powerlifting meets, don't worry about it. Yeah, you don't need calibrated plates. My take on this, I'll see what you say. My take on this is milled plates sure are nice if you've got the money and you don't care, but they're completely unnecessary. Just go get some cast iron plates and weigh them, you know, spend an afternoon and weigh all the plates on your bathroom scale or whatever. And then, you know, if you've got any that are just way off spec, then mark them in some way so that you know, and then just set those aside for, you know, for later. You know, it's usually they're better than you think they are. And occasionally you just get unlucky and you'll get one or two that are just way off.

You know, standard iron isn't terrible. I used it when I first started lifting because that's what was available at most powerlifting gyms. They were typically 10 different brands, though, and it was a problem. But what I didn't like about cheap standard iron was that the holes were a little bit on the big side, typically, and it's just because of the way they're made. So they would tilt on the bar. You have all this tilting of the plates, and I really could not stand that. I don't see that as much with the milled plates. They tend to stand upright pretty fine. Have you noticed this with the cheap cast iron? Yeah. Yeah. That's a good point. So yeah, you're totally right.

With the cheaper cast iron plates, they make the hole sizing a little bit bigger so it fits on any bar. But the problem is it's going to slosh around especially on a deadlift when you've got let's say four plates stacked next to each other side to side and you're deadlifting 405 you set you know you might get it nice and tight on the first rep and they're all stacked together nice and then you pull it and you put it down and the shock of the plates hitting the floor because they don't fit tightly on the sleeve of the bar. They start to flop around and then you're just, they're kind of, you know, wiggling and wobbling. It's just kind of a trade off just, you know, yeah. It's, you know, you're paying a little bit more for milled.

It's not a ton more where you really start to see the price jump is when you go calibrated or Olympic weightlifting discs, those tend to be really expensive. But, uh, you know, I'd say milled is worth it uh in my opinion i really don't like standard iron for that number one reason alone i don't like my plates flopping around in the damn bar so that's just me sure sure then you got your rubber coated urethane plates that the globo gyms have don't don't get those they're junk oh those are terrible those are terrible don't get that especially They're junk. Oh, those are terrible. Those are terrible. Don't get that. Especially with the Octagon or whatever they are. It's like the, yeah.

Yeah, you don't want to get that shit. They're going to get all banged up too, dropping deadlifts, chipping the rubber off. And the iron gets exposed. Don't waste your money. Get yourself some. At the very least, get standard iron. If you're willing to spend the extra money, get the milled. I think it's worth it.

So, yeah, then we have fractional plates this is what i mandate everybody buy when they start working with me you have to buy this the first day and you can find those on amazon i've been recommending micro gains but there's other brands that they're maybe a little bit cheaper even but that one's just simple and i just send them to people but uh fractional plates are smaller plates than two and a half pounds which are typically the smallest cast iron plate that'll come in a set of cast iron and they come in one pound a half pound three quarter pound and a quarter pound and some of you might be laughing if you haven't used these before but believe me when the press gets heavy adding you know a couple pounds is normal you, for some guys to do a pound and a half.

Women, female lifters that I train, and they all go up by a pound on their bench press and their press when it gets heavy. It's just what happens. And that's normal. That is the rule, not the exception. Just because you have been accustomed to seeing a two and a half pound plate being the smallest plate in your commercial gym that you've also refused to use for most of your life because you're a big tough guy and pussies use two and a half pound plates.

This is the line of thinking in these gyms, by the way. I remember my cousin when I was like 10 years ago, he's like, oh, I started using the two and a half recently. And I'm like, dude, that's still, it's five pounds. Right. So anyways. the two and a half recently and i'm like dude that's still you know it's five pounds you know right so anyways uh you know yeah just get them just get them right away just go ahead and get them get them right that's right get them get them now because you're gonna need them sooner than you think if you wait you're not you're gonna have to wait around and then you're gonna have to just screw around flatlined and plateaued with your press until you get them in. So yeah, I totally agree. You have to get those right away. Even if you're training at a

commercial gym, you have to get those. You're going to add two to two and a half pounds on your bench press and about two pounds on your press, maybe one and a half. That's going to happen. You are not the special genetic freak that is going to go up five pounds to a big giant press. You're going to get stuck at 110 and then complain that your upper body is not getting stronger and your squat's going up. Well, you're trying to go up as fast on your shoulders as you are on your legs and back. It doesn't work that way. Just look at it for what, look at your line of reasoning there. My press should go up as fast as my squat. Do you realize how stupid that sounds?

How ridiculous that sounds? I mean, same with the bench press. Your bench press should go up as fast as your squat and deadlift. Think about that for a second. So you might be able to make those jumps for a couple of weeks. Sometimes maybe a little bit longer, but you're going to be going up by about two pounds on the bench press and the press. So live with it. It's life.

It's not going to go up as fast as your squat so fractional plates you absolutely need the other thing you absolutely have to buy right away are weightlifting shoes olympic weightlifting shoes not cross trainers not metcons yeah you know not fucking vibrams not wearing not bare feet you know or lifting in socks i mean you can do that on deadlift i have a confession. You have some five fingers. I don't have them anymore. I threw those away a long time ago, but I was that guy for a while lifting at the Globo gym in five fingers. I admit it.

I admit it. I was that guy. I was also a vegetarian at that time. It was dark days, my friend. Dark days. I didn't want to spend the money on them. I considered them because I knew I figured out that my running shoes were bullshit for squatting and doing all this other shit. And I wanted to be more stable when I was lifting, and I considered those. I didn't want to pay. But that said, we love to make fun of the Vibram FiveFingers, but Vibram soles are phenomenal if you are hiking and mountain climbing.

They are great for that. Yeah, they are good. Not the five fingers, their soles, because they make soles for other brands. A lot of brands use Vibram soles in their shoes if you're into mountaineering or hiking or climbing. Yeah, exactly, like the Keens and stuff. But yeah, get shoes. People argue all the time on the internet about this. I occasionally get updates from the Starting Strength Facebook group, the main Starting Strength Facebook group. And there are some Starting Strength coaches who moderate that group. Bless them. Bless them, by the way, but people argue with this. Like every two weeks they're like, yeah, I pull in chucks. It's just fine. I pull in, you know, it's like, we don't care. You're wrong. You are wrong.

