Cable Attachments Are Here!

and belts, giveaways, and other good stuff

Author

Joseph Gray
February 20, 2025

Links throughout may include Affiliate Links. These help fund the Newsletter, Website, Garage Gym Competition, Videos and more at no expense to you.

Gray Matter Lifting

Cable Attachments… One of my all time favorite topics in the home gym. If you’ve been reading and watching my stuff for any length of time, you probably know this is an area where I’ve metaphorically “died on some hills” for my stance on cable attachments.

And this video is the first of a series dedicated to the topic.

Over the next several weeks I’ll be banging out more videos on this topic, updating several of my articles, and ultimately sharing everything I know about cable attachments with all of you. Hope you enjoy!

What Is Up Next?

The next video will be on Cable Attachments for Chest and Shoulders. I’ve got a couple unique tricks here to share that I think will be a lot of fun.

New Barbell Storage

I just finished getting the walls patched, finished the touch-up paint around the gym, and then got my barbell storage re-worked. I mentioned in a previous Newsletter that I had a new concept coming. I’ll share some preliminary details here.

I’ve stored my barbells vertically for a long time. For the past several years I’ve used a combination of DIY and a custom piece made by Chris at Mutant Metals.

This has worked for awhile, but I’ve had to replace the bottom board a few times. Plus I had an idea that I could make this look cleaner, take up less space, and ultimately produce a better end result. I also wanted to get my bars off the ground, for sake of cleaning purposes.

Here is the final result. What we have is a 3D Printed Vertical Barbell Hanger, with one VERY unique piece. It works with all sized barbells. I have multiple straight bars, a few curved bars, several specialty bars which have a thicker diameter shaft, and even a couple kids bars.

Historically, all of the vertical barbell hangers such as the 3 Bar Hanger from Rogue, only fit for traditional olympic bars. Even my Squat Bar didn’t fit. This new piece takes care of that.

It also has the bolts in the dead center of the storage piece, meaning they aren’t taking up additional space. This means you can fit the maximum number