The Working Man's Weightlifting Show
Brothers Nick and Stephen Wiley invite you to The Working Man's Weightlifting Show, a relatable podcast for ordinary people who are committed to realistically incorporating health and fitness into their already busy lives. In an industry crowded by flashy aesthetics, photo-shopped abs, full-time camera crews, and misleading marketing, Nick and Stephen leverage their combined 30+ years of weightlifting experience to help clear the air on everyday fitness issues. Common discussion topics include no-nonsense nutrition, exercise tips for the manual labor workforce, best practices for office workers, building home gyms, recovering from injuries, workout programming, and much more.
The Working Man's Weightlifting Show
Holiday Home Gym Buyer’s Guide 2024
In Episode 75, hosts Nick and Stephen jump on the Holiday Buyer’s Guide bandwagon. Unsponsored links below:
- Titan Dip Stand Station
- Titan 40lb Adjustable Kettlebell
- Titan Red Outdoor Power Tower
- Apple Watch
- StrongLifts Pro
- Belt squat
- Rogue flat bench
- Titan safety bar
- Power blocks
Hello and welcome to the Working Man's Weightlifting Show, the show where working men talk about weightlifting. I'm your host, nick Wiley, and I'm joined this evening by my permanent co-host and, unfortunately, permanent younger brother, mr Stephen Wiley. Stephen, how are you doing?
Speaker 1:Doing pretty well, I love you. I didn't mean that. Well, it's been a while it is. How do you feel about that? Should address it, should we not? Should we just say so? I feel I don't want to do the thing, you know? It's like I feel like you see this all the time on youtube, whatever. It's like people constantly apologizing for why they didn't post last week or whatever, in our case, last year you know what I?
Speaker 1:mean like I don't you know. But I mean, hey, things happen. Briefly, I had a second kid and that was kind of tough, just on workout thing, you know what I mean? Yeah, it's tough, it's tough, it's tough in general, but like, uh, staying in the gym was tough, uh, but even before that, just I don't know what to say, I can't even really tell you. Like we just we had a lot of stops and starts, at least for me, working out, and I was feeling like how do I talk about this? And now we're ready to talk again. Yeah, we're back there. You go Back in action. Do you have anything to say about that? About the hiatus? Yeah, or were you just kind of like in the corner? Like Nick, just get your life together, come on.
Speaker 2:I mean, no, we had some other focus. We put a song out. I think we've had an ad on our episodes actually.
Speaker 1:That's true, yeah.
Speaker 2:So we had some focusing going on with music. You had a kid, and then, well, your wife had a kid, yeah, and then, yeah, we just, you know we've been super busy and now here we are in the middle of the holidays season, yeah.
Speaker 1:So Well, in case you're new to this show, why don't we give people a quick? You know? Like, what do we do? Why are we here? What do you do for a living?
Speaker 2:I do manual labor.
Speaker 1:I'm hitting you sideways, man. You're not prepared for any of these questions. No, not at all.
Speaker 2:So I'm a flooring installer and tile setter.
Speaker 1:Self-employed, self-employed, yeah, yeah yeah, so I do.
Speaker 2:you know all things from showers, backsplashes, whatever you got there, you go there you go and you're gonna ask me now what I do.
Speaker 1:What do you do for a living, nick? Hi, I'm nick and I'm an it guy for a living and, uh, I have a business partner. It's two of us. We serve about 50 clients in a certain region of the united states and, uh, we do a lot of that remotely but we go on site. I'm usually on site maybe twice a week, something like that on average, visiting customers installing computers, networks, all that kind of fun stuff. But you know, the premise of our show is that we have different jobs but we're related, we're brothers, we've been weightlifting for a long time, especially Steven, and so you know our thing is like trying to find common ground in between all that working, different kinds of jobs, blue collar versus white collar.
Speaker 1:I feel like mine's kind of like sky blue collar you know like it's like a little in between, because I do have to go, you know, turn wrenches and screwdrivers occasionally. Um, but anyway, that's the premise of the show. We hope that that might be intriguing to you as the listener. Uh, we used to say the tagline was um, you know the podcast for weightlifters that don't want to look like lobsters? And um, yeah, I think it's still so. I definitely don't like a lobster, I like a lot more like a puffer fish.
Speaker 2:I mean we don't really care what you want to look like. That's true, yeah, that's true, we just tell you what?
Speaker 1:we do. In my case, I especially don't care. Oh no, oh, man. Well, thank you for being here, thank you for lending us your ear. As we used to say, man, it feels good to be back. Slap the knee, did you hear that? Okay, yeah, so here's what we want to do today. It's beginning to look a lot like dumbbells, binge press everywhere. I thought we'd do a nice little holiday gift guide for 2024. This will be completely irrelevant next year.
Speaker 2:Just kidding.