Just get weightlifting shoes. And when you're pulling 500 pounds or more, then you can make up your own mind is what you want to pull them in. You know, if you, if you're, if you're pulling 650 and you're like, Hey, listen, I want to pull barefoot. Okay, fine, go for it. But if you're just starting out and you're pulling 135 or 225 or 365, then no, you have to wear thing, they're going to give you a lot of stability that no other shoe will, but they're also going to protect your foot. You know, if you happen to have like, you're going to bang into stuff, you're going to bang into the rack. You might have a plate that kind of falls a little awkwardly on your foot. I don't mean dropping it from like the head height down on your foot. Nothing's going to help you there, but you know, plates get knocked over whatever from time to time. If you have a nice sturdy weightlifting shoe, it's not going to help you there. But, you know, plates get knocked over or whatever from time to time. If you have a nice, sturdy weightlifting shoe, it's not going to beat up your foot.

If you're wearing these stupid chucks or barefoot, you're going to screw up your feet, you're going to bust your toe open, you're going to bleed on my platform, and I'm going to be pissed. Don't make us clean this shit up. Seriously. Yeah, come on. I'll be fair to some folks. And you should be pissed if you bleed on your platform. Fuck yeah. It's not easy to clean, especially when it gets on the bar. It's a whole other story. Yeah, right.

That's another thing I'm going to bring up next. But to be fair, once you start dead lifting after a while, you might not like the heel, and that's fine. And I pull in socks all the time. But the bar, the plates that are on the bar, how many feet away from feet away from my feet, you know, but don't do that right off the bat. Try it in shoes. Go as far as you can. And if you want to pull in socks, that's fine. But you shouldn't be squatting and pressing and benching in socks, you know.

You need shoes for that. Now, for the squat and the press, you should be wearing your Olympic weightlifting shoes because they provide stability. They give you more mobility around the ankle. They're great for squats and presses because you are standing with a weight on your back and a weight in your hands in front of you. So the standing aspect makes them very valuable. Now on a bench press, it's funny I just mentioned Vibram Soles. I like wearing my boots. My boots have Vibram Soles on them, but hiking boots are actually illegal in USA powerlifting. I don't know about other federations, but they're illegal in USA powerlifting. They're illegal in IPF. Fortunately, I don't compete in powerlifting, so I don't give a fuck.

I'm still going to, you know, I bench in my hiking boots and it's not cheating. That's silly. Just like a bar grip shirt is not cheating. That's another item that, you know, I'd recommend if you have a slick bench or if you're using the wooden bench, I think it's great, you know, but, you know, I like the bar grip shirts. I've tried them out. Again, it's like, it's not cheating. You know, I think that's silly. You know, I think it's silly that those two items are banned, but they are, but I like, I like a different type of shoe when I'm bench pressing. I don't like a weightlifting shoe when I'm bench pressing. A lot of people use a weightlifting shoe when they bench press because, you know, they don't want to change shoes. But I prefer something with traction, like a running

shoe, a trail running shoe, or a hiking boot because I feel more grip on the floor. I feel more contact with my feet and I can engage my quads more when I'm lying down on a bench. When you deadlift, it's a matter of personal preference. You do not want a running shoe or a hiking shoe or a trail running shoe when you're deadlifting. You want something that's stable. Stability is still the key there. You're standing, but now you're picking a bar up off the floor. The complaint with the weightlifting shoes is that it pitches people forward when it gets heavy. If that's a problem for you, then try it in flats. I have a deadlift shoe. The problem is I have a wide foot, so it's a pain in the ass to put on, and I don't want to deal with it half the time,

so I just deadlift in socks. Now they have deadlift slippers. The A7s are real nice. They're a little bit more expensive than the traditional ones, but when I was in the traditional ones, my feet were sliding around in them, so I don't like them. I want something that's snug, but not too tight. I hate chucks. I hate them across the board. I used to, I try to use them to deadlift. I hated them. My feet move around in them. Not an option. Yeah. The, the canvas, you know, topper, upper, whatever you call it on the shoe. I don't know my shoe terminology. Sorry. They're moccasins. Yeah. They're, yeah. It's terrible. Your foot slides around. And frankly, the, the soles on those are not as stiff as you think they are. Like they, they flex plenty. Um, and yeah, it's just, it's just not good. I had the metal deadlift shoe, which is nice, just too narrow.

A lot of my clients have the Sabos. They're a little bit cheaper than the metals. And apparently I've heard good things about those. Then, you know, there's the slippers. So you need shoes then. And I will say this. Like, you know, I've coached a lot of people on the deadlift. I will say this, like, you know, I've coached a lot of people on the deadlift and I have run into two people out of all of the hundreds and thousands of people I've coached

that actually legit needed to pull with a zero heel or basically a totally flat sole from the get-go. Okay. Two people that actually needed it. Every other person could pull just fine in shoes Right now i'm not talking about personal preference, but they could do it, right? There's two people that didn't and one of them is my wife just has really weird anthropometry on the deadlift If she wears shoes with any sort of heel It puts her hips above her shoulders. It's just an impossible place to deadlift So but but that's and I met one other one There's one other lady that I coached that I impossible place to deadlift. So, but that's, and I met one other, there's one other lady that I coached

that I had to do that with too, but that's it. So you're not a special snowflake. Just get some shoes. You'll still use them. Even if you decide not to use them on certain lifts later on, you'll still use them for years. Also, people complain about the cost on these.

You know, you may not realize this isn't a pair of running shoes. This is a pair of shoes that will last you at least five years. And running shoes can cost as much as these if you, you know, start shopping. Oh, yeah. I think I have a pair of $180 running shoes. Oh, sure. Absolutely.

So, you know, I usually tell people if you just need, if you're budget conscious, but you want a solid weightlifting shoe, get the Rogue Dewin. Same here. It's just rock solid, man. They are $100 all day long, every day. I think occasionally they go a little bit cheaper than that when they go on sale, but you can always get them for $100. I like the classic because I don't like the plastic heel. I like the classic with the stacked leather, personally.

