Reviewing Equipment We Have Owned; Would We Buy Them Again?

Hey, Athletes! Reviewing Equipment We Have Owned; Would We Buy Them Again? - Episode of The Garage Gym Athlete Podcast is up! 

• Reviewing Equipment We Have Owned; Would We Buy Them Again?

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IN THIS 40-MINUTE EPISODE WE DISCUSS:

• Jerred and Joe are doing ridiculous longterm equipment reviews
• They kick it off with some training updates. 
• Next they go through 6 pieces of equipment they have bought and owned long term give their honest reviews. 
• And A LOT MORE!!

Diving Deeper…

If you want to go a little bit deeper on this episode, here is a link to the study for you: 

• Reviewing Equipment We Have Owned; Would We Buy Them Again?

    Garage Gym Athlete Workout of the Week 

Don't forget to watch today's podcast!

Squat Depth vs. Sprint Speed: What Really Makes You Faster?

Thanks for listening to the podcast, and if you have any questions be sure to add it to the comments below!

To becoming better!

- Jerred

Podcast Transcript

Jerred: [00:00:00] This is the Garage Gym Athlete Podcast, and we're here to build autonomous athletes and put phenomenal programming into every garage, basement, and spare bedroom out there. I'm Jerred Moon, and I'm with Joe Courtney. We are strength and conditioning coaches who have turned over 20, 000 people into garage gym athletes over the last decade.

And we're here to reduce the information overload that exists in the health and fitness industry today. We're going to do that by covering relevant science and give actionable takeaways. Not only from the data, but from our years of experience. So let's dive in.

Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the Garage Gym Athlete podcast. Jared Moon here with Joe Courtney. We are going to be doing ridiculous reviews today. Had this idea for a while where we review equipment that we've had for a very long time, because here's how the typical review Which [00:01:00] is a huge business out there.

We've never really been big into it. And to be honest, this isn't us trying to get into it because this is not a sustainable model. You can't own a barbell for 12 years and then go review it. And then, okay, cool. My next barbell review will be in a decade, so not a sustainable business model.

At all, but the idea being like, Hey, we've owned some of the, these pieces of equipment for a very long time. Here's our long term review of it. Our true idea of. How it's worked out. And so that's what we're going to be doing today. Joe and I each have three picks that we're going to be going over today.

Before we do that, Joe, do you have any training updates? Anything new, anything going on? I do not.

Joe: Are you training? Yes, I'm training good. I did. Yeah, I'm getting trying to get some intensity back in my workouts. I'm going to be a little hobbled running wise, so I'm probably going to be rowing, which I'm not necessarily [00:02:00] excited about because like when you don't row for a while, it when you get back on the road, you remember how much it can suck.

But I did some intervals recently and yeah, and especially down in the sweaty basement can suck. Which you might be talking about a row or later on this episode. I don't know TBD.

Jerred: Yeah, I actually don't know what your pick is. I want to be surprised training for me. I have been mixing things up.

I think I don't have enough time for this high rocks to be like doing a ton of like zone to base training like I can do some like it's in there, but I don't have time to I don't have a year, right? Like I only have a couple months. And so I've really been thinking like, what's the biggest bang for my buck?

And really, I think It's getting a mixed modality training in. So just having to switch from something like running to another activity and being able to continue putting out power with, between those switches. And then also some really high aerobic activities, high zone for that kind of stuff, getting in there.

So I've been throwing those things in there, but one [00:03:00] thing I've been making almost a staple each week is going from treadmill to skier to rower. Back to back. And I'm either doing a one to one work to rest or a one to half work to rest. So if it, and I'm playing around with the distances, like the first week I did 400.

So I did 400 on each and I'm trying to go really fast. Like in like my pace for the 400 on the treadmill is like a five 30 mile. Toward the 400 meter pace. And then I hop on the skier. I go really hard. Then I get on the road where I go really hard. Each one of those 400 meters. And then when I'm going that hard, I'll do a one to one work to rest because it takes about four ish minutes, four to five minutes to do that.

And then I'll rest for that same amount of time. And that's been a phenomenal workout. Now I've also played with that going up to 800 to a thousand meters and that I do one to one half [00:04:00] rest because it's just taking so much longer. I don't need, if something takes me eight or nine minutes, I don't need eight or nine minutes of recovery to like fully be recovered.

So I'll do half of it. So anyway, that's what I've been playing around with a lot and I've actually really enjoyed it. I've. I've done these things in the past, but I enjoy this type of aerobic training so much more than running in a straight line for like long duration. Even if it's zone two, I would rather do five minutes on the treadmill, five minutes on the skier, five minutes on the rower, all in zone two.

