Our Top Garage Gym Gift Ideas!

The holiday season is here, and finding the perfect gift for the fitness enthusiast in your life can be a challenge. Whether you're shopping for a seasoned garage gym athlete or someone just starting their fitness journey, we've got you covered. From budget-friendly options to premium gear, here are our top picks for holiday gifts that are sure to impress.

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1. Resistance Knee Bands

Price Range: $15-$30

Knee bands are a versatile and budget-friendly option for anyone looking to enhance their lower-body workouts. The key is choosing the right material—cloth bands are far superior to rubber bands, as they won’t rip out leg hair or burn the skin.

Uses:

• Great for activating glutes before squats or deadlifts.
• Helpful for injury prevention and recovery.
• Ideal for exercises like hip bridges, monster walks, and goblet squats.

Where to Buy: Amazon and fitness retailers.

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2. Walking Pad for Desk Work

Price Range: $70-$600

For the multitasker or someone working from home, a walking pad is an excellent gift. These compact treadmills fit under a standing desk and encourage movement throughout the workday.

Why It’s Great:

• Helps reach step goals (e.g., 10,000–15,000 steps per day).
• Combats sedentary habits from long work hours.
• Easy to integrate into daily routines.

Tip: Start with a mid-range model for durability and reliability.

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3. Freak Athlete Machine with Leg Developer

Price Range: Premium

For those ready to invest in their fitness, the Freak Athlete machine is a game-changer. This all-in-one piece of equipment allows for a variety of exercises, including GHD sit-ups, Nordic curls, hamstring curls, and leg extensions.

Why It’s Worth It:

• Perfect for small garage gyms with limited space.
• Extremely versatile and built specifically for individual use.
• A cost-effective alternative to multiple single-function machines.

Note: This is a premium gift but ideal for someone deeply committed to their garage gym setup.

https://freakathlete.co/ 

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4. Cable Rack Attachment

Price Range: $40-$90

Transform a squat rack into a cable machine with a cable rack attachment. This compact and affordable addition opens up new possibilities for upper-body and isolation exercises.

Uses:

• Tricep pushdowns.
• Lat pulldowns.
• Bicep curls and more.

Where to Buy: Amazon or fitness-specific retailers.

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5. O2 Trainer – Diaphragm Strengthening Device

Price Range: $60

Improve breathing performance with the O2 Trainer. This tool strengthens the diaphragm, helping athletes optimize their respiratory efficiency during workouts.

Why It’s Useful:

• Boosts VO2 max and overall endurance.
• Helps develop controlled and powerful breathing techniques.
• Simple and quick to use (just 3 minutes per day).

Amazon

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6. Kettlebell

Price Range: Varies

The classic kettlebell is a must-have for any garage gym. It’s a perfect gift for someone new to fitness or looking to expand their equipment collection.

Why It’s a Great Gift:

• Versatile for exercises like swings, goblet squats, and presses.
• Available in various weights to suit all fitness levels.
• Easy to find at most sporting goods stores.

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7. MOBO Board

Price Range: $90

This balance and mobility tool strengthens the feet, arches, and ankles. It’s perfect for runners or anyone looking to improve stability and prevent injuries.

Why It Stands Out:

• Engages foot arches to enhance stability.
• Helps improve balance and ankle mobility.
• Ideal for rehab and prehab exercises.

Where to Buy: Purchase directly from MOBO or other specialty retailers.

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8. Chest Strap Heart Rate Monitor

Price Range: $50-$100

A chest strap heart rate monitor is an excellent companion for anyone with a fitness watch. It provides more accurate heart rate data during activities like running, cycling, or strength training.

Why It’s Useful:

• Ensures accurate data for heart rate zones.
• Enhances performance tracking during workouts.
• Compatible with most fitness watches like Garmin, Apple Watch, or Polar.

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Wrapping It Up

This holiday season, give the gift of fitness with these thoughtful and practical ideas. Whether it’s a budget-friendly knee band, a walking pad for the office, or a premium piece of gym equipment, there’s something for every garage gym athlete on your list.

If you want to take your fitness journey to the next level, join the Garage Gym Athlete community at garagegymathlete.com and start your free trial today.