Yeah, yeah. So they make a slightly more expensive, I think they're $130. They make a slightly more expensive version of the Dewin called the Classic, which it looks nice. It looks very classy. But you've got some other options. I personally lift a Nike Romalios.

I've got the Romalios 2, which are several years old now, but they're still going strong. I don't know what they're on now. The 4, I think. But those are really solid. Adidas makes the same thing. They call them Addy Powers. Those are their nice weightlifting shoe. And then there are some slightly cheaper options. Powerless. Just get the Dew-in it's reliable um yeah i i've spent a lot of money on shoes when i first started doing this just trying them all out uh i started with the addy powers and uh i don't know at some point i thought they were

i didn't like them i thought they were the heel was too steep um so i tried the romaleos and i sold them to my cousin immediately because I still felt even steeper on those. Then what else did I try? I think I tried the Powerlift 1.0s, which weren't bad. I just didn't like the foam or the whatever cheap heel that they moved to. And then I finally, then I found out about the Asics 727 Tigers. They've been making them the same way for 50 years now and the problem is you can only get them in japan so i have to buy them through a third party and pay more money so i ended up paying 275 for those back in 2015 and then if you try to buy them now from that

same reseller uh he's charging 330 and he told me that had to do with the conversion from to the dollar or whatever so uh i've since learned that you can buy them on ebay and sites like that for lower 200s but they're more expensive because they're limited quantity they only sell them in the japanese market and they only go up to what's equivalent to a site 10 10 and a half i think apparently if you wanted to get a bigger size you have have to be able to order them in Japan. And they go up to like $600 for a custom order, which is crazy. But the only thing I don't like about them is that the heel's not wedged. There's a gap between the front of the shoe and the back of the shoe. So there's a gap between the heel and the forefoot.

Oh, interesting. They used to make shoes like that back in the day. Ripsaw, you're going to mess up your foot. I mean, knock on wood, that still hasn't happened yet. But, you know, I wish that it was. Yeah, so is it more flexible as a result? I could certainly feel, I could feel some of that, you know, if you use that word. Yeah, I definitely could feel some of that.

I love it because I could feel the middle of my foot much better than these newer type shoes. You know, it's just me. So I've just just i've worn them for years uh i probably will get a new pair soon because i've let them sit in my car when i had a prius and the arizona sun so they faded out they're all fucked up you know i didn't take good care of them yeah you know i might get another pair soon here um i could see if you're like a split snatcher that might be nice to have a little bit more flexibility in the sole, but still have the solid heel.

And that might have been the argument for that design. Yeah. Interesting. I love them. I fell in love with them right away. They fixed a lot of my form. I had a couple other clients that forked up the cash and bought them and reported the same thing.

Their technique improved immediately. So they're good shoes. I think everybody's experience in a pair of shoes is different so for some people these are good shoes are just very expensive and i don't recommend them to newbies because you may not stick with this long enough to justify it like i just said i'm getting ready to buy another pair but uh i wouldn't have to if i'd taken better care of them this is you know shame on me i deserve to fucking pay twice but uh i'm probably gonna try and shop them this time and see if I can get them for less than $300.

And hopefully I won't have to replace them again. I get really jealous when my buddy James comes into the gym and he has his. And they're all like, they look brand new and we bought them at the same time. They're suede. So the suede, you know, faded out with the sun. So they're really like light blue. And then some of the, I think I've walked outside in the parking lot to take calls before. So like the heels all chipped up, you know faded out with the sun so they're really like light blue and then some of the i think i've walked outside in the parking lot to take calls before so like the heels all chipped up you know right right they still work just fine but i'm gonna probably replace them and you know

keep the old ones laying around but yeah so that's shoes uh then i mentioned bar grip shirts so a7 makes these shirts called bar grip shirts they have a grip on the back this rubber coating on the back of the T-shirt. It was originally designed for squats. I don't really need it for squats, but some guys struggle keeping the bar from rolling on their back, and this might help. Yep. For me, I love it on bench, and I even love it more if you're using the starting strength bench, which is a wooden bench. Because the problem with a wooden bench is the pro is that it's non-compressible. So you have a stable surface that you're setting up on.

The con is that because it's wood, you slide, right? Or you have a tendency to slide. Now, if you're wearing a bar grip shirt, you're not sliding anywhere. So now you're getting the best of both worlds, right? You're glued to the bench, and then you have a non-compressible surface that you're forming your arch on. I wish it was a little wider, personally, so I don't use the wood bench that much. If I can, you know, maybe get a 4x10 or a 4x8 piece of wood and replicate it that way so I have a little more surface area for my shoulders, I might revisit that. But either way, you don't need a bar grip shirt. I like it because it reduces sliding.

But it's another nice little item, kind of like the adjustable monolift. I think anybody who's going to run their bench up and max out in their garage and do several hundred pounds should probably get an adjustable monolift for self-assisted liftoff. Yeah, for sure. It's one of those things that you should eventually buy at some point. And after using it myself, I'll never go back. I got to get one now. I've used one a couple of times. You should definitely have one yeah i'm like i said i'm pretty lucky my my wife does a good job she i get the same handoff just about every time and i know that you know we have we communicate well in that but yeah it's still not it's still better you remove humans yeah yeah for sure um yeah those bar grip shirts are great especially if you're you know one of these people that has a very kyphotic on their back and, you know, you're just naturally very hunched over, you know, I'm sorry,

nothing's going to change that. Um, so, you know, some people just need a little extra help keeping that bar from sliding around. So that's great. We didn't talk about benches. We skipped over benches. I just realized that when I was talking about the bar grip shirt. Yeah. So let's, let's, let's round out kind of the equipment side besides the personal equipment. I think that, you know, I'll say one thing. I think in terms of personal equipment for lifting, the shoes are the only must-have. And the fractional plates. And the fractional plates.