Speaker 1:Actually, all these things I'm sure will be available from your favorite retailers, but you know, kind of jumping on the bandwagon from your favorite retailers, but, uh, you know, kind of jumping on the bandwagon, saw a lot of other people doing buying gift guides in different industries. I'm plugged into the IT world, the music world, all that people doing this like crazy, and I thought you know what that actually could be really helpful, uh, for people in our space. And specifically, we're really big fans of the home gym uh world. We try to be quote unquote, inclusive of people who lift in commercial gyms Because, you know, not everybody can have a home gym, depending on who you are, where you live, where you are in the world. You know, having a home gym is very much a luxury and I don't have one really.
Speaker 1:I mean I have like half a room, a little bit you know, I have a corner but, um, but mostly work out at your house and you actually have one. So, but you know we are big fans of it If you have the ability to set one up. Uh, 10 out of 10 recommend that you do that over going to commercial gym. For a lot of reasons. We've done episodes on that in the past. You can look back in the catalog and hear why we feel pretty passionately about that, not to say there are some people who really benefit from the commercial environment, especially if you're like a really competitive person, you know, and you kind of get the rush from other people looking at your pecs. You know you're not going to get that at home. You'll be looking at your own pecs. I do a whole lot of that. Yes, sir, these days they don't look so much like pecs, a little bit more like big Hershey's Kisses. Oh God, wow, oh man, okay. Well, I think we have some stuff in this list, man.
Speaker 2:Okay, well, I think we have some stuff in this list, though, you know, even if you have, if you work out at a commercial gym, some of this you could honestly have and keep at your house for the days when you can't make it to the gym or, honestly, you can bring it with you.
Speaker 1:Who wants to kick it off. My stuff is earlier on the list, but that doesn't mean we have to do that. That's fine. Okay, well, number one.
Speaker 1:Uh, what I wanted to do is, um, one thing to know about me is you know, I have been. You know I'm the guy on the show who is just always trying to get back on the horse, but rarely on the horse for that long. At the moment I'm not really on the horse, but I did make a conscious decision after our second son was born that I was like okay, until he is like kind of sleeping through the night or at least on more of a schedule, I can't even really plan to get up early enough to come to your house to work out. So what I'm going to do is try to do some kind of circuit at home multiple days a week and I've been trying really hard to do that. My whole family's been sick for a month, so that was hard to keep up during that time. But generally speaking, I've been okay at doing that and I thought I would talk about some of the gear that I have in my house to be able to do that workout circuit.
Speaker 1:I thought I would talk about some of the gear that I have in my house to be able to do that working workout circuit, um, because, like you said, even if it's uh, even if you typically live to the commercial gym, this would be great stuff to have on hand anyway. So the first thing for me is, uh, a dip stand station. I'm recommending specifically the Titan fitness uh, dip stand station, cause that's the one that I have. You actually gave that to me, the Titan Fitness dip stand station, because that's the one that I have. You actually gave that to me, yeah, and so I've had great success with that. We'll have links in the show notes to these items that we recommend and, by the way, we don't have affiliate links. We're not paid to say any of this stuff. We don't have a sponsor on this episode. So this is just our genuine opinions about what we think you should buy, or a better way to say, is stuff that's worked well for us, you know, or that we're interested in.
Speaker 1:So none of that compensation madness going on. Not to say that we wouldn't take people's money. We absolutely would sell out to the first company that came at us, company that came at us. But anyway, titan Fitness in general a really good option because they make good stuff. That's kind of in the vein of like rogue fitness, but it's made overseas for a lot less money. Usually the quality is, you know, not the same, but close enough that you can get a lot of good use out of yourself. I think the way I like to say it is like, if you have other people that are like, if you're going to own a commercial gym, always worth it to go top tier, but if it's you, just you, titan Fitness is a great option because it's built similarly a lot of the time and we've not had any like failures from any of their equipment. It's just a little more rough around the edges. Maybe the powder coat isn't as nice, maybe the welding joints are a little rougher or whatever.
Speaker 1:So anyway, their dip stand station currently sells for $84.99 on their website. And that is basically two big, fat, giant parallette bars. The reason that I like it is because you can do dips, which doesn't work great for me because I had shoulder surgery. But what I do with it is I put them on the floor, sort of like laying them down, and I use them as a pushup station so that it angles you up higher so you can get like a deeper pushup, and then I will flip them back the way they're supposed to be and use them to do inverted rows. So that's like two parts of my circuit that I can get with that one apparatus.
Speaker 1:And because they're lightweight, easy to move around, you can stuff them in a closet or, in my case, I put them in the corner of my home office. They're out of the way, they're easy to move if you need to get them out of the way. Dip stand station number one I like it. Did you name it the station, or is that what they actually call it? I wrote it that way because that's how it is on their website.
Speaker 2:Okay, because it's really not a station. I don't know why I say that. Yeah, because it's really just like two separate bars.
Speaker 1:Yeah, actually, if you look at the link, it says Equalizer Dip Bars. Yeah, that's why I was asking, but if you look at the name of the product on their website, it actually says Black Dip Sand Station, dip stand station. I thought that was kind of hilariously named.