Remember, if you don’t kill comfort, comfort will kill you.

 Garage Gym Athlete Workout of the Week

Podcast Transcript

Jerred: [00:00:00] Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the Garage Gym Athlete podcast. Jerred Moon here with Joe Courtney. How's it going, Joe?

Joe: Great, man. It always feels like such a long time between talking now because it is from what we've been doing for years.

Jerred: It feels like a long time because it is a long time.

Yeah, it's It's definitely a change of pace for the podcast episodes. Not hitting as much research, shorter episode links. But again, always looking for feedback from any of you have been listening for a long time. Just let us know what you think in the community. Shoot us an email, let us know on Instagram, shoot us a message, whatever you got.

We always appreciate the feedback. But so far so good. I do being able to tackle topics like real quick and like very like straight to the point. That's been good for me just to get some ideas out of my head and recorded, but I also do enjoy talking to you and passion things out.

How's your training been, man? How are things going?

Joe: So my body actually feels better now than it has, I think, all year. [00:01:00] I finally the healing process has been super slow, but I mentioned a few months ago, but my heel is pretty much better after the PRP injection. Shoulder and wrist took a bit longer, but everything feels fantastic.

I can basically do everything, 90, 95 percent. Without much of any pain, so working back on getting my strength on my, especially my shoulder, because I wasn't able to do a lot of pressing because my shoulder issues. And then last week for the first time in, I think two years, I actually did a workout with power cleans for, which was, Crazy and felt great because I love power cleans.

I wasn't really good at them but that was my wrist injury. I just have not been able to do them. So I actually did a longer EMOM and tested it out and it's, it was good. I stayed, fairly light for what I'm used to do, but it was still really good. And yeah, I'm really glad really happy about that.

Jerred: That's good, man. Finally. Not hurt,

Joe: Yeah, I like

Jerred: Don't don't get ahead of yourself. I'm still plenty [00:02:00] hurt.

Joe: Yeah, there's still things I gotta watch out for do some extra PT mobility, stuff like that. I'm pretty much without limitation. I just got to keep up with a lot of things.

There's always upkeep, especially nowadays, but it's still pretty encouraging that I can pretty much do most any workout that I see come up and I have to think of, okay, I gotta back this down. I got to change this out. Maybe I need to do this today instead. So that's definitely really nice.

That's awesome, man.

Jerred: For me, I have a big update on an unfortunate update. The high rocks. Was this past saturday and I did not run it. I've been wondering We didn't go. You know a long story short and the reason it's unfortunate is because when you we you train A bunch for one specific thing.

We had some specific programming. To catch anyone up who didn't know it was me and one of the garage gym athletes. His name is mark bishop We ran the ultra together earlier this year, which feels like two or three years ago at this point in all [00:03:00] honesty Anyway, we were doing pro doubles and they shot us an email on Wednesday, high rocks did with the start times for that Saturday.

And it was like it was close to 8 PM was our start time and we were like, wow that's pretty late for a start time. Like we thought this was like a morning event, but then as you look through, as you look through like their, how they run the day, they just have so many people, they sign up for this event.

And then it's they prioritize like single competitors or whatever you call it. Just like one person running the events pro and then all. All the way down. And so they put pro doubles like as the last thing. And then it just came down to the fact where honestly, schedule wise, it just didn't work.

Mark was going to fly it. He was already on a really tight schedule. Time schedule. He was going to fly in Friday night, race Saturday morning. And then he had to leave Saturday night. Like he just with his schedule being a pilot and then going into Thanksgiving week with family stuff.

And so we looked at all these different ways to try and make it work. And other than like him trying to fly in [00:04:00] Saturday morning, compete Saturday night, and then catch up. Light out that night. Like it just wasn't going to work. So we ultimately couldn't pull it off. Super unfortunate for both me and Mark, we put in a lot of training to get ready for the high rocks and then we weren't able to compete.

So anyway, that's a huge bummer, but I'm, I still really want to do a high rocks. So I think I'm just going to keep training, which to be honest. Train for high rocks isn't much as much of a stretch. Yeah, if you're not trying, if you're not like trying to be super competitive, it's not super far off from what I would do on a weekly monthly basis anyway.