That's right. Yeah. And the fractional plates. Now, I highly recommend a weightlifting belt as well, but you don't need one. You don't strictly need one. But we're going to get to that in just a second. Let's kind of round out the sort of the big equipment side of the picture, though. Okay, so we've got to have a barbell.

We told you some stuff you can look for there. You need a rack. You need plates. You need a couple of other things, though. You're going to need a bench for doing the bench press and you're going to need a platform to put all this stuff on top of. So let's kind of hit those and we'll get to the rest of the personal equipment that you, you know, that might be a little bit more optional. So what do you, I mean, you know,

I'm not really, I haven't tried a whole lot of benches. I just have the Rogue flat bench. Same here. And I've lifted on, at Rip's gym in Wichita Falls, he's got some like, I don't even know what they are. I think they're custom made. There's just these steel benches that have padding and like car upholstery on them. Oh, I love that. And I've benched on those. Those are great. But I don't really have a lot of experience with other benches. I've benched on those. Those are great. But I don't really have a lot of experience with other benches. Yeah, I like the Rogue bench.

It's affordable. It's good. You want something that's reasonably wide but not too wide. I don't like the fat pad personally. There are guys that just love it. There's a bench called the Fat Pad that Rogue sells, and it's really wide, and it covers my entire back. And I don't like it. I like to have a little bit of overhang on the edge, but not a lot.

So that's the problem. So I like the starting strength bench and the idea of it because it's non-compressible. And when I was real skinny, it was great. Then I started gaining weight and putting muscle on and then my shoulders got wider and then I started hanging off the edge. Now, Rip has some guys much bigger than me benching on that.

Chase Lindley is one of them because I believe they have wooden benches at the franchises as well. So, you know, I'm sure that maybe I need to just ride it out. I don't know because there are guys much bigger than me that use them. But I noticed that when I went from skinny to not skinny, I started hating it. So I'd like a little bit more with it. But I think the Rogue bench is probably just fine. Yeah. Yeah, It's pretty solid.

And you don't need the incline and decline. It's like $500 and $900. You don't need to do that. Yeah. That's what I was going to say. I think the major thing, the major point here is that you don't need the adjustable bench. Yeah. Just get a flat bench because down the road, if you do really want to include some like incline benches, you know, first of all, there's some ways to do sort of a ghetto incline bench with just your flat bench. You know, you can, you can use another barbell to prop it up. You can prop it up on a heavy box that can be loaded and, uh, it ain't perfect, but I get the job done and, uh, you know, adjustable benches, they're just too expensive and they don't have the same good consistent feel on the bench when you're just trying to do the regular bench press that a flat bench does. So a lot of people I know have recommended the rep fitness bench. I don't have any personal experience with it, so I can't tell you about it. I just know that there's other coaches who I've heard say they really like that one.

I just know that there's other coaches who I've heard say they really like that one. No, just need a simple flat utility bench. That's what the rogue ones called, and it's sufficient. You don't need the adjustments. By the time you need the adjustments, you've decided that, you know, you're bored and you want to do some bullshit, and you can go spend money on those adjustments or luxuries. You don't have to do decline. You don't have to do incline.

At that point, you know, you want to bro out. You know, some people buy dumbbells, you know, you don't need those either. Or power blocks. Yeah, power blocks. Well, you need those. We all need those. Up to 200 pounds. Yeah, I'm sorry. I'm sorry. Up to 200 pounds. That's a need. Especially up to 200 pounds. I got to really emphasize that. Two grand. Yes. I wonder what they cost now. I'll look them up later. But so what will we cover? We covered squat rack, covered bar, plates, and a bench bench that's what you need uh typically a good setup for a male lifter um planning to pull you know 315 or 405 is probably going to cost around 2500 to three grand i don't know what the hell all this equipment costs now but back in the day you can get enough plates and weight and get enough plates a rack a bar and a bench uh to do that You know, then you don't need to stand for the plates.

You don't need to get that right away. I've had people that just set them aside in the beginning, you know, and then bought the accessories later. So, you know, a weight – Sure, yeah. A weight – a plate stand. Like a tree or some kind. Yeah, a plate tree.

I got mine custom. So I reached out to Texas Strength Systems, and this was a really good investment on my part. I'm glad I did it. My gym has all of these trees now. So Ripito's starting strength plate tree is great in terms of the design because it has one inch pegs and one inch pegs are great because you can just pull the plates right off. When you have a two inch peg, you can only pull the last plate right off. So you have to fill like five or six plates on each side. I think it's actually more like four or five on a traditional tree because it's usually a shorter peg too. And then you pull the first

one off. You might pull a second one off. Then it gets caught in the fucking, in the peg and you have to like bend over and use two arms. With the one-inch peg, you could pull it off with one hand from the very back, you know. So you could pull the very last plate off, slide it right off. I love it. So I called up the welder. His name's Wes over at Texas Strength Systems. And I'm like, can you make a taller one with a third peg on one side? Because Rip's version has two pegs on each side and then a center peg at the bottom, I think. I want to say, yeah.

And then it has the starting strength branding. So he compromised another center peg further up to put his branding there. And I talked to him about it because the older ones at his gym have two. So he's like, just call Wes and see if he'll make what you want. So I had him make what I want. So he added some height to it, made it taller, and he put three pegs on one side and two pegs on the other side. And then two pegs at the bottom, one peg at the top. In retrospect, I didn't really need two pegs at the bottom.

That was, you know, I'm like, oh, I'll put the 1.25s on one and the fractionals on the other. Well, there's just a mess of plates down there. I need to make something else for the fractionals. But it was an experiment. But, you know, for the average person, one peg at the top, one peg at the bottom, and then three and two. Why three and two? Because on the side that has three, you're going to put a five, a 10, and then the 45s at the bottom. And then the side that has two, you're going to do the 25s and the 45s. And the center peg is where you're going to

place the fractional plates, right? Or the 1.25s. And then the other peg is where you'll put your two and a halves, right? And I think I paid around $200 for that. And, you know, I bought. Oh, that's good. Yeah, I bought, what, one, two, three, four, five, six of them for the gym. I think I would love to buy. I think I'd like to buy one more for the leg press. Actually, the leg press has plate storage on it. I forgot.