Speaker 2:So the equalizer? I'm pretty sure that's what I have by a totally different company.
Speaker 1:Weird Okay.
Speaker 2:So I think, maybe like equalizer, maybe they got like a patent on it or something. They got it taken down or something, but that's just interesting.
Speaker 2:So, just side note, you can find those same kind of bars, a lot of different companies, and they they kind of come from uh like the calisthenic world. Okay, um. So people do, like you know, uh, levers, planche, whatever. If you know anything about um like the more advanced calisthenic movements, that's how. That's actually why I bought my first set, because I was going to try and get into all this stuff?
Speaker 1:Yeah, I remember that, yeah.
Speaker 2:So I have that, and I also have a pair of the parallettes that we call that almost look like massive push-up handles, but you can get both styles and they're both, you know they're both very useful.
Speaker 1:in my then dip bars are higher, right yeah?
Speaker 2:So like if you're going to do, if you're really interested in the calisthenics stuff, you could. It's a little safer on the parallettes sometimes because you're closer to the ground, so if you fall you're not falling from up on the dip stand.
Speaker 2:So and then you know, like I said, it has added bonus of they're kind of like push up handles, so you can still use them for other stuff, but I do. I mean, the ones I have are from the different company, but they function the exact same way and I like them a lot too. I think they're a really useful piece of equipment.
Speaker 1:Nice, thank you, thought you'd like that choice Kicking it over to you. What's a number one for what you'd like to tell people about?
Speaker 2:So I have not. I don't really have a? Um like a massive change to my workout ways, um, so I've had the same gym going on. I haven't really added a lot of equipment to it, Um, but I figured I would just kind of give some good ideas for people that might be in the um you know they're they're looking to buy some something.
Speaker 2:If you know, maybe you're looking to buy your spouse something and they don't have a gym yet, or they're trying to add to it, so I've got a belt squat attachment on here. If you, this is actually something I don't have and I've been. I was actually going to wait for Black Friday to buy it. I didn't pull the trigger, but they're still honestly, still honestly I think they're on the same sale.
Speaker 1:A lot of things seem to be. It seems like, as time goes on, the Black Friday sale is not much. It gets more and more extended, but less and less compelling.
Speaker 2:I've seen a lot, too, where they're just taking a massive inflated price and slashing it and acting like it's Black Friday, but it was the same sale that was going on three weeks ago, so I don't really know what's up with that, honestly. But anyway, there's some videos on these attachments from Coop at Garage Gym Reviews and that's what really got me interested in them, but they're basically. There's one called the Mammoth Belt Squat by Fringe Sport. It looks like right now it's about 250 bucks, and there's a Revolt, a company called Revolt Belt Squat. It's like a 199, but the Mammoth one comes with a kickstand.
Speaker 2:Which to just tell you what the Belt Squat is, it's basically like a lever arm that you attach to your squat rack and it's supposed to be universal fit. They've got little pieces in there where you can make it wider or skinnier depending on how thick the bars are on your squat rack and then you basically hook it up to it and then you use a belt attachment for a belt squat and you you load that lever arm and it basically like takes the load off your spine for squats oh, mostly so you're. You're just kind of like wrapped around the lower part of your body interesting squat, um. So I've been very interested. Interested in them because I've had some back trouble most of my life.
Speaker 1:Yeah, um, you talked a lot about it on the show. If you're new, you've had many an episode to talk about. Yeah, yeah, yeah so with work-related injuries and that sort of thing.
Speaker 2:Yes, so I'm very interested in it and if I buy one I will obviously talk about it on here. And I mean, like I said I was really me and my wife were talking about. We were pretty much set on buying one. I just haven't done it, yeah, but anyway I did notice Coop talks about the kickstand being really important.
Speaker 2:He actually said in his video he liked it. But he was like you're going to need to create something like use a two-by-four or something to make a kickstand, because it's almost impossible to get off the ground if you load it up with a lot of weight. So then these people came along, um, so he's used both of them, uh, and I think he liked like them both. The mammoth one, I believe, has more, uh, room for movement, like it actually can. You can make it longer.
Speaker 2:The other one's like a set size. It just it is what it is. This one you can actually extend out, so it takes away, um, like when you're doing the belt squat. So, because it's like a lever arm, it's not as you're losing some of that weight in the lever, like you're not. It's not like a normal squat, um, so the longer it is, the less loss you're seeing. There it's, it's actually. You can uh, get a little bit better feel out of the squat. That way is what they're saying. I have not used it yet, but I wanted to talk about it because I'm very interested. Yeah, yeah, that's cool.