So I think I'm just going to keep training how I am though. I was on like more specific like high rocks programming that I had created for myself. I will probably just slip back into a hard to kill track now. Something like that for the meantime, and then see if I want to change anything up.

I haven't even looked at other High Rocks events yet but probably get one on the calendar for sometime next year, even if I'm not necessarily waiting for it to be in Dallas again. [00:05:00] But I know they do a lot of international ones. I'm not trying to like, go to Hong Kong to like race one of these things, but you don't want to come to Spain because they have them in Madrid.

When is the Madrid one? Do you know,

Joe: I know it was like two weeks before yours, but I know there's more that I get emails from them because I tried, I signed up for their wait list for the Madrid one because it was all booked up. I wouldn't be able to do it anyway. But yeah, they have, Madrid, Barcelona, Malaga, they're all over Portugal.

So there's definitely ones that pop up and they open up new ones. So I've gotten emails about them, but I haven't really looked into them. Yeah. Even Germany. What is that? Like a

Jerred: seven to 12 hours of travel for a one hour event. It's yeah, maybe don't have the night before. Yeah.

Like how early if I was going to Europe, we would just have to bring the family and be there for a few weeks. Yeah. There's no way I'd fly in for one event, but yeah, that, so that's up there. Otherwise for sure. I get it like, and I don't mind doing a race 8 PM. It's not the end of the world. We could have done it, but it's, they also let us [00:06:00] know something.

Joe: Yeah, exactly. Okay, if I'm going to race at 8 PM, it was like, I want to choose my time slot. When I sign up so that okay, I know I need to, cause 8 PM, I feel like I need to change, almost change training for that.

Cause I work at 8 AM and 8 PM I'm asleep or in bed at least.

Jerred: Yeah. It's funny. Like we, I go to bed at nine o'clock pretty much every night, I'd say between nine and 10. And we were playing, there's this place here in Dallas. I think they're like a franchise. So they're all over the place.

It's called chicken and pickle. And they play pickleball. That's like these big facilities. They have pickleball indoor and outdoor, and then they serve fried chicken, basically and we went there. And you can spend a lot of time there. Like we got there at six and we ended up leaving at 1130 or something like that.

But when 10 o'clock hit, like we were still playing pickleball and I was like, I've quickly got, became useless. I was like [00:07:00] in my eighth game of pickleball, and then just all of a sudden things got my brain switched off. It's we don't care anymore. We're done with pickleball. We're done being competitive.

So that probably wouldn't have happened at 8pm to 9pm race. But it was funny how quickly the lights turned off for me. I was like, Okay, I'm good. I'm ready to go home. Just you get in your routines and your habits. It's hard to break after a certain point.

Joe: Yeah, we've pretty much relegated ourself to do almost nothing in Spain, because it all happens way too late for us.

Jerred: Yeah, I can't keep up with this crowd, this country at all. Okay let's get into a topic for the day. Thanks for updates and you know, we'll continue these with Joe and I periodically. But again, like I said, we're looking for feedback on from athletes who are really been listening to the podcast for the last time, what you want to hear more of, just let us know.

However you want to contact us works for us. Always looking for that feedback. But today we're talking about. Christmas gifts, right? Like our top three gift ideas for the holidays for the garage gym athlete. So you want to kick [00:08:00] things off, Joe, like what's your number one or number three for going in reverse order?

I

Joe: don't really have any sort of rank. Yeah, I don't have anything ranked. My idea was I was thinking between fifty and a hundred dollars for a Recommendation, but if you want to go, you know over that there's plenty of lists out there Jared if you wanted to get me something for Christmas, I wear a size regular freak and Athlete GHD that you can just,

Jerred: yeah.

Yeah.

Joe: But I was going for like the 50 to a hundred because that seems like the gift giving ranges depend on like friend, family. You see a lot of lists for 50 and below, but. You can get plenty of other things like resistance bands. I'm not going to mention the normal resistance band, but I also have a story for the first one that I wanted to say, and that are the knee bands.

And specifically there's ones that they sell. Don't get the rubber ones. There's ones that are like two or three inches wide and they're like a, they're like a cloth material because it will not rip out your leg hair. So that's really important or just burn your skin. So we [00:09:00] got this. And they're fantastically used to use them all the time.