I finally bolted down the leg press and attached the plate storage. So, no, we don't need that anymore. So, I actually don't need another one. But, you know, you could get something cheap and, you know, on Amazon and get by for a while, but, uh, I highly recommend trying to go the route I went. I think they'll, I think he'll still make it for you. It's not that hard. You have to pay a little bit more for the extra height and the extra bar for the peg, but you're looking at about a couple hundred dollars and I think it's worth it. It'll last a lifetime. Um, it's well

done. If you know a welder that can do it, you know you can reach out and i can give you the specs uh as well i don't have them in front of me but yeah that's the other thing you'll need an accessory to hold that because it'll get old leaning plates against the wall and picking them up off the floor so you'll plan on getting that um yeah other than that though you don't really need anything else a platform do we talk about platforms yeah Yeah. Yeah, we talked about that. Yeah, we did talk about that. Well, we need it. Well, no, we need to talk about platforms.

Well, we said we can bolt it down or we can get a platform to place the rack on or not. And I recommended, yeah, I think you should. Typically, this depends on space. So ideally, you want to get an 8x eight platform. And I'll explain why that dimension in a second. With either two layers of three quarter inch, four by eight plywood, or three layers, two layers or three layers. Some guys use two, some guys use three. I like three, I like the extra height and I have the room. My girlfriend has three, she has the extra height in her garage, she has the room. Some people don't have that height the extra height in her garage. She has the room.

Some people don't have that height in some of these older buildings, you know, so you might only be able to use two, but at least two is the minimum. And when you're making an eight by eight, you're going to cross these sheets of plywood. You'll put two side to side, then you'll cross them with two more side to side, and then you might cross them with two more if you do three. Then you bolt it down with, i use deck screws to do that and then on the top i'll put i'll get some horse stall mats now this is where it gets tricky and you might have to do some cutting and this is the part everybody hates cutting the damn mats i went a little more expensive way and i got some specialty four by eight rubber mats and just put both on top and called it a day uh oh there you go now you have

to pay double for those typically four by six i don't know what rubber costs now that's probably high too but in 2019 pre-covid i paid i think 40 for a four by six uh rubber mat then i found out about the four by eights and those were because i had to get them shipped and all this other bullshit i think i paid like 75 or or $100 for the 4x8. And I only bought that for the one rack in my gym. I just had three layers of plywood, and they had like a T-shape, so there was a little square inside the rack and then a long plywood stack outside the rack, and I threw the 4x8 rubber on top.

Because I didn't want seams on my starting strength rack. I'm like, this is, this, I have that rack in the middle of all the racks. And then I have, that's like all the other racks have a four by six mat. Then, uh, what is it? A two by, um, four, uh, piece of rubber at the end. So you'll see the seam, but that one doesn't have a seam. Ah, nice. Yeah. That's great. That's great. Yeah. Yeah. So mine is the typical, yeah, I just, you basically take, so the, you know, there's, there's a lot of ways to finish out the top layer of, of the platform and it really doesn't matter to a whole lot. You know, I, I prefer to have a piece of wood on the middle. That's just, just my personal preference. So I've, I got a

nice top sheet of hardwood. You can just use whatever you can use OSB if you want to for the bottom sheets of plywood. But, um, I got a nice hardwood, uh, I think it's Oak. You could use maple. That'd be a good one too for the very top sheet. And I have that centered in the middle. And then on the sides of it, you've got a two foot kind of stripe on either side of it, and that's where I put the rubber mats. But, yeah, I had to use two 4x6 rubber mats that you then cut in half lengthways, and then you have a little square remainder on the ends. I was not going to do that shit. I got lucky. My neighbor at the gym, he makes furniture, so he has a wood shop, and I used his fucking table saw to cut all those mats.

Oh, look at that. Yeah, perfect. A panel saw. That's what it was. A panel saw. Panel saw. Oh, nice. Yeah. See, I did it with like an exacto knife. Fuck that. I did one like that. And I was like, hey, guy, I went next door. I'm like, how much would you charge me to use your guys? And he's like, just pay for their hourly. And then I'm like, all right, no problem. I think it was like 20 or 25 bucks an hour. And they got done in an hour. I think what, seven platforms, two of them were full-size Olympic. Those were more tricky because I put the sheet, the wood sheet in the center and the rubber on the sides. But because they were all four by

six mats, I didn't have anything that was eight feet long. So they had to cut little weird fucking shapes to get those side rubber panels around the wood in the center. Yeah, yeah. But back to why I said 8x8. So 8x8, you could bolt down your power rack on top of the platform. That's the whole idea there. Yes. And then you have to do some cutting. So my friend Audrey did this in L.A.

She's in Orange County now, so she has a garage gym, and she had to cut squares around the uprights to bolt that down into the area that she wanted to dedicate for the rack. So that's the nice thing. Since most people have a tension slab garage these days, I know that not everybody does, but they're super common in construction. You can't bolt down your garage concrete. So you want to check for that for sure if you're putting this in your garage. See if you have a tension slab.

Usually it's written somewhere. I've seen that engraved into the this in your garage. See if you have a tension slab. Usually it's written somewhere. I've seen that engraved into the garage in some places. Oh, okay. Yeah, yeah. But if you have a tension slab, you're going to hit that rebar if you try to anchor it down. So you don't want to do that. If you don't have a tension slab garage, you can anchor it down just fine. You just need to get a roto drill and a long enough bit.

Typically, those slabs are about, I think, three inches deep. I think four is more rare, but I found that out with mine. My gym was built in 1973, the building I'm renting, and I used a four-inch drill bit, and I drilled down to the concrete, and then I broke through the slab. No big deal, though. So, yeah, so I did that. Then you've got to get concrete anchors, which, you know,

for those of you who don't know these terms, they look like a big giant screw that are very heavily threaded so that it anchors literally whatever you're bolting down into the concrete. And then you just put that in with an impact wrench. And an impact wrench looks like a drill that you put sockets on, essentially, but it has a lot of torque, so it can go through the concrete just fine. Wired tends to be better than battery-powered. I've done it both ways. The battery-powered one that I use had 1,200 foot-pounds of torque.