Speaker 1:I've got one of those on my list too. So well, all right, belt squat the first one. Very cool, I'll jump back in. So the next thing on my list is an adjustable kettlebell. The reason I like this, you know. I mean, real kettlebells are better 100%, but if you want different sets of weights, they just take up a lot of space in your area. So my current home gym, like I said, it's basically a corner in my home office and my home office is just a spare bedroom that we have. So what I put on here is the Titan again, titan fitness 40 pound adjustable kettlebell, which is the larger size that they offer. Uh, currently sells for 99.99, although I do think on black friday they were going for a little less than that. I figured I'd mention the non-sale price because if you listen to this later on, I don't want you to be disappointed.
Speaker 1:Um, but that, compared to the price of like like, it covers weights all the way from like five pounds up to 40. I mean, if you bought that many kettlebells you'd be in for like several hundred bucks and it would take up a lot of room wherever you have it. I guess they make like storage racks, kind of like they do for dumbbells, but either way it's just more space. So it just depends on your life and in my case, because I don't have a dedicated like home gym area and I'm just using part of another room, I love the fact that it only takes up the space of literally one kettlebell and I can I can adjust it on the fly and I've had great service out of it.
Speaker 1:Uh, that's another one to think you gave me a Christmas list item from probably three, four years ago and I've not had a single failure again. They look different now. They're black now and mine was kind of like 90s looking. So I like the new ones look a lot more like stealthy, but it looks like the same exact mechanism and everything, so I can wholeheartedly recommend that product. I know that Rogue Fitness also makes one that looks a little bit more how do I say it? Actually, I don't even know if Rogue makes it. Maybe PowerBlocks makes one.
Speaker 1:I've seen another adjustable kettlebell that looks different. I've not used it so I can't say anything about it, but I would imagine that it's also a good product. But this is the one I've used, really like it. I currently use it in the circuit that I mentioned earlier for doing um kettlebell swings. I'll do either two arm with all the weight or sometimes I'll do a one arm and I can do it with 40 pounds. But depending on how many sets and reps I'm going to do, I have to adjust that Um. But you know that's good. I think the only thing that's maybe bad about it is if you wanted like a really heavy kettlebell it doesn't go any higher than 40, but you could get presumably one of these or two of them if you wanted to have, like, if you want to be able to do two, like two armed things, um, and then you could get like one like 70 pound kettlebell or something like that, or 80, whatever.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I can't remember the the way they're all rated, but, um, that would give you like a big heavy one if you want to be able to do some heavier movements.
Speaker 2:So the only negative I can really think of for them is if you're going to do a lot of different, like ballistic movements, um, like anything you're gonna swing like overhead, uh, like a snatch, yeah, um, if you're gonna do a lot of like kind of violently throwing things over your head um, I've not used it much, I've messed around with yours a little bit- it's a little.
Speaker 1:It's a little loose.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's a little loose, I'm not gonna say you might not get hit in the top of the head with something if you do it the wrong way.
Speaker 1:So if it works well for swings.
Speaker 2:Yeah, if it were me and you mainly only do kettlebell swings, I think it's a great idea. Or if you're going to do some other little like maybe a goblet squat or something like that, that's fine. Something where you're pretty stationary with it and, like a kettlebell swing, you're kind of swinging it away from you so at least just don't aim it at a person and you're gonna be fine, um.
Speaker 2:But if you are, yeah, I would be a little cautious, maybe doing, uh, some of that stuff. But you don't really do that kind of thing because it's hard on your shoulder and stuff. So I think it's great for swings and things like that.
Speaker 1:All right, you try them next, uh going so next I put the rogue flat flat bench.
Speaker 2:Um, I don't. I'm looking on their website and it doesn't look like they've made the one I have anymore, um, but anyway, the one they have that I'm seeing is like about $200. Um, the reason I'm saying flat bench um is just because that's my personal favorite Anytime I'm, if, if I can use my flat bench, that's what I'm going to use, and the reason being is that it just doesn't move. It feels so much more secure and safe. If you're going heavy Any of the adjustable benches, you know I haven't had a lot of problems but honestly, like even this year my wife was doing an incline bench and I don't know what happened, but the top started going down and it actually went down with the weight in her arms.
Speaker 2:It scared the mess out of her um, thankfully she was able to not get like injured but and we did have the safety bars on the squat rack. But after that, you know, it just makes me I'm really I don't really do a whole lot of heavy, heavy stuff on the adjustable bench and I have a pretty decent one um, it just doesn't feel as secure. You know, things kind of pop and crack on the adjustable bench and I have a pretty decent one it just doesn't feel as secure. You know, things kind of pop and crack on the thing when you move around with a lot of weight and if you're doing like dumbbells, you know you you kind of sling them up or whatever you're, you're moving in weird ways and I just feel like it is, you know you see things you see videos of the benches given away.
Speaker 2:The flat bench. It's pretty much not going anywhere. It's like all welded together as one piece. The reason I said rogue and not, uh, titan, titan makes one could be great. I don't know, I've not used it.