I've used them for some here and there. I was actually using them when I was injured and I couldn't lift like super heavy or couldn't put a barbell on or anything because I was still doing certain movements where there were squats goblet squats Hip bridges, stuff like that. You put the knee band on and it just really, step, it's almost like adding more weight because you're using your glutes a lot more.

Last week I was squatting and a couple of weeks ago I was starting to have some tightness in my hip flexor or groin for some reason. When I was walking, when I was running and I was squatting my groin or my hip flexor got really tight and it was like painful popping out of the bottom of the squat unless I went super slow, but I didn't want that.

So I was like, okay, so what's something going on? So I was like, okay maybe my glutes aren't firing. So I put. The knee band on, I did some monster walk side to side and then I kept the knee bands on for the duration of my squat workout and the rest of the lower body workout. And I didn't feel anything in my hip flexor or going for the rest of the workout.

So it was just a glute issue that I needed to make sure that it was firing and it was just like a medium sized band. Nothing [00:10:00] like to give like a really deep burn, but it was just there as like a, Hey, you need to fire a bit more. You're not. Yeah. It was just, it was really awesome to, to to feel that and okay, it's just, it's a simple fix.

Those knee bands they're pretty inexpensive. You can find them on Amazon, all kinds of different brands. They're great to scale up your lower body workout or to make sure you're activating your glutes, because that's a huge thing when it comes to lower body. Or in my case, it really made sure that I didn't hurt myself.

Jerred: And where do you get these bands? Amazon is Amazon.

Joe: Yeah. Yeah, I could probably just maybe.

Jerred: Yeah, I think bands that don't rip out your

Joe: hair. That's a huge plus. You look at the resistance bands. All you have to do is do that. There's a brand called tribe. I think that's the one that we have. They have several different ones. They're nice and thick. So don't do the rubber ones, do the actual like cloth or whatever material it is.

And they're 15 bucks right now, 30 [00:11:00] bucks, 15 to 30 bucks.

Jerred: Cool. I'll jump in. Mine's not going to follow the budget recommendation at all because this is part me wanting to talk about this contraption I have and then part recommending it. So yes, the freak athlete thing is what I'm suggesting because I just got, it was super delayed.

So when I bought the freak athlete a couple of months ago, I bought the leg developer with it. And so you're able to do leg curls and leg extensions. And, but it was delayed. The freak athlete thing came and that was like a new thing for them. And we'll send it in October and then it didn't come in October and we'll send it in November.

So I just got it a couple of days ago, the leg developer. So I've had the freak athlete thing for a while. For a couple of months. And so I would say I recommend this. I fully recommend it in all honesty. I think the, it's just really cool to be able [00:12:00] to do all the things that a freak athlete machine does, like where I think that this machine would suck is in a gym, like in a, in an actual gym where many people are using it, a commercial space.

People who don't care about the equipment, it gets too many uses throughout the day. I think in that capacity, this freak athlete thing would probably fall apart, not be a great addition to any kind of, Like serious gym, but for the garage gym athlete. Like just singular or maybe a couple of people.

I think it's a phenomenal machine just because of how much you can do. I didn't get there upgraded like GHD and all these other things. And I don't know if it really matters. Cause again, I've already talked about how this thing isn't a legitimate reverse hyper, and I'd never use it for that, but it is a great.

For GHD sit ups Nordic curls. And now the fact that I can do hamstring curls and I can do a leg extensions. And I was wondering about how the functionality was going to be on that. If it was going to suck or not be that great, but it's They nailed it. Like it's really good for being able to do leg extensions.

I've done two workouts now where I actually [00:13:00] added leg extensions and hamstring curls into the workout just to see how the machine would work. And it works great. So I know that would be a really expensive purchase for somebody. Maybe like for a friend, but if you are like a spouse.

Listening to this, maybe getting it for your wife or your husband or whatever. That might be more in the realm of something that would be acceptable. And I think it would be a phenomenal addition to anybody who has a garage gym. So I, the freak athlete with the leg developer, because we can't, we've talked about this before.