And I think, and honestly, that's going to be more beneficial for something like high rocks. Like I said, given the time I had, if I had more time, I'd be doing a ton of zone two base training, all this stuff. So that's one thing I've trained up recently. It's only one day a week, but I really enjoyed it.

Really fun.

Joe: Are you going to mix in, I don't know if it would be just a short, I don't know if you'd consider IWT. Are you going to mix in, what are your three things to do either probably broad jumps or sled pushes or wobbles?

Jerred: Those are getting thrown into more IWT style, like you were mentioning there.

That I consider just more of like my aerobic based [00:05:00] training to help me with the 1ks and the transitions between going to a 1k and then coming back and doing a ski erg. And then I have IWT where it's hit a movement, And then run, but I'm trying to do more power based movements. So instead of like it having to be a back squat and then run for two minutes, yeah, I might just do a double, almost double cardio, push a sled and then run or, yeah, do a bunch of burpees and then run.

So it's all it's the IWT format, but with power based movements is what I've been experimenting with. But I'm just now I've only done one or two training sessions like that because I'm. I just ended the phase of doing kind of like body geo strength and zone two and now I'm like, all right, let's go in IWT.

Let's put a little bit more intensity in. And so that's the phase I'm walking into now for the next four weeks.

Joe: I do like those grindy workouts with some breast built in. As long as you don't have too many things like three or four things And then some rest in between the rounds are good.

It sucks when there's [00:06:00] anything past six rounds of anything after that. It becomes mind numbing. But for, I think, longer cardio, I think isn't too bad. Just going back and forth between machines. I'd be, maybe I'll try something like that with my rower and airdyne. Something else.

Jerred: 40 minute EMOMs, man.

Joe: Remember when we programmed those? Yeah, I did the 40 minute ones last year. It was a year from a year ago from now it was hard to kill. I was doing 40 minute moms and I did enjoy those a lot. They did again, a lot of rounds, but it was still like four exercises plus an extra minute of rest. And they were definitely really good.

Some of them were a little bit harder than others that you're, you're pretty gassed at the end of each round, but you still recovered good enough to it. And just this week on hard to kill, we had, it was 10 rounds of. It was like 30 second hand clings, 30 second push ups, 30 seconds double unders, and then 90 seconds of rest.

One on one work rest, but it was 10 rounds of it. And I was like, I looked at my timers and how I programmed it. I thought I was getting done soon, but I was only halfway through it. I was like, ah, son of a But it was good. Those, to be honest, are the best. [00:07:00] For me, these days, those are the best mental tests of if I don't want to do something, like It can be very easy for me to be like doing what I just said.

Jerred: If I decide for an hour, I'm going to do treadmill, ski or rower. My brain always wants to make a deal at the 35, 40 minute mark. We're probably this 40 minutes like we're good, but you're good. You don't have to do any more. But I'm like, but I already decided I was going to do an hour. And so winning that mental battle to me is always like a big one because I could very easily just be like yeah You know what?

I am good at 40 minutes and maybe some days I have to make that decision because of time Maybe I just don't have the time like I gotta run. I gotta go do something else You know, I gotta I mean run to go pick up my kids or take them somewhere whatever, you know So I run running short on time those days I might actually need to work out less time.

But when I have the time, I have to win that mental battle of, no, you have the full hour, you decide it was going to be an hour, do it because it's always those longer emoms and those [00:08:00] longer cardio sessions like that, where my brain wants to try and make a deal. Yeah. Like the emom, it's well, I don't want to do nine rounds, or 14 rounds or whatever it ends up being like, just, let's just do four, or five. Those are the battles you have to win. I think to build some mental toughness.

Joe: There's definitely plenty of times where I'm like, crap, this is a lot of rounds. I don't think I'm going to make it.

Maybe I'll just do six. I'll just make it to six. It'll be fine. Then I get to six and I'm like, all right, I think I can get more, one more into me. And I'm like, all right, I think I can get one more. And then I'm past the 60 past, like the two thirds mark. I only have one third left. Like, all right I've already done two thirds of the workout.

I think I can do this last third. Even if I dial it back a little bit, I can still I still can complete it. And that happens more often than not, where I'm just like, yeah, I'll just I'll get to this first quitting point. And then I'll see if I'll just add one more and then one more.

Jerred: That's perfect.