It was a DeWalt battery-powered impact, but I was constantly changing the batteries. Yeah, just burning that thing out. My buddy who does construction, he started training at my gym last year, and then a few weeks ago before Christmas, I'm like, Hey, dude, let's bolt down this leg press. Do you have an impact wrench? And he's like, yeah, I got one that plugs in. He plugs it in.

It just goes down, down, down, down, down. We were done quick, you know, so. There you go. That's how you would do that. But if you have a tension slab driveway in your garage, then you definitely don't want to be bolting down to that. Yeah. And, you know, you might run into, you know, in some parts of the world, you might run into a pretty heavy slope in your garage. So I live in East Tennessee, we get a ton of rain here and we have, you know, it's possible for your house to flood,

especially your basement. So most garages around here have a pretty steep slope towards the garage door in case water gets in. And they do that here too, which is silly, but it's just, you know. So if you look at my platform, I had to, I took my platform when we moved, I took it apart because I use screws to screw all the pieces of plywood together. And I screwed the mats onto the plywood. I didn't use any glue on it because I knew that someday I was going to move and I wanted to be able to take it apart. If you glue it, you're kind of screwed there. And so I took the whole thing apart and I moved it with all of our stuff when we moved out here to Tennessee and put it back together. And I realized that I've had a

massive slope in my garage. So I had to shim one end of it up two and a half inches. It's a pretty big shim. Wow, that's a pretty big shim. And, you know, and it works great. We won't go into, like, how to shim the platform. You know, that's beside the point. But the other way you can do this, if you don't want to bolt something down in the concrete, is you can get lag screws.

And if you have a rogue style platform, or I'm sorry, a rogue style rack that has, you know, three or four screw holes in the bottom on the feet, then you can just take a lag screw, drill down into the platform and then drill that and then screw that lag screw in. And that does a pretty good job. So it's basically the, the, the rack is anchored only to the platform. It's not anchored to the floor. But the platform is so heavy, especially with three sheets of plywood on it. And, man, that thing's just not going anywhere. It's really, really stable.

It's freaking heavy, man. So, yeah, I think that covers the heavy equipment you need. So that's basically you need a rack, a bench, a plate, barbell, platform, you know, rubber, and then eventually a plate tree. That's your major pieces of equipment. And then as you do this for a while, if you get strong enough to get scared of the weight, well, I shouldn't even say that because people get scared of weight that's not heavy all the time. But if you get strong enough to where you've been doing this for about a year and you still want to keep getting stronger and your bench press is, you know, well over body weight, you should get an adjustable monolift next, you know, and then maybe a bar grip shirt and, you know, things like that, definitely. And

then a weight belt, you know, if you're squatting over double body weight, you might want to get a weight belt. I'm still a fan of best belts because it's still run by two people and he puts a lot of passion into that damn belt. You have to wait a couple months for it. It's by two people. And he puts a lot of passion into that damn belt. You have to wait a couple months for it. It's worth the wait. That's why I tell my novices, I'm like, just get it right away because by the time you need it, it'll be coming in the mail, you know? Yeah, yeah. I've had my best belt since 2013.

That's great. I want a best belt. You know, my belt that I have is fine. You know, I've used it for years, but, yeah, I still need to get a best belts. I just need to go order one. I really like him too. Just do it today, man. Yeah. I'm going to do it when we, when we log off here. He's not a young man anymore. Right. Yeah, that's true. So, um, yeah, so, so to be clear, you know, with the weightlifting belt, um, I, I highly, highly recommend that all of my clients get one. But I do recognize that there are people

who have never lifted with a weightlifting belt and they do just fine. So it's, you know, you don't strictly need one, but I put this in the category of like, it's almost as important as shoes because most people are going to benefit from having that belt. Oh yeah.

And it's another one of those things where it's like, it's all right, look, you're going to spend 100 to 150 bucks, somewhere in that range. And it's another one of those things where it's like, it's all right, look, you're going to spend 100 to 150 bucks somewhere in that range. And it's going to last. It's not it's gonna last more than five years. It's gonna last your entire lifting career. Oh, yeah. Right. It'll last forever. You know, you'll be able to give it to your grandkids if you really want to. So just go ahead and get the belt. It's cheap. The thing is, all this stuff is a big upfront expense. And I recognize that's a barrier for some people. But all of this stuff is stuff that if you just take care of it, just a little bit, it's going to last for a long, long time. And there's not much stuff. Yeah. I mean, we're talking about in 30 years, that $300 barbell that you spent money on that you were like, I don't know, in 30 years, it's still going to be a great barbell. There's not many things that you can buy nowadays

where you can say that. So yeah, get yourself a belt. Best Belts is great. Dominion Belts is really popular and those guys are good. I don't know about nowadays, but Dominion has always been popular because they make a great belt. It's very high quality, but they also, they, they tend to ship out really fast. It used to be, they would ship out within two weeks, you know, on the dot and most, most belt places you're going to take a couple months. There's small operations, you know, or they, or they just are slammed with, um, with demand. So that's a good one. I have a Pioneer belt, which is fine. You know, it does the job. It's not my favorite, but it's fine.

And I'm so used to it. I just kind of, I just have stayed with it because it's what I know. Oh dude, you'll love the prime cut. But yeah, that's great. The only thing that Pioneer does really that, here's what I don't like about it. It doesn't have center stitching.

So the belts, if you look at a weightlifting belt, you've got stitches in the outside and you've got a stitch down the middle, typically, of the belt. And the Pioneer belts, they don't. They only have stitching on the outside. Not a huge deal, but it's a little bit more flexible than a good best belt or Dominion belt,

but they have one cool thing. There's one killer feature now, and mine is not like this, but you can get one now called the Pioneer Cut. Have you seen this? No, I haven't. So, okay. So this is pretty cool. So the Pioneer Cut, instead of having holes that are straight across the belt,

they have two rows of holes. Oh, geez. So you've got one row that's, and they're all one inch on center, right? So you've got one row of holes that's one inch on center, and then just underneath it, you've got another row of holes that are one inch on center.