I really wanted to get a leg extension machine. And I was looking at the one from Titan because it was like, I don't remember how much it was somewhere like 300 to 600 bucks. I was thinking about getting it cause I wanted to be able to do leg extensions. But that machine, that was all you could do with it was leg extensions.

That was it. I was going to have this Titan machine. I was gonna be able to do leg extensions. And now with the freak athlete, they add that. I'm like, I can do leg extensions, like curls for the hamstrings. And then. All the other things that the Freak Athlete Machine does and they even, I haven't even looked into, like, how versatile they're trying to make it.

It's really like a Swiss [00:14:00] Army knife. They have some upper body kit now to where I don't know if you can do bicep curls and stuff with it or whatever, because. Because it basically has that lever arm that you can do the leg extension. So if you can find out a way to get your upper body involved with that, which I think they did Now you can do all these different things So it is just such a great piece of equipment and i'm not affiliated with the company at all I get nothing if you go run and buy one of these we're not a part of their affiliate program.

I don't have a code you can go use none of that I just legitimately think it's a great great piece of equipment, that they built like I said really it's like a swiss army knife for the garage gym athlete So really solid If you need my address, just let me know. I was on their website the other day when I was building the leg extension and they talked about international shipping.

So I I think you, you could get one.

Joe: I feel like they have a UK side or something like that. Maybe. I don't know. So mine is also if we're throwing a budget out, then I will take a concept to strength system for 1, 500 Alex.

Jerred: So I don't know if we want to talk about that more, but I decided against that [00:15:00] machine because I watched it more.

And the second I saw it in use, I was like, Oh, there's zero eccentric motion. Yeah. So that was my, I should have known that. Like I should have known just thinking through it, it should have been like, Oh, there's not gonna be any eccentric motion on this, which is good from like an injury standpoint, no eccentric motion.

If you only have concentric motion in anything, the chance of you getting injured are very low. But I'm just so torn. I don't think I've seen enough research on what happens when you train only concentric. But I know eccentric is pretty important. So that'd be like the lowering, like the stretching, right?

That's not happening. So I feel like when you're missing, there are three types of muscle contractions. There's eccentric, concentric and isometric. You're missing two out of the three with that. I don't know if it's a good long term strength building thing. I'd rather. Get machines like yeah, like the leg extension or something from freak athlete or something else.

So [00:16:00] ultimately I don't think I'm going to pull the trigger on that one because of the lack of eccentric.

Joe: Yeah. When I saw it, I figured the best thing to do with it would be like power or power endurance because you can crank it up high, you can push really hard. You can push as hard as you can.

There's no landing, there's no anything like that. And then you go back and you push as hard as you can. And 30 seconds of that, you'd be toast and like you get real powerful, but. That's there's not that's about the extent of it.

Jerred: Yeah, because I think when we first talked about it, the main reason I was interested was like for my family, not necessarily like for me.

And that's where I'm bigger. Yeah, would this be great for my kids? As they're building their strength and power, like you're saying yeah, I think it would be. But then I guess my where I land is I need to do more research because If I were to train my kids and I took away eccentric motion, is that only good for them because the chance of injuries have dropped significantly?

Or is that bad? Cause we're missing a large portion of. Just how the human body moves. That's what I got to go figure [00:17:00] out.

Joe: My second one will have the eccentric motion. This is what I got for us. I got us this last year. You can get a bunch of different different sets of it. It does attach to your squat rack or something else, and that is a cable attachment with all different kinds of hooks and stuff that you can do.

So basically it would, it hooks to the top, it's like your pull up bar, you set plates on top of this little thing, you hook the cable to it, and then you can attach I mostly use it for tri step pushdowns, which I love it for. You can do cables on it. You can do, if you sit on the ground. Sit on something, usually it's on the ground, depending on how high your thing goes.

Lat pulldowns are fantastic for it. So you can transform your cage into somewhat of a cable machine to do a bunch of different cable exercises. You have to get a second pivot point in order to do like lower things. I only have the top one to like pulling down or pulling at you. But to pull up, you have to get a second one, which some of you can get, and you can get Like they're on Amazon, you're searching like cable rack attachment or whatever.

And it comes with all different kinds of [00:18:00] handles. Some of them come with multiple pivot points and they range anywhere from 40 to 90. They're a great investment. I use it, I use mine at least once a month, maybe even a couple of times a month for mostly again, the tricep pushdowns, which I think are still really good.