Just one at a time. You got to trick yourself into it. That's how it works every time. That's like even waking up early in the morning. You're like, don't if you're having trouble getting into the gym and when you wake up early, you have to just [00:09:00] lie to yourself constantly. Look, Brain all we're doing is getting up putting on our workout clothes and drinking some water.

I don't know if the workout I don't know if we're doing a workout But we're gonna get up put on some clothes and drink some water Normally, you can get your brain to agree with that then after you've had the water and you're in your workout clothes maybe we just go work like warm up. We just get some movement.

Maybe it's just the Next thing you know, you hit an hour session in the morning. You just got to lie to yourself, constantly lie to your subconscious. I don't know why that works, but it's almost like you're battling someone who's not you, but you got to trick them. You gotta lead. Or, lead, lie, you gotta lie to that subconscious mind constantly to, to get what you want.

Joe: Thousand percent.

Jerred: Alright, let's get into it. We'll go one for one. No criteria on the review, but at the end you basically have to give it your rating like thumbs up, thumbs down, or you're honest. Would you buy it again? I think is the best. It's the best. That's the best assessment in my opinion, because we [00:10:00] actually bought all these things.

We weren't handed anything for free to review, but we're not getting any kickbacks. So ultimately the question you got to answer at the end of each one of these reviews is you have it. Would you buy it again today? If it broke or whatever, is it that essential or is it something that you would buy or would you buy a different version or a different brand, all of those things?

I'm going to let you go first and go ahead and tell me what your thoughts are on that. Your first review of the ridiculous reviews. How long have you had it and what is it?

Joe: I have had this for about eight years. It was one of the first things, biggest purchases that I got. And that is my Titan T3 rack. I got it back when we first were able to have a gym.

It was definitely needed. And yeah, it's still great. There's a part of me that wants to move on just to have something bigger and better. But the more I think about it, the more I'm like, I really don't need to, even though I think it might be good in the long run. Titan is. Somewhat of a, I guess some would say lesser competitor or rogue.

[00:11:00] Their quality is like probably one step down from rogue, but look, I've had this thing for eight years. It's held up great. It's gone through several different military moves. It's got, it's, when I first got it, we were living in San Diego. It was outside the entire time. So two and a half years of just being outside, then it was in storage.

Then we was back into a garage and then now it's in, there are, Sweaty, muggy basement, and it's always going great that when we were in San Diego, listen, I used to, it's a power rack, so it's a square and I would squat on it at the same time. So I would have my on the outside of the one. One of hers will be on the outside of the other, not inside.

So we would both be able to squat at the same time with this rack. It would hold up fine. I was still squatting. Even that I was squatting mid to high three hundreds. I'm I can still squat mid to high three hundreds I've had on there. Completely fine, no issues. There might be like a slight wobble because I don't have it like anchored at all.

I actually have plates stacked on the feet so that it stays still, but completely fine. So it's held up great. [00:12:00] It's still, I've A lot of times with anything like furniture, if you take it apart and put it back together and take it apart and put it back together, things fall apart. This doesn't.

It's done great. It still does great. There's some rust I probably need to brush off and spray paint. I could still use this for several years. I think I bought it when I bought it was 700 or 800. It's now only about 600 on their site I'm looking. It does look like they have a much beefier X3 series. In 8

Jerred: years it's gone down in price.

Joe: I know, right? Maybe because it's, it is a little bit thinner or I don't know if they change up something, but they do have a bigger, beefier model on their site now, which I'm interested in mostly because having the thick posts and then the numbers on the pegs are pretty awesome to have because I have to draw chalk marks on my, on mine to know where my Jacobs go, but that's the size point.

Anyway. Titan. It's great. I don't really have anything bad to say about it because it is a great bank for a buck. [00:13:00] 600 and I've had it for eight years and I, squatting high 300. That's, what more could you want to even the grips on the pull up bars across. Still have their coding, still have their normal grips they had before.

Jerred: Awesome. So ultimate question, then you mentioned maybe upgrading, whatever, say it's gone today. Would you buy it again?

Joe: It, if for some reason it got damaged or lost it, I'd probably Upgrade to their beefier version, just because I want to, I want that, but I would totally go, I

Jerred: wouldn't, that makes you want the beefier version.

I guess becomes the question because it's fine for what it is. What you're saying is a good product, but ultimately you think you might upgrade. So like, why would you upgrade? What's this other version got for you? Is it just bored with it or some sort of additional feature?

Joe: Partially maybe, but I think it's like the, just having it sturdier for weights and I think it's a little bit taller.