So two prong. And they're, nope, nope, one prong, but they're slightly staggered, so you get half inch hole spacing, effectively. So if you really, like, so you know, some guys like to use the squat, you know, some guys like to like to use the squat, you know, for the squat, they'll set their belt a little bit tighter than the deadlift. Um, it's pretty nice. Cause you can get like, just, it's not a lot looser, you know, it's just

a little bit looser, whatever. I mean, this is really just nerd stuff, but, um, it's, it's kind of cool. It's kind of cool, but, um, yeah, just get a belt, get a belt. The only thing you don't want with a belt is you don't want one of those bodybuilder belts oh yeah that's like really wide in the back and and thin in the front yeah that's not it's not really helpful you want one that's your name on it this right marker sharpie just get one that's straight across three inch four inch it doesn't matter as much as as you think it does you know people argue about this but i'm not a super long-waisted guy and i use a four inch belt it's fine if you're super short-waisted get a three inch belt well i use a four inch i'm a long wasted guy uh yeah i like the i like 13 millimeter belts because so best has their athlete and their

prime cut their athletes 10 millimeters you know most people do just fine with that i for me i think it's too flexible i prefer the 13 millimeter prime cut uh in his description he says that is reserved for guys squatting over 500 i i don't buy that i have plenty of all my female lifters use it everybody loves it it's real stiff be great if he made you like like, send a video. It's like, I don't know. I can't sell this to you until I see some proof here. I like it, but I guess some people don't like that stiffness, so it's a preference thing. I don't think it's as stiff as, like, these powerlifting belts, like the Enzer, I think. It's really stiff, apparently.

Oh, yeah. It's not quite that bad, but it's just got just the right amount of stiffness, and I like it a lot. It's called the Prime Cut, and also, I like single prong. And the reason I like single prong is because double prong, you're going to have a situation where one goes in, the other one doesn't. It doesn't slide on like a glove, in my opinion. So I recommend getting a single prong belt. But if you like having the two-prong belt, get the two-prong belt. But remember, that's another step and annoying step you know my opinion yeah so yeah then there's wrist wraps too i mean i used them before i don't

need more i mean they're helpful if you get wrist pain i like the the new ones i think are shorter but i have what were those slingshot ones the uh Gangsta Wraps? Gangsta Wraps. Yeah. I like them. They used to make them in camo. I haven't looked on their web. I haven't bought anything from Mark Bell in years. But I liked the Gangsta Wraps because they were long, and then they had a little bit of stiffness, but they were still flexible. I used the Titan Gold before that, and those were real stiff, but I needed a little bit more flex than that. And those were real stiff, but not reflect. I needed a little bit more flex than

that. Um, so, you know, that's something else you can play with later on as your bench press gets heavy. Typically if you're benching, squatting over body weight and, you know, dead lifting double, that's when all this other stuff might matter, you know? Yeah. And it's really, it's really, this stuff is, um, that we're talking about now. It's just for a more comfortable ride. It's not going to make a huge difference per se, but it does make the lift feel better or feel more secure. So, you know, that means something for sure. It'll make you execute better if you're, you know. Yeah. But you're not, absolutely not allowed to squat out of a fucking monolift. That's just unacceptable. Yeah. Yeah. Walk out your squats. You walk out your squat. You can bench with an adjustable monolift because ideally you want to

remove humans from the equation. So, you know, everybody universally supports this, but you don't squat out of a monolift. You have to walk it out. You walk out your damn squats. Do not squat out of a monolift. But I almost forgot the damn deadlift jack you should definitely get one of those oh the deadlift jack yeah that's that's a good one so um yeah the i don't have a deadlift jack right now but uh i have had a full-size deadlift jack in the past and it's pretty sweet it's pretty awesome i mean it has a big footprint that's the complaint i always hear but But, you know, it's just, it's so easy. Literally, the thing scoops the bar up, and then you can load the plates on each side and set the bar back down. Now, they have smaller ones to do one side at a time. I'm not going to do that. I'd rather just take up the space. But for some people, you know, space use is more important, so they'll get the

smaller one. But it's my favorite piece of equipment in my gym. The second favorite piece, I have two of them actually, and I put them on the large weightlifting platforms. My second favorite piece of equipment in my gym would be the adjustable monolift that I keep going on about. Oh, yes, the deadlift jack wins though. Deadlift jack wins for sure because loading and unloading plates when the bar is stuck to the floor, you're going to bend, you're inevitably going to bend in an awkward position and you're probably, you might, you're probably putting yourself at risk too when you start loading and unloading it inefficiently like that. A lot of people get away with it. You know, I did, you know, it doesn't mean that it won't

happen, but it always felt awkward and sketchy. You know, I always had that in the back of my mind. I'm like, I think you're just being a pussy there. Probably. I don't give a fuck though. Yeah, no, the deadlift jack is sweet. No, it's great. That's, I mean, I think you're just being a pussy there. Probably. I don't give a fuck, though. Yeah, no, the deadlift jack is sweet. It's great. I mean, I think loading and unloading the plates is part of the workout, but I agree with you. It's awkward. It's a pain, yeah.

Oh, it sucks. It sucks. Yeah, the deadlift jack is sweet. I agree with you. Hey, I have a loadable Atlas stone at my gym. That's awkward, and I do it. You know, it's fun. It's not mine.

My member brought it in, but at the end of every workout, we all try to do it, and I can get it up just fine. It's 185 pounds. So I'm all for lifting stuff that's awkward, but fuck loading that bar when it's stuck to the floor. I'm not going to do it. I'm done with that. I've been done with that for 10 years or like seven years. Yeah, no, I don't blame you at all. The deadlift jack's really nice. If you're going to get a jack, get the full-size jack. If you just can't fit it in your... Like, don't get the mini jacks, right? I hate them. Rips isn't bad, but I hate them.

Yeah, I've had the little Rogue mini jacks before, and they do what they say just fine, but you've got to get it just on the right spot of the bar, and people who are not used to using it often will put it in the wrong spot on the bar and it doesn't work. And it's not really that convenient. But if you don't have the space for it, if you're really crammed for space, you're probably going to be able to fit a full-size deadlift jack in your gym. So what I would get is, it's really cheap.