And then, lap pulldowns and stuff like that. So cable, a cable rack attachment.

Jerred: I think that's awesome. Doesn't take up my we're leaning towards isolation in our own age. Right? I don't know. I don't

Joe: know

Jerred: What's coming up? So here's mine. Let me start with a question.

Do you know how many steps you get per day on average?

Joe: Sometimes probably just seven to eight thousand during the week. I get a little notification Garmin sets off at 7700 but that's you know, sometimes I hit it sometimes I don't

Jerred: Yeah, I'd say I'm pretty good about hitting around 10, 000.

If I run that day, it's going to be more but just with the kids and their schedules I'm pretty good to hit 10, 000. But there are some work days where like I don't do a lot and I could get four or 5, 000. [00:19:00] And it's that's not very good. So going into 2025, I've just been thinking about What kind of habits do I want to strive for or improve?

And I want to try and hit consistently like 13 to 15, 000 steps per day. And normally when I hit 15, 000 steps in a day, that's a pretty like. I did a lot that day, because steps aren't always just like you walking, right? It's like cleaning the house or like you did an extra activity or whatever.

So between my dog, which I'm now walking and getting more steps in, I think I can hit 15, 000 steps per day. That's the average I'm going for, honestly, 13 to 15, 000 for 2025. So I was like thinking of other ways I can do this. I'm in a lot of meetings. Throughout the week, and so like some days it's like just hours of meetings back to back.

So I'm going to purchase for myself, and I think this is a great gift idea for anyone else, a walking pad for my desk. And I've been looking at them on Amazon, and the range is [00:20:00] insanity. It's you can buy these for 70. Up to three, six hundred bucks. I don't know. I don't know which one's good, but you could start with a 70 one, right?

You could start with that. I have a coworker who's going to try the 70 one. I typically don't like to go bottom of the barrel when I'm trying out a new piece of equipment. So I'm going to probably go one of the mid range ones. I'm definitely not spending 600 bucks on a desk treadmill. So anyway, these walking pads, they're like.

They're not legitimate treadmills, in my opinion. It's not made for running miles and miles, some of them only go up to three and a half or four miles per hour, which is a decent clip walking speed if you're like trying to also interact with something on your computer. So anyway, I, my plan with that is just to start walking during meetings.

I already hate meetings anyway. And so most of the time I just have to talk to people during meetings and not do a lot of work when I'm working. I like to sit or stand and be pretty focused. I don't think I could also walk while I'm working, but to try and add steps in extra throughout the day, that's something I'm going to be [00:21:00] doing.

So a walking pad is ultimately my gift recommendation. And like I said the price range is pretty crazy. For as low as 70 bucks, you can grab one of these and get more steps in throughout your day. And I already talked about walking. We did, I did a podcast. A couple months ago on that, like where walking fits in for the athlete.

It's phenomenal for you. Getting more steps in is going to, help you live a longer, healthier life. So the any way we can do that, the better. And I tried just like scheduling walks into my day, but in all honesty, that's probably the most skipped activity I'd ever put on my calendar. It was like, Okay, time to go for a 15 minute walk.

I'm like, I think I might just keep working, like that's, I would just always make that decision. But I do think, like I said, I hate sitting in meetings anyway. And so I'll I'll just start walking during all of them.

Joe: We're gonna have to record a podcast while you're walking.

Jerred: Yeah, that's, I can do that. I can walk in podcasts. I'll probably be better.

Joe: Maybe, yeah, get the brain juices [00:22:00] flowing. I. Probably won't have one of those anytime soon, at least not until we move again. But I can use my third recommendation while we do that. If we really want to, and this one is a, it's PT tool and something that I've been using to help with my Achilles and my heel and stuff like that is a mobile board and this is a circular piece of like bamboo wood and they have different pegs, different positions, and you essentially balance on it, but the dip, the, what it, That's meant for is to really activate your arches in your feet.

Because a lot of times we have a hard time activating our arches in our feet. And that's not something that I'm working on a lot. So there's a hole for all your other, your four toes to go through this hole. And only your big toe is on the board. So that as you're bouncing on one foot, you're pressing down on your big toe the entire time.