I just, I guess they have different heights on it. I just feel like I could do more with attachments on my,[00:14:00]

the belt squat. It's a little bit loose on the smaller frame and it's just some things like that. I think it'd be good. And the bottoms as well have. I think more play with what you can do, but yeah I wouldn't, yeah, I wouldn't turn it down.

Jerred: All right. So ultimately a good piece of equipment you would recommend you wouldn't buy again, you'd buy something bigger, sturdier.

So

Joe: right now, but if I went back in time, I would buy it again.

Jerred: No, I was talking about right now, because the true test is why would I need to have it again? No, it's gone. That's what I'm saying. It gets taken away. Would you buy it again? That's the ultimate, yeah, I would just buy that same thing again.

If, cause if, to me, that's the highest form of quality and biggest statement. And I don't know if I'll say yes to it. I don't I'll, I don't want to spoil anything. We'll go through my item list one by one. But ultimately, if you can say I bought this thing ten years ago, and if it vanished [00:15:00] today, And I had to buy something new to replace it.

I would just buy the same thing again. That's like a statement. That's holy shit. Yeah, that's a good piece of equipment. And so far it does not meet that mark, but it is a good it is solid. It's good. True. You're happy with it. And it

Joe: might just be shiny object. I think I'd like the bigger, the better version of it.

But yeah, gotcha.

Jerred: OK I'll go with my first one is the rogue Ohio bar. So I've had it for just over a decade. I bought it around when Graham was born. And Graham just recently turned 10. I got the stainless steel version of, because at the time I lived in Florida and every damn thing I had in my garage was rusting from being close to the ocean and everything else.

So let me talk about any barbells. Like here's the deal with barbells. You can watch barbell review videos till you're blue in the face, but [00:16:00] legitimately you don't need to worry that much about the tensile strength. Okay. Or, how much it can hold and all those things. You're going to be fine.

If you even buy like a moderate quality barbell, you're going to be fine. That's my opinion. How my opinion has probably changed over the years is like the only real thing that's important with a barbell are the only important things, should I say, are knurling, where it is and where it isn't and how rough it is.

And so if you have incredibly rough knurling, that sucks. That's a fail. In my opinion, because, and then whether or not it has center knurling, I think is a personal choice because if you have super rough knurling and center knurling, you have now the equation for the worst barbell on the planet, in my opinion, because I do front squats and I don't like looking like I have a hickey on my neck after I do front squats because it like, ripped my skin apart or whatever, and I've worked out with those barbells in Air Force Gyms, like those [00:17:00] crappy Knurling's too aggressive and it's got the centered knurling.

So anyway, mine does not have centered knurling and it's the knurling is not too rough. So in that's one of my main assessments of a barbell. Rogue checks the box there. Perfect. Stainless steel too. That's good. That's again, not a big deal. You can have it. You can not have it. The second thing I look for in a barbell is how well the sleeve spin, because I've also worked out with really crappy barbells.

And if you do cleans And the ends of the barbells, the sleeves, don't spin very well, then the bar will keep moving. The bar doesn't stop moving when you do a clean. Have you ever experienced that? Yes. Yeah, okay, so it's really shitty. Because you can clean the bar up. And then the weights are moving, but the sleeves don't move very well.

And so the barbell will keep going. It'll keep rolling into your throat on a clean, or if you're in a [00:18:00] snatch, I guess it's possible to snatch with, because like you'll get overhead and then the bar keeps moving and then you're just going to, you're going to drop it. So that is a big factor. And that's basically all I care about with a barbell.

How rough is it? Where is and isn't it? And how well do the sleeves work? And I'm gonna rate the sleeves on the Rogue Ohio Bar, if it is out of five, like a two. Not happy with them. Not happy with the sleeves. To be honest, after the first year or whatever, I wasn't happy with them.

Because They just don't spin very well. It's not enough to do what I'm saying to where the bar keeps moving. Like they have enough spin in them, but if I were to sit there and spin it and watch it spin at this point 10 years later, it doesn't really dies right away. Yeah. Like maybe it goes one to two full revolutions if I'm lucky and hey, maybe that's all me.

Maybe I should have taken better care of it. But I'm saying it's been like that for the, after the first year, it's been about that bad. [00:19:00] And I don't think that I'm that crazy or rough on my equipment. So that was very unimpressive for me. Cause back then the rogue Ohio bar was at the top of their echelon other than getting like an Alico or something like that.

So yeah, that's the rogue Ohio bar. Also my explanation and thoughts on barbells. Now for me to answer the question, would I buy it again? I wouldn't. Would I buy another bar from rogue? I would, but I like this one. I'm not big into, I don't think I need like a super elite, whatever multi thousand dollar barbell.