You can get this little orange little, I don't even know what they call it, but on, on, on Rogue, you can get a little deadlift. It's not a jack. It's sort of like a little rubber wedge, the dead wedge. That's what they call it. And, uh, it'll fit in your, your little gym bag or whatever. And you basically just roll the inner plate of a deadlift up on top of it. And it gives you enough height to pull it off. That thing's pretty, that thing's actually pretty useful. If you're in a really small space, like when I was in my 10 foot by 10 foot bedroom, um, that was pretty useful. But yeah, if you, if you're going to get a Jack, Jack, then get the full size. And get the Rogue. I've used other brands or garbage. Okay. Yeah. I remember I had these two cheap ones at this gym I was at and the bar would

tilt on one side when I'd take the plates off. Oh, God, I fucking hate that. Oh, yeah. The Rogue one doesn't really do that. You have to have a lot of plates on one side for that to happen. I think we've beaten the hell out of this topic. Yeah, I think so, too. You know, we can nerd out about all sorts of stuff.

You know, we love barbells. You know, if you get into this in any depth at all, you're going to have more than one. So hopefully today- You're going to find excuses to buy shit. Yeah, that's right. That's right. So maybe we'll do another episode down the road where we talk about sort of our favorites or stuff that may be a little off the beaten path. But this is the basics of what you need and some suggestions of what to look for and some considerations when you're kind of planning your home setup. I'm telling you, the home gym is one of the best things you can possibly

do for your training, unless you are very lucky and you've got a great gym like, you know, Santana's gym, unless you just happen to live next to one of those, which not a lot of people do. The home gym is the best thing that you can do. It's, it's just, it's such, it's, you think about the logistics of over your life, you know, what are you actually going to do? We talked about the consistency thing, you know, if you're going to be consistent with your training, your life is going to go through ups and downs of, you know, being busy, being less busy. And if you're having to drive 20 minutes or 30 minutes, even to a gym, hell, even if it's just 10 minutes to a public gym, um, that's going to add up to more sessions missed because you're just not, you know, you're not, you're not making it. It's hard. It's one more

little barrier for you to go to your training. When you have the home gym, none of that is the case, right? None of that is the case. It's all there. You never have to wait on your squat rack. There's never some bro curling, you know, 25 pounds in the middle of your squat rack. It's all yours. And you can play whatever music you want. I may actually move my combo rack to my garage so I have something to use. The combo rack is what is used for competitions. So mine doesn't get any use at the gym, neither do the kilo plates, as a matter of fact. So I may start storing this stuff at home so I can just have something to train with and not have to spend more money.

Yeah, right. I've considered that. You could be one of those people on Instagram that, like, posts all of their training in kilos. Yeah, unfortunately, no. It's kind of douchey. They're like, oh, yeah, I squatted 175 today. I only need the fourth day for upper body, so I don't know what I'm going to do there because, man. But, yeah, no, a home gym is great.

It's even good if you're at a good gym because if you're in a pinch, you know, you can train at home and then go back to the gym. I have people that do that at my gym. Yeah, yeah, absolutely. But yeah, this might be boring for some of you who, you know, have been doing this a while. For those who just started listening, it could be useful. But this is, we thought this was important because occasionally we get people that will list their equipment on their questionnaire when they sign up for training. And, you know, eight-pound dumbbells, TRX bands, and treadmill maybe. And that's it.

I look at this and I'm like, well, I can coach you on exercise. Right. Yeah. Yeah. If you're trying to change the way your physique looks, you're going to need a little bit more than that. Yeah, yeah. for reasons we explained at the beginning. You know, dumbbells get too big and, you know, awkward and difficult to maneuver into the start position. Kettlebells do the same thing. Machines have a large footprint and are very expensive. In fact, dumbbells, machines, and kettlebells

are more expensive than barbell equipment when you do it by the pound in terms of the weights, you know? Oh, yeah. So, you know, a barbell, a rack, a bench, bench platform all that stuff like i said 2500 bucks that's one machine a lat pull down is 3200 at rogue that's what i bought for the gym but you know you can get you can get them cheaper but a plate loaded lat pull down is i think the rogue one's 3200 their leg press is five grand i mean you can go to a cheaper brand and cut these in half but still you're looking at, let's say you find one for $1,500. Let's say you find a leg press for $2,000, right? You're still over what we just described,

you know? Yeah. Yeah. So if your goal is to build muscle and, you know, get stronger and move better, there's a million reasons that we've went over in previous episodes, including this one, as to why the barbell is probably the best way to do that. But in addition to, it's affordable and you can incrementally load it, you know, for a very long time for reasons we described. So yeah, you know, if you're going to do the home gym thing, you're going to have to spend some money. And, you know, this is probably the most economical way to do it. And it's also the most effective way to train. So who doesn't want to, you know, get the most bang for their buck, right? You know, not spend too much money and get a whole lot of result, right? Isn't that what we want to do?

Isn't that the ROI we want? That's what I'm here for. That's what I'm here for. And it works pretty well. It works well for me. So, yeah. So enough about that. You know, we'll hop back onto a diet topic next week.

I know a lot of people who listen to us want to hear that. I'm an RD or something. I don't know. I think people care about that. But we can hop back on that topic next week and go into some other areas. But I think this was important for people that are new. And then maybe some people that have been doing this a while may have gotten some ideas from this. Oh, shit, I didn't think, like, the adjustable monolift, you know?

Right, yeah. A lot of people don't think of that, you know? I got to get one, man. That's on my list. And my best belt. Ah, yeah, you need to do that today. All right, well, that concludes this interesting topic of training equipment. Thank you for tuning in to the Weights and Plates podcast. You can find me at weightsandplates.com or at Instagram, the underscore Robert underscore Santana or

weights double underscore and double underscore plates. Fantastic. You can find me at trentatmarmaladecream.com. Send me an email if you want to get in touch with me. Otherwise, we will see you in a couple of weeks.