So that your arch is. Constantly activating, but it's also depending on what pegs you do, you're also balancing on your ankle. So it's strengthening [00:23:00] your foot. It's working your stability on your ankle. And I've been using this. I got it. Almost a year ago. And it's really helped out. I'm making Liz start to use it because I want her to start to use your arches a bit more.

And I've started doing like really light RDLs on it. Cause you're balancing on one foot while you're activating, doing all these things slow and controlled as a really good warmup. They are 90 bucks. They aren't on Amazon. There's like a cheap version on Amazon. I probably would just go for the actual through Mobo and do it through because I think the PT who created it.

Was like a running specialist PT, but I think it's really good. So gift for somebody who's a runner or just somebody who's, might need some extra ankle stability. If they have feet problems, I think, doing more arch support would be really helpful.

Jerred: Yeah, that's awesome.

That's what my third recommendation is in line with, not arch support, but hitting these auxiliary things that we know are important. So I [00:24:00] actually have two recommendations to, two more gift ideas to round this out. But my actual third one, it's cost 60 bucks and it's called the O2 trainer.

So it's like a lung trainer. It's supposed to strengthen the diaphragm. This is something I started focusing on right at the beginning of My high rocks training. I actually hired a coach for this. I'm still working with him and will be for the next couple months because this is insanely is more difficult than I thought, but I'm working a lot on breath.

work right now, like breathing performance, because I could do a whole podcast on this and I probably will because I'm still like very much in the learning phases. But I thought I knew how to breathe, but like I'm talking about for performance, not just like sitting around like meditation type breathing.

But man, my breathing was all screwed up. And I've I feel like I've always known that. I feel like my breathing has been like a limiter to some capacity. But part of working through this is like actually realizing how to utilize your diaphragm. And then once you're like good at accessing your diaphragm [00:25:00] and, how to pull in more air, also how to exhale and then strengthening the diaphragm.

Anyway, the O2 trainer, It's something I'm using in conjunction with this program. And it's been really great to to work on. Like I said I'll probably do a podcast on this at some point, especially after I'm done going through the coaching phase and seeing what progress it might help.

Because the guy I'm working with, he works with a lot of ultra marathon runners. And Just the performance increases that a lot of these people have seen. They're already phenomenal athletes, right? Like they're good athletes. And then he helps them become even better by just fixing their breathing because you can get really fit without ever having to really focus on it.

Like you could just put in the work and you'll get really fit and you're fine. But the things that he like really helps you do, like Increase your performance even more like increases in VO two max. And anyway, the O2 trainers, part of that training, it's 60 bucks. I think if you just get that and started watching the videos on how to utilize it and you used it, it takes three minutes per day.

Like it's a super easy thing to use. So I'll say that [00:26:00] because it's something I'm using and it's fairly cheap. And I think that it can make a huge impact on your training. The last thing I want to round out with is. In all honesty, what I've actually gifted the most to friends and family members, and that's a kettlebell.

That's where I'll I was wondering when that was going to

Joe: pop up.

Jerred: Yeah, I didn't want it to be one of my top three because I just felt like it was going to be like, if I was like, yeah, buy somebody a kettlebell, a barbell, and some plates yeah, that, I wanted to be a little bit more creative in our podcast episode today.

But, legitimately, if you're trying to get somebody to like, get into fitness, getting them a lighter kettlebell, that would be really helpful. Those typically aren't that expensive. You can buy them from almost anywhere. Now you could even go to like target or Dick's sporting goods and like all these places and buy decent sized kettlebells that aren't that expensive.

So you don't have to worry about shipping. You could buy those as a gift for people. I did that for my brother, I've done it for my in-laws, and they end up actually using it too for like deadlifts and stuff or when they're at home. Like people get in more fitness, you realize once you buy them things like this.

And so yeah that's what I've actually gifted the most over the [00:27:00] years as a kettlebell to different people in my family. So yeah. That's a, that's where I'll end it.

Joe: Do you, so going back to the breath I was actually thinking, wondering if you're gonna bring this up. Have you, do you still use your nose bridge breathers?