Like I don't care that much, but Rogue Ohio bar checks the boxes in a lot of places, but I would unimpressed with the bushings, I guess is what's in there, whatever bearings, I don't know what they actually have in the Rogue Ohio bar, but I would not buy it again, but I would buy a Rogue bar again.

I'd give them another shot. Yeah, I don't, I know they have a ton of them, so I'm curious as to what their upper version of, I know they have probably the only ones that are more of three, three, because Ohio is probably a mid 200, so their only ones are probably mid 300 or [00:20:00] low 300, something like that.

Joe: I did last year or the year before, two years ago, I bought Liz when I bought my next. thing, which awesome segue. I bought Liz a barbell from fringe and hers is great. And I think it does have a bit better spin. It's like their Ohio equivalent, but it's fantastic. And because it doesn't have the rogue name, it's, 20, 30 bucks cheaper.

So fringe has some really good stuff in there. They're definitely a good company. So going on, that was

Jerred: my point at the, you don't need, unless powerlifting or Olympic weightlifting, and I'm talking about competition standards. You're going to be fine. Like most everyone builds a pretty decent barbell now from any of these manufacturers, whether it's Titan, fringe, rogue, or the higher ends like Lico or whatever, like you're going to be fine.

You only run into trouble. If you're trying to get one from like Dick's sporting goods, if there's a bolt on the end, if there's a bolt on the end, you're in trouble. That's the main takeaway. Don't do anything with a bolt on the end and you're good to go.

Joe: All right. What's your number? All [00:21:00] right.

So for mine, yeah. So sticking with fringe, cause on that same order, I got my fringe Raptor bike, their air bike, the air dine, their echo bike competitor. It is heavy duty, robust. I've had a whole review on our YouTube channel that I went into. I've talked about it in the past. I do love it. And it comes with, so unlike, The echo bike, it comes with the fan guard and the turf tires, which I think are fantastic additions, especially the fan guard.

The turf tires work great. And I did, I used to move it out of the garage to get in the sun when we were in Monterey, haven't moved it at all since we got here in Spain cause I just don't need to. And so that's fantastic. I did have some issues with the monitor. I've had to get replaced, but they replaced it right away.

So their customer support was fantastic. And the coolest thing about the monitor is that. I've used several different airdynes as soon as you move that pedal. As soon as you push it forward a little bit, [00:22:00] the monitors on and the timer started. So if you're doing workouts like circuits and you need to like, Hey, I'm moving from this to the next or this to the next, as soon as you step on that pedal and start pedaling, your timer's going, you don't have to get on it and then press a button to go.

And then we're waiting for Duke to get on and then go. It's just going. So that I think is a great addition for those who do those workouts. I honestly don't do them that much. But when I do. I love to have that. And when I've gone on base to do workouts, I completely forgot that other ones do it and I'll be on it for 45 seconds and I'll look it up and it'll just be straight zeros and I have no idea how long I've gone because I didn't hit play.

So frustrating. So it is great. It's all metal compared to the echo. It's very comparable. Coop did a full review and comparison of the two and he put them pretty dead even. I feel like the echo is just so much bigger. It just feels bigger. It is bigger. The fan is bigger. I think the handles are almost too big and too high.

The seat's bigger. So it's more comfortable. It's still rogue. It's still going to be better. The Raptor now is slightly more expensive than the [00:23:00] echo. When I got it, they were, I think the same exact price. So the extras like made it all worth it. But when we talked before, when you add the turf tires and the fan guard, it comes out to the same price between the echo and the Raptor.

So would I buy it again? Yes, I would buy the Raptor again over the Echo or Assault bike or whatever. I think the Raptor is fantastic once you get back and once you get, the working monitor that you need. I honestly don't even use because it was just the buttons that was that were messing up on the monitor.

I don't program intervals or do the buttons much on the thing anyway. So became a mood point.

Jerred: That's awesome. So you take no fan bike tomorrow. You got to buy a new one. You're buying it again. Perfect. All right, cool. Yeah, that assembly was

Joe: super frustrating. So maybe I could try and get somebody else to do that for me.

But

Jerred: yeah, that's what's funny about that is I have all three of the concept two things. I have the skier, the bike and the rower and the skier and the bike are PM [00:24:00] fives. And so they do the same thing. Like the second I get on, boom screens on, we're good to go. My rower is PM three, bought it long, long time ago.