Speaker 2:Um, like what you said earlier about for yourself, my kind of theory with, uh, what I'm going to spend more money on, is the things that are going to get like massive amounts of weight put on, put on them or like heavy abuse. So, for example, my squat. I have two squat racks in the gym. They're both made by rogue. Um, I have two full like olympic barbells. They're both made by rogue. Just because I know that's like, they're going to take their time making sure it's it's balanced properly, weighted properly, it's going to hold up to heavy weight on it.
Speaker 2:But then you know, I have some accessory bars and things like that. I'm even going to talk about them that are made by other people. That doesn't bother me at all. Dip bars, things like that are great. I think it's a great time to go to somebody like Titan. But in my opinion, I've never had an issue with the Rogue flat bench. It's held up for years and we've had that thing for probably over a decade, I'm sure. And it's I mean just honestly, it doesn't even look really used.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it's held up really really well. Nothing's chipped off.
Speaker 2:the paint Got a lot of sweat, yeah, I mean nothing the bench all you can see is a little like stain where people's heads have been there.
Speaker 1:But that's it so.
Speaker 2:I think it's a great piece of equipment.
Speaker 1:Very nice. Up next for me is this is one of those where I don't actually currently own it, but it's on my list of desires and that is again it's. Another Titan product is the red outdoor power tower. You know, when I think about my current circuit of being sort of indoor bound and, you know, trying to fit things in a really short amount of time in the middle of the day, the one thing that I think will be really beneficial for me that I can't currently do is a good pull up. My pull up skills have completely left the building. I've been looking for a way to reincorporate that.
Speaker 1:I thought about building my own thing. Our grandfather has an awesome like little tower that he built with literally just two like six by six posts and like a giant steel rod. That's been there for like 20 years and I thought about doing a similar thing. Uh, but I do like this product. It's a little pricey $369. Um but it looks very like it's. It's robust, it's painted, it's like coated with an outdoor rated paint or what it might even be like a rubbery, kind of almost like a playground set material, and I like the fact that it's got multiple points to do different exercises so you can do push-ups off of it on the bottom in the same way that I use the parallel bars.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:Where, like you get an angled push up, you can do, I think, inverted rows on it. You can like. It's got all these contact points that look helpful and I think it also has dip bars too.
Speaker 1:so a power tower to me is like, I think, a really cool like if you're into like a calisthenic thing and trying to get those, you know, leg raises or pull-ups dips, I think that's a nice piece of equipment to have. And I just thought this one was really cool that it was outdoor, because we don't have any room left in the house and I got permission from my wife to put it outside.
Speaker 2:So I thought you know that would be a cool thing.
Speaker 1:So that's on my list as soon as I can afford it. I'm probably going to pull the trigger on that Because, again, even if I'm coming to your place to work out, I'd love to just be able to every day go out there for 10 minutes and do pull-ups Like that would just be really beneficial. So that's on my list.
Speaker 2:Nice Back to me, yep. So I put the safety bar, uh, in particular, I've, the one that I owned is titan fitness, um, so the safety squat bar is what I'm talking about. Um, the pricing is it's around it looks like it's around 250 bucks, uh, and they have another, nicer one that looks like it's about 400 bucks from titan. I don't that's not the one I have, unless they've jacked the price way up. Everything's kind of changed. I've had my stuff for a few years. It looks like they've just completely rehauled everything.
Speaker 2:So, looking at it honestly, mine weighs the same as the more expensive one, but I know mine didn't cost that much, so maybe they jacked the price up, I have no idea. Okay, but anyway, it's a safety squat bar. We've talked about it before. It's got like a big pad on it and these handles that kind of come down so it's easier on your shoulders. The squat feels way different. It kind of front loads the squat more on your quads. Yes, so if you've never done it before, it's a lot harder, like it'll be. You won't be able to do as much weight as you would on a normal squat.
Speaker 2:I have not used it in a while currently, but I've used it a lot. I've incorporated a lot of different programs I've done and I really I do really like the piece of equipment. It's a nice bar. It's kind of like it's a unique bar where it's just like you get a very different feel out of it than your normal barbell, um and it. I think it's very beneficial. So I like it a lot.
Speaker 2:Uh, and I did actually see one of our family members sent me a video of himself doing a bench press with the bar. Uh, to like it's kind of like a bench press down into a skull crusher, so there is other uses for it. I've never done it before, but it's almost like the arms come down and hit your your stomach and you kind of fold it back, like it almost makes a little lever off of your body and you kind of bend it back towards your face like a skull crusher and then bring it up and bench press again. I can't remember where he said he saw that. I think maybe Dave Tate actually is where he said he saw that, but kind of unique exercise. I don't know what the actual name of it is and I haven't tried that yet, but it's kind of cool. Just, you know another reason that another thing you could try with that bar. But yeah, I really liked that one a lot. Not a whole lot to say about it other than just it's a good bar and I've enjoyed having it.
Speaker 1:It looks cool. It's chrome too. Yeah yeah, it's shiny. It's a shiny bar. Up next for me, man, this was. I was reluctant on this one. I got to give Steven and his wife Gracie props for just hounding me for months and months to buy an.