Jerred: I do. I, I use it. I use it strategically now. I'm not like wearing it all the time. I'd say I, I use it. I was using it when I would sleep and then certain runs, but now I'm not really using when I sleep anymore either. I just don't, I don't feel like I need it. But I'm using it on these runs. So I'll get into it real briefly, but especially now that high rocks is over.

Cause there's a certain level of like just performance that you need. If I need to go run zone four today or whatever, I can't sit around and focus on breathing in and out of my nose or like making sure things are coming in and out of my diaphragm and all that, right? It's too like I just got to put in the work.

But now that I'm not really training for anything. most of my runs are going to just these breathing practices that I'm being coached on. And so I will use the nasal strip during [00:28:00] these runs. Because my coach thought it was a good idea to yeah, let's open up the nostrils. He also taught some, taught me some things to if you don't, if you don't have the nasal strip or you don't want to use it, there are like other strategies to like, make sure your nose is open and stuff.

So I am using that, but that's, as you can tell between the nasal strips, this breathing stuff, hiring a coach, check. I really wanted to focus on this the end of the year and a little bit into next year is probably when I'll wrap things up. But it's just like the next phase. I wanted to like truly try and master and learn a lot more about.

So yeah, I'm going on these runs now that are like, I'm not paying attention to cadence. I'm not paying attention to heart rate zone or anything. All I'm paying attention to the entire run is my breath. So the runs aren't long, it'd be like one to three miles, but I do them more frequently. And I'm just focusing, it's not I can't like, I, like I said, I'll have to do a full podcast on it because I'm sure people are interested now, but it's it's not just Oh, make sure you're breathing in and out of your nose.

It's like that. It's so much more than that. There's so much like how to [00:29:00] properly inhale through your nose, access the diaphragm, how that expands in all directions, goes into your chest. And then also the exhale is very important. There are multiple different strategies for the exhale.

So it is fairly complicated and it's because I've tried like, Oh, I'm just gonna breathe in and out of my nose on his own to run. Never felt like that helped me at all in any real way. And so I knew there was something I was missing, and now it's obvious that I was.

Joe: That's something I would struggle with, but probably should get better because I definitely have.

I think I have a pretty quick fire flight response when it comes to breathing and like slowing down breathing or like controlling and holding breathing. I'm like, Oh, my God, I gotta can't breathe.

Jerred: Yeah, it's like CO2 tolerance is another big thing with and you can read about that in that book, Art of Breath, but your body doesn't actually need to breathe, but it makes you freak out when too much CO2 builds up in your blood.

It's It gives you that like response that you take that breath, even though you could probably make it another 15, 20, 30 seconds of holding your breath. It's like trying to make you freak [00:30:00] out. So you take that breath. And so there's like a certain level of being okay with that feeling. It's like just that tolerance.

Because if you think about it, people are holding their breath. These what are those divers? The deep sea divers or whatever the, the. The freedivers. Yeah they're holding their breath for six minutes and stuff. It's you don't feel like they feel uncomfortable at some point.

Like they probably feel uncomfortable and they're just training this, like not only their lung capacity, but like the ability to just sit with that discomfort and know that they're ultimately okay.

Joe: I'd have all of one bonus one as well. And then I'll be finished. And that is for anybody who has, if you know somebody that has a Garmin or a stupid square watch Apple watch just kidding or polar or something, and if they haven't gotten themself a Hari monitor, a chest strap to do that, because you can get them for anywhere from 50 to a hundred bucks.

So still under the a hundred dollar mark, but it's definitely worth it. Really nice to have, especially on runs. Usually get more data on them, more accurate heart rate on certain activities. It's not necessary, but [00:31:00] if if you really need a gift idea and somebody has a fitness watch and does work out pretty regularly, it's pretty nice to have.

Jerred: Awesome. Yeah, great. Great addition. All right, we'll wrap it up there. Hopefully we gave you some great gift ideas for your loved ones, friends, families, colleagues. And that'll be it for this one. If you want to become a part of our training, you want to be a garage gym athlete, go to garagegymathlete.

com, sign up for a free trial, and we'd love to have you there for all of our athletes sticking around, being a part of the community, doing the training. We really do appreciate you, but that's it for this one. Remember if you don't kill comfort will kill you.