And that is really frustrating because it's like it start rowing and it's like the screen is like, Oh, turning on and then it like goes to the main menu and it's Oh, where you are. You're rowing. Okay. Good. I'm like, I'm probably 45 seconds into this workout and I was only going to be on here for a minute anyway, if you're doing like some sort of circuit or whatever, but I could very easily upgrade to the PM five, but that is a frustrating thing.

So that's cool to hear about that bike. All right. My second one is the rogue collapsible rack going with another rogue one. So I have the, I've had the yoke, the rogue yoke, which I used for a long time as my rack. I've never had a traditional four pillar rack. No, I guess I, I technically did from fringe that was custom built for me in my backyard.

You remember that one like where I could like Oh, your rig? The rig. [00:25:00] Yeah, I had a rig once. That's an

Joe: actual rig, yeah.

Jerred: Yeah, I had a rig once, but I've never had a true rack. I'm talking about like the four pillar type standard. Like I, I had the yoke, which is just two posts coming out of the ground, basically a glorified squat rack that you can push around or carry around.

And then I bought the one that attaches to the wall, the collapsible one. And that one I've had for, I think it's probably six or seven years around that timeline. And I originally bought it when we first moved back to Texas because my wife wanted to be able to park in the garage. And I wanted to, I was like, okay, fine.

I'll get this kind of rack. And so I could collapse it, never collapsed it ever. And she just never was like everybody else. Yeah never parked it in and never collapsed it. And then. Now, like I, and then the, my last gym here in Texas, same thing, built it. It was just attached to the studs.

Always. I never collapsed it. Now it's in my new [00:26:00] indoor gym and I actually do break it down and collapse it periodically and mainly for the kids to give them a little bit more space. So it is either broken down or not based off of what activities we're doing. Now, here's the deal. I'm super conflicted on this one because.

I love it. It's a great piece of equipment. I've squatted insane amounts of weight. We're talking about, 450, 460, 470 on the bar with this like rogue rack attached to my wall. Very high quality piece of equipment. I've got a lot of great training in with it. So it's really good and I highly recommend it.

But when it comes down to, would I buy it again? I don't think I would. And there are two main reasons for it, or let's call it three reasons. One, the pull up bar super short, like I'm 5'11 I'm not a super tall guy, but even being at 5'11 with my arm length or whatever, it's a stretch. Like I do pull ups on it, but it's.

I could use at least two to three more inches on there. That's why I [00:27:00] have a separate pull up bar outside. So that one, that's a little bit frustrating for me. Collapsibility is pretty low. Like I said, I do collapse it now. Like I actually utilize it's collapsible feature more frequently than I ever have in the past.

I'm probably. Collapsing it and bringing it back out a few times per week. And it's frustrating, but not frustrating. It's just, it's time consuming. It's not, there's nothing hard about it. It's just Hey you whip it out. You put the pins in, pull a bar on pins in, but there's one, two, three, six pins and a pull up bar.

So like each they're all it's a lot. So enough for me to not do it like yesterday, or it's like sometime, maybe this weekend or whatever. It was just a warm up. I was doing like a Murph, Murph warm up, sometimes I'll do not like full Murph, obviously, it's just like a little bit of running, then pull ups, push ups and squats as a as my warm up.

And I was like, ah, the pull up bars broken down. Instead of flipping the squat rack out and putting everything together, I would just [00:28:00] I opted to go full. 50 yards further outside to do the pull ups out there. And then I came back, would run on the treadmill. So it's just like a small thing, right?

But the reason I say I wouldn't buy it again, oh, the third thing is attachments. Rogue has all sorts of cool attachments, and I think I would rather have a full rogue rack to attach some of these things. I'm talking about like dip bars and they have a pulley system. Now, all these kinds of cool things that you get on there.

And I think I can integrate with some of them, but not all of them. And so I think that would be a cool feature. I could take that. Take up. So I think that's the three reasons, right? I wouldn't do it. So pull a bar collapsibility is not amazing. And then the attachments. But if I had to redo it, I would highly consider if I wanted collapsibility, I'd probably go the PRX route because from what I've seen, that looks like pretty legit.

It goes up, it comes down. It's very easy to do if collapsibility is my main feature. If attachments was my main feature, then I would probably just buy a rogue rack instead of one that collapses. And then as far as pull up bars, I don't know, I would just have to [00:29:00] reassess the height overall and see which one I want to do, but I would not, that's two strikes for rogue.

Even though they're amazing pieces of equipment, I wouldn't buy the road collapsible Iraq again, not because it's a bad piece of equipment, just because some of the convenience level stuff is just not there, especially with other things that have hit the market these days.

