A few months ago I picked up what is easily one of the greatest and most reasonably priced garage gym accessories available; the Spud Inc Economy Lat & Tricep Pulley. I believe that this cable system is hands down the best $85 (it is now at $99) that I’ve spent on a piece of equipment in a long time and I felt that it deserved to be praised for a few minutes.
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This is a review of the infamous CAP OB-86B Olympic bar. The OB-86B is a fairly popular, lower-end import barbell sold at sporting good stores, online fitness outlets, and of course; Amazon. This bar retails for around $150-$160, and it’s the least expensive bar currently reviewed on this site.
As is the tradition, I have created a list of Christmas gift ideas for those of you that have a lifter on their shopping list. I’ve considered the CrossFitter, weightlifters, and the regular ol’ gym rat. There’s something for everyone!
This is a review for the Super Power Bar, a high tensile strength, stainless steel power bar manufactured by American Barbell.
Update: the AB Super Power Bar reviewed here no longer exists as a product. It has been replaced by the new Mammoth Power Bar.
One of the most common garage-gym based strength training programs is Mark Rippetoe’s Starting Strength; an easy to follow, incredibly effective, linear training program that focuses solely on compound barbell movements like the squat, bench, and deadlift.
Starting Strength (SS) is popular not only because it is super easy to follow and offers near instant strength gains and improvements to body composition, but also because very little is required in the way of gear or equipment. There are only five main lifts to worry about; none of which involve machines, or require dumbbells, kettlebells or other fancy accessories. The lack of special equipment requirements makes SS an especially simple program to follow in minimally-equipped gyms; like your garage gym.
Welcome to the long-overdue guide for leather power belts. If you’re currently in the market for a new belt then you’ve come to the right place. I’ll be going over some of the top leather power belt options, and a couple of the better budget belts as well.
This is the much-anticipated review of the Rogue Euro Olympic Bar. First let me apologize to those of you who been patiently waiting to read this review. I feel pretty bad about having announced the Euro and XF review a couple months ago only to not get them completed in a timely manner. I won’t get too into it, but suffice it to say that I had an injury that prohibited me from thoroughly testing bars, and since I don’t write fiction there was simply nothing that I could do about it other than let things heal. Again, sorry for the delay, and thanks for your patience.
In the last couple months I’ve been asked about the American Barbell Stainless Steel WOD Bar more that I’ve been asked about any other bar. Why? Simply because the price for this bar is just stupid low. Stainless steel bars are never sold for $299, and people want to know whether this bar is legit or not.
As you know, the strength training and CrossFit industry is booming. There never seems to be a shortage of new equipment, new apparel, and new shoes to consider. There’s training gear options galore!
Occasionally I like to take a look at all the new gear out there and find products that I think are worth making people aware of. You know, on the off chance they didn’t already know of them. Some of them are the newest versions of already popular products while others are just alternatives to existing products. It’s nothing complicated. I show you the product, flap my gums about it for a sec, then link to it so you can research it yourself if it appeals to you.
There’s a growing variety of specialized strength training bars on the market to supplement your workouts with. Maybe you’ve already seen some weird looking bar at one of the gyms and wondered what it was called, what it was for, or where you could get one. I’m going to give you a brief tour of many of these specialty bars right here; from logs to axles, and trap bars to multi-grip Swiss bars, let’s get you up to speed on some of these specialty bars.
So far I feel that I have bars, bumpers, and racks pretty well covered on this site. I’m certain you can find something useful on this site if you’re shopping for one of those core garage gym pieces. What I haven’t covered very well to date are change plates. Since it’s likely that just about every lifter will ultimately find themselves in the market for change plates in some form, I felt that it was about time to give them a little attention.
Welcome to the Women’s Olympic Barbell Guide. This article is more or less an extension of my original Barbell Guide, only the focus here is on women’s 15 kg bars instead of what is mostly men’s 20 kg bars in the original.
I’ve never actually had my own pulling blocks here at the house. If ever I wanted to do any work with blocks I either needed to head up north to the weightlifting gym, or stack up some bumper plates and use those as makeshift blocks. Stacking plates is alright in that at does allow for easy height adjustments, but the bar doesn’t really like to stay still when sitting on a bunch of plates. It’s definitely not ideal.
I think that most of us can agree that Eleiko makes some of the best training equipment in the world, and they are one of the most desired brands by those in the know. Unfortunately most of their barbells, bumpers, and change plates are pretty rough on the wallet, so Eleiko + garage gyms or Eleiko + CrossFit affiliate are not very common combinations.
Well not everything that Eleiko offers will set you back an entire mortgage payment. There are a few products in the XF product line that are economical (at least by Eleiko standards) while still offering the excellent durability and performance that you’d expect from an Eleiko product. The XF Bumper Plate that I’m reviewing today is one of those products.
Are you still forking out cash every month to train at a global-gym or CrossFit box? Wouldn’t you rather be training at home? If the cost of owning your own quality equipment seems too high and out of reach, and it’s that reason alone that stops you from building out your own garage gym, I have good news: it is completely possible to build a functional, quality garage gym on a budget, and I’m going to show you how with as little as $500.