Speaker 1:Apple watch. So this only pertains to people who are Apple users, unfortunately. I mean, this is coming from an IT guy there just is not like the Android wearable. I guess they call them I kind of hate that word but the Android smartwatch world is just not the same. It's not the same product. The Apple Watch, for better or worse, is far superior in terms of its integration with the phone than any of the Android watches, to my understanding and that's me having discussions with my Android buddies and just kind of being around the industry. But I imagine that an Android smartwatch would still get you you know, let's call it 70% of the way there to where this has been.
Speaker 1:But specifically for the fitness application. I won't get into all the other stuff about the Apple Watch. If you want to hear about that, hop on our Discord and let us know and I'm happy to talk more about it. But in terms of the fitness application, I really like the fact that it tracks your like sort of general movement level throughout the day. The closing the rings thing I always thought that was sort of like arbitrary, but I have to say it has been kind of motivating, like I'll look at it throughout the day and be like man. I need to like get off my rear and like do something, and so that alone has been helpful. I imagine there's other fitness trackers like the Garmin or the Sony or whatever that would do similar things. But some kind of accountability thing that is on you, I think is helpful. Yeah, for sure, and it plays into kind of my next one, which is real.
Speaker 1:I'll go ahead and talk about it because it's really both of us we're going to talk about this, which is it's actually an app subscription. So we've talked before about StrongLifts program and we've talked about the StrongLifts app that goes along with it. I don't know how much we talked about StrongLift Pro, which is the subscription that they offer. They have a lifetime subscription. It sells typically for $99.99. It's actually on sale right now, again for Black Friday, but by the time this comes out, who knows if that'll be the case. But I think we've both bought that at this point. I know I have yeah, I have the Lifetime Family Program. Oh, family One. Okay, I didn't know they had that. So why would you do that? It's 100 bucks. It's an app. People don't normally pay 100 bucks for an app.
Speaker 1:Here's what I'll say about it it's very well developed. It's very customizable. It works great, generally speaking. Occasionally it sort of glitches out. It's very well integrated with Apple watch, which is actually one of the things you you had kind of sold me on. It's like once you start a workout on the app on your phone, you can kind of just put your phone down and like just swipe on your watch and like manage your sets that way and your rest time and your warmups and all that. It's right there on your watch and that has actually been like surprisingly helpful and it helped. The biggest thing that I found is that it keeps you moving. The rest time counter. It gives you sort of three minutes in between sets and then it will like literally vibrate on your arm when it's time for the next one. Even when I'm working out with you and we're just kind of broing down talking in between sets, like it's really nice to have some little like gentle reminder that's like hey, it's time to go on the next one.
Speaker 1:It just keeps the workout moving forward. I would say it does the same thing when I'm alone in my house doing my circuit, like it's easy for me to get distracted because I'm in my home office and often I'm doing it in the middle of the workday so I might see an email come in or whatever, and then I feel that vibration. I'm like, oh man, I got to get up and do another set, so that I would say that it is well worth it. The pro subscription gets you the ability to customize your own, which I have done. I've built my own circuit in there Works great.
Speaker 1:I might have a little bit of feedback for the developers, but generally speaking, I think they did a really nice job with it. It also gets you it saves your history in there, which is cool because you can look back and see like where you're at. And I think the other thing the pro subscription gets you is the warmup feature, which we use like crazy. I saw a lot of people online sort of complaining about it, but I love it. Honestly, I have no complaints about it at all. I think people get a little bit too up in arms about calculating their warmups and all that.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I'm sure, just do the lifts dude, I've actually so recently I created a new program in it, so I'm just doing my own program but using that and I was able to even like. He's got a huge list of exercises on there with videos and everything. But if you don't see the exercise you want to do, like, for example, you could do like, say, a kettlebell swing. I don't think that was in there.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I created. I added that one.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so you can create your own and then just put your own weight in there and then it'll still function just the same. It doesn't like confuse the app or anything. You're just not going to get a video with that, obviously. But you can change the reps, the if you want to do a pyramid style, so you know if you want to start like like light to heavy, back to light, if you want to do a ramp up where you start lighter and just get heavier and heavier and heavier, by the end of the set you can tell how many sets you want it to ramp up. You can do straight sets. There's a lot of built-in stuff and it'll just do it for you and then it'll tell you your weight. So you know if you're doing dumbbells, it might be three sets of eight at 55 pounds, but at 55 pounds. But then if you're doing barbells, you know you might, let's say, you're squatting 315 pounds. Well, it'll even tell you what plates go on the side of your barbell. So it'll say you know 3X45.
Speaker 2:I love that about it and you can even swipe on your watch and it'll just show you like little images, like a diagram, yeah, so if it's like 24, 45s, a 25, a 10 and a five, it'll it'll just put that on there for you and then it'll say like X amount of pounds that side, like per side.