Joe: Yeah, I don't think I would get a collapsible because I wouldn't want to collapse it or un collapse it or re collapse it or whatever, back and forth, and attachments.

Jerred: Or maybe you don't do pull ups that day, you're like, you know what, I don't, because it's just a warm up, right? I don't have to do pull ups in my warm up. If I make that decision too many times, maybe I started to suck at pull ups,

Joe: really, you just have the collapsible as like a secondary rack for like when you have somebody over.

Okay, now we have a second racker. If me or Liz were working out at the same time, okay, we have the second rack, so now we can pull that one out, but it's not your primary.

Jerred: 100 percent agree. What's your third and final?

Joe: Alright, my third and final is the, are the dumbbell are the boflex dumbbell, adjustable dumbbells.

[00:30:00] They go to 52 pounds. I got 'em off of an Amazon deal, like a really good deal, like two 50 or something like that for the, a Dutch adjustable. I knew I wanted some dumbbells 'cause they're great to use. I was, they were really great for the price. It the Adjustings. It's safe space and then what you would have for Iraq, a, I have only had one issue like getting stuck.

I don't know if you've ever had gotten yours stuck once to where I don't know if I just how I racked it in wrong or it like racked and then adjusted the magnets, but I couldn't pull it out of the thing. So I had a Jerry Reagan. I actually had I figured out how to get it unstuck, but that was a 10 minute thing that happened to me in the middle of a workout once, which is always what I was afraid of.

When, with those adjustable. Dials and knobs that I was going to run into, but I've had it for, when did we get them? Two years. And they've still been great. I really like it. I use them all the time using today, but I would not buy them again.

Jerred: Yeah, dude, I have the same pair. I was about to say, I don't know where he's [00:31:00] going with this, but I would not buy them again, even though they've been fine.

I wouldn't buy them again.

Joe: Yeah, I still would like to have dumbbells, but I think I would go with the power blocks. I have used those. I do the power block and they go up to 90s as well. The I know the, Bowflex has ones that go up that high or goes up higher. Maybe these are 80, but I do the power blocks to 90 how they work are much more.

I feel like they're much more reliable. They're just it's almost like a dumb system, but it's better because of that, because you just take out this peg. And then you put it into the slot on the side and then you pick them up. There's no mechanism that can break. You just have the thing that pulls out and then you pulls it back in.

And then you can change out the handles to make your five pound adjustments, like for either ending in zero or ending in five. And that's it. And super simple, super great. I don't really mind that, they're square and they're boxy. I don't think I need to have the full round dumbbell thing.

There's only a few things that you might be limited to. Maybe dumbbell snatches get, you have to be more, more precise into [00:32:00] with your handle reaching in or changing from one hand to the other. You can't really change your dumbbell for one hand or the other, but that's about it. I'd still, I still rather those.

And they just they're really good.

Jerred: Yeah, I don't have a lot of things on my list for things I want to buy. I feel like I'm pretty good on it, but as far as replacements, that's at the top of my list. Next time, like next thing is getting rid of the Bowflex and for a couple of reasons, they've been fine for the last couple of years, but one, I'm decently strong and I feel like I've limited myself at 52 and a half pounds on a lot of things.

Because of the dumbbells only go to 52 and a half pounds. And that might seem like a small thing, but I start to wonder, I'm talking about, Oh, I'm not doing pull ups in my warmup anymore. Cause I don't feel like building out the, those are the small decisions we make like that I think have longer lasting impacts and same with that.

It's I never go above 52 and a half when we're doing single arm movements or like whatever, because, and maybe it's just like bench press, dumbbell bench press, something like that. And I'm like, Oh, I'm just going to do double the amount of reps, or I'm going to do [00:33:00] the reps real slow. But you can handle so much more weight.

And it's only because you don't have the weight that you're not doing it. So that has bothered me. And the reason they're at the very top of my list for replacement, when we are moving, the movers dropped them. Dropped one set of my thing and the weights went all over the place. We put it all together.

Does not work. Now I have one completely like does not function anymore. So I really only have one Bowflex dumbbell that can still adjust and work how it's supposed to. Yeah. And so it's cause like he dropped it. And it was like on, like this rough asphalt, and it actually jacked up all the plastic.

It just, it got mauled, and I can't. Ah. Anyway, yeah, I would not buy those again. I'm, I didn't mean to steal your thunder there, but we both have those, and I'm like, yeah, they've been fine, but no, I would rather, the only reason I bought them was, really was probably financial, I was like trying to save some money on, you know what, I don't want to buy the power box.