Speaker 1:Don't you like build your own library of you? Like you tell it what weights you have access to? Yeah, you can do that too.
Speaker 1:Like you say we've got four fives, and we've got six one pounders, we've got four 45s, and so it uses the math that you give it to calculate. It will accurately calculate what you need to put on the board based on what you actually have access to, which I think is a really nice touch. Be hard to do If you're in a commercial gym, that would be. Maybe you don't always know what you're going to get per se. Sure, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2:But especially in your home gym, like, and it may just like default to like most of the standard. Yeah, yeah, I'm sure it does, yeah, but it's, it's really, um, it's an awesome app. I mean I like I look at it, you're kind of just helping pay the guy that does the whole website and I mean he he'll send you emails about new uh information on, like, workout programs or workout uh, like you know, hypertrophy strength nutrition, whatever he'll. You'll get like a weekly email from him. Um, so I feel like he puts a lot of work into it.
Speaker 1:So I think they really do update it a lot I've seen, yeah, definitely for a lot. So I, I'm, I'm with you, I I feel like it's it's less about a hundred dollars for an app. What are you talking about? It's more about just like, if you you think in the grand scheme about what well other things you pay for in your life, it's not a.
Speaker 2:you know, if you have a home gym, you're not buying a gym membership. Yeah, it's a one-time fee. I mean, well, you can pay a subscription base, but I did the one-time fee where it's just over with. So now I just own it and I think the family plan it's like up to five, four or five people on it.
Speaker 1:Yeah, Let me clarify. I think the pricing looks it's something like $30 or $40 a year. If you subscribe or if you do the sort of unlimited one-time payment that we did, you just pay the $100.
Speaker 2:And then the family plan's a little more. I can't remember what it was. You just have access to it forever at that point.
Speaker 1:Yeah, anyway, big fans of that would like to meet that guy sometime. I think he's in like belgium or something right sounds like that.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, I think so but yeah, he puts a lot of work into it. Hey man, you guys make good beer anyway.
Speaker 1:Um, all right, last ones. They're kind of two in the same on your list. I'll let you, uh, kick that one off. Although I have, I haven't stolen from you right now, so you did, yeah, so um we've talked about before, but the for a home gym, I think.
Speaker 2:If you're just starting out and you want some dumbbells, I think the power blocks are by far my favorite. Um, just small space, you know, adjustable, that you can get your hands on Once again. We've had them, for I mean, we've probably had those like 15 years or something. The way time goes, I mean, honestly, I think it's been about that long. So I'm sure, like I was looking at their website, honestly, I don't even see the ones that we have. They don't make them anymore, yeah.
Speaker 1:Well, I see ones that look very similar, the Neoprene's or something like that.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, some really weird name that ours had, but I see some that are very similar. Ours, I know we bought the extended. We bought the biggest one they had at the place that we were at, so that we went up to 90 or 95 pounds per dumbbell all the way from five pounds all the way up to that. And then we actually bought the extension that I think they get like 125 or 127 or something.
Speaker 1:That's right.
Speaker 2:Yeah, Kind of a weird number, but I mean honestly, you know, if you're just an average fitness enthusiast, that's plenty of weight in my opinion.
Speaker 2:I don't think you're going to really need much heavier dumbbell for anything you're gonna do with a dumbbell, um, but the thing that we do not have that I put on the list is the power block bar bell attachment, so it's like you basically can turn the dumbbells into barbells on the end. Um, I don't again, I don't know that I could even use it with our current uh power blocks. It probably doesn't even fit, though I'm not sure. Yeah, we don't think of.
Speaker 1:I could even use it with our current power blocks. It probably doesn't even fit the ones we have.
Speaker 2:Yeah, we didn't think of that, but it does look like they have a few different types and you can look on the website. It doesn't look like they're crazy expensive. I mean they're like maybe a hundred, some bucks or something. Yeah, the bar you mean.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I think.
Speaker 2:No, maybe the power blocks themselves. I can't remember what the bar is not. I don't think it's insane.
Speaker 1:I don't think it's a crazy price.
Speaker 2:Power blocks are more than that. They're pretty expensive. Yeah, they start getting up there.
Speaker 1:They're very well made, but not inexpensive.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I mean, I want to say our set was like 800 bucks or something probably. But again.
Speaker 1:it's like I was talking about with the adjustable kettlebell. If you bought that many dumbbells plus a rack to put them on, you're in for way more money than that.
Speaker 2:Oh, yeah, yeah, well it's like I said, I mean they've lasted however many years. I mean, if you take care of them, I honestly think they'll last a lifetime. I don't think you're going to create a problem, Unless you start dropping them or throwing them. You're not going to have a problem keeping them, yeah, but I do think they're a great product. I think that they really for a home gym, I think they're awesome. Like I said earlier, I said we might have some things that if you have a commercial gym you go to, you may have some things you want to keep at your house. I think these are one of those that if you're like me you're a blue collar guy, um, and you go to the gym a lot, maybe you're busy, You've got like long days ahead of you or you are working out of town or whatever it is Um, these are something you could literally bring with you. I mean, you could like throw them in your truck and bring them to the hotel?
Speaker 2:Uh, they're not. They don't take up a lot of space at all. You don't even have to bring the stand. You can just bring the two dumbbells.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I like that about it. You used to take them on vacation.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I took them every year on vacation. Yeah, I even had a bench that I could fold up flat like an adjustable bench and then I had those and I would just bring them with me.
Speaker 2:So I love it for that reason and I mean, like I said, you're literally bringing two, bring in two pretty massive dumbbells with you that can go from whatever weight you want and, honestly, an added benefit of those. I would say when I very first got into swings like kettlebell swings, it was with those because we didn't have kettlebells. They're shaped weird, like if you look them up, they're literally like blocks that's kind of how you get the name. But they kind of have these round little handles in there at least the ones we have that you can kind of grab and kind of have these round little handles in there at least the ones we have that you can kind of grab and kind of swing.
Speaker 2:Anyway, I'm not going to say that some kettlebell guy wouldn't crawl all over me for saying that, but it definitely worked. I mean it was fine for what I needed it for at the time. But again, like I said that they are the. I think they're a very premium product. I know there's been a lot of new companies since I bought those that have come out, but I'm not like in the market to buy another set just to have another set to try? Yeah, but for what they are, we have put them through the use. We've had multiple people working out with them, we've taken them on trips and everything and they're still in great shape. Yeah.
Speaker 1:And I'll also add um you can buy parts for them too, yeah, yeah that, and I did that recently.
Speaker 1:so we we sort of resurrected them because they weren't really getting use at your house, um, because you have, you now have a full set of actual dumbbells, um. So I was like, hey, why don't, why don't I just bring them to my place and add them to the corner that I was talking about? And we were a little bit concerned that there's a plastic selector that you use to block off the amount of weight you're going to use, and because they had been in a basement for many years, well, one of them did snap a little bit Did the end of it snap.
Speaker 2:Yeah, maybe it did.
Speaker 1:So we were like shouldn't use these. We were like let's see if we can get replacements. I think they were like 15 or 20 bucks. I went on their website. I was able to get the exact part for that and I was really impressed by that. In today's day and age, so much stuff is just disposable and like you can't repair it. I was really concerned about that actually, and so I was, especially given that it's a discontinued model that we have. I was very happy to see that they still provided the most. That would be the most concerning part.
Speaker 1:It's plastic and it's a selector so you're using it constantly, and the fact that they sort of took that into account and made a replacement I thought was really, really awesome. It's kind of like when you see headphone brands and they make ear cups to replace. It's like that's the part that's going to get worn out. Yeah, exactly so it's nice to see that. Um, so that rounds out our list for 2024. Thank you for sticking around to the end here. If you're still with us, um, how about I give you the spiel? The spiel is this number one. Uh, as Steven mentioned earlier, the two of us put a song out. We have a band called Token Sacrifice. You can look us up wherever you get music. We recommend the typical places Spotify, apple Music, whatever you like to use. Tidal I hear good things about, and we have a new song. It's called In Memoriam. If you haven't listened to it yet, we'd really appreciate you checking that out. If it's easier, you can go to musicworkingmansweightliftingcom and you'll get a link that will take you to whichever streaming service you prefer to go to. But you can always just look us up. El Manuel, and that song means a whole lot to us. It takes you in a lot of different places. This probably goes across three different genres a little hard rock, a little heavy metal, a little acoustic. In the middle, you know, kind of in the progressive modern rock. If you're a fan of Carnival or Catatonia or Opeth or any bands like that, hopefully you'll enjoy this. No screaming on this, it's all singing vocals. Both of us sing harmonies, but yeah, that's something we're really still really excited about. Came out a little over two weeks ago now and we are really proud of that. Other than that, if you want to connect with us, we do have a Discord server. That is not exactly active because we took such a long break, but we're still there. So you can go to discordworkingmansweightliftingcom if you want to join that. Head in there, start a conversation, we will jump right on that. You can also send us an email If you go to our website. We got a form there. We're happy to respond to that. Our website is workingmansweightliftingcom.
Speaker 1:We have a lot of other stuff I'm sure I'm forgetting to mention. Maybe the last thing I'll say is it's always really helpful and great to get reviews. So whatever podcasting app you use especially if it's Apple Music, I think Spotify now does app you use, especially if it's Apple Music. I think Spotify now does reviews. That is super, super helpful. It helps us show up in rankings, and so, if you like what you hear or if you don't like what you hear, you know what they say all press is good press right. There you go. Please leave us a review on your podcasting app. We would really, really appreciate that. Until next time, I've been Nick, I've been Stephen, we've been the working men who lift weights and talk about on the show, and we will catch you next time.