They don't sell

Joe: a lot.

Jerred: Yeah, power blocks are expensive. And so anyway, yeah. All right. My thing actually

Joe: got the power blocks on sale last year.

Jerred: Yeah, that's what I'm waiting for. I think I'll do that the next time they come [00:34:00] out. Cause I don't necessarily need them, but definitely want to do that. All right.

My last one, true form trainer treadmill. God, I've had this, I think I got it shortly after the pandemic, maybe 2021. So not as long as some of these other things that I've had, but like three to four years, I do the true form trainer treadmill a lot. I'm a huge fan of it. And I can't, but I will say that there are some, there's a massive flaw with it.

And I don't know if this is just mine or if anybody else runs into this and I don't know how they do, how they did this, the timer is not reality. Like it's not reality. I don't know which throws everything off. And so what I'm saying is if you were to start my Garmin, my iPhone and the treadmill all at the same time, like workout starts, let's go, the TrueForm treadmill.

Monitor is going to be grossly wrong, like [00:35:00] in, in the time that is allotted or that has passed, typically in a negative way. Like, why did it take me, almost five minutes to run an 800 meter, like it's like grossly wrong. I'm like, this doesn't make any sense. Like what, when I run a 800 on the track as fast as I can, we're in the three to four minute range.

Like, why is it saying five minutes? Is it that much harder? That's what I thought for a while. I was like, nah, it's just harder. Cause I wasn't like going off of any timer. I was like, it's just, it's harder on my legs. The timer is just like. Actually very wrong to the point where I can't use it.

I can't trust it. I have to do everything. I assume the distance is right. I always ignore the timer, but I assume the distance is right, but I don't really know. And same thing. It's like, when I run a certain distance, I'm like, don't feel like that should have taken me that long. Cause I've ran, I run that distance outside or so many other times.

So that's my biggest gripe with that. Other than I love the device. I love it. I love the, that it's self powered, that it's concave, that it's got like thick pads, like [00:36:00] all of those things are great. The timer is pitiful. So would I buy it again? I don't, I, yes, but maybe not. The, I've never tried an Assault Runner, and that's the only thing that I would want to try.

I've never, if I could try one of those and see what it's like, then maybe I'd be like, no, I wouldn't buy the Trueform Trainer again because I would buy the Assault Runner. But I would have to Test one of those out first. And if I didn't really like it, I've heard that those are actually a lot harder to run on, they're less like actual running.

It's more, it's almost like a different exercise. Like it's running, but it's harder than it should be. That's what I've heard about them. I don't know for a fact. And if that's true, I want something that's more true to running. So I'd probably buy one again and just do what I do now, which is I'm not.

I don't, I'm not running on it for nine miles. So I don't really care about the time says or anything else. I'm using it for shorter interval stuff and everything else. So I would buy it again if I didn't like the assault runner. If not, I probably would try something new and try the assault runner.

So I'm torn on that. I

Joe: think everything you said is how I feel about every treadmill. I feel like all of them are just [00:37:00] harder to run on and their monitors always seem broken to me because it just isn't fun to run on a treadmill.

Jerred: Yeah. And it's so funny, man. The longer you go, the more, obviously, the More wrong the time is and so it starts to get like pretty funny after like when you're doing super short stuff It doesn't matter if it's like a 30 second run it's close enough because I'm guessing it's a fraction of a second off every second, but that adds up when you're doing 30 minute run for distance or whatever.

Joe: I wonder if there's a way to recalibrate it

Jerred: That's what I'm wondering. I'm like, there's got to, I've never reached out to the company or anything either, like how I use it as just, it doesn't really matter. It doesn't bother me that much. I probably should do something. Most people would probably do something about it, but

Joe: yeah.

Jerred: All right, cool. That's ridiculous reviews. Let us know. I got more equipment chilling out there that, we can review and check it out, but we'd love feedback from the community on what you thought of kind of these. Hopefully we're not being too rough, but I feel like these are very like real reviews and we've had them, we've used them.

I use the treadmill every damn day. Collapsible rack. Damn near every day. I've used the rogue Ohio [00:38:00] bar as my only barbell for a decade. Like these are legit, like in the weeds using. And so those are our opinions, but that's it for this one for all the athletes out there doing the training. We appreciate you.

Thanks for being a part of the community and staying consistent. If you want to learn more about our training, what we do on the programming side, go to garagegymathlete. com. Sign up for a free trial, but that's it for this one. Remember if you don't kill comfort will kill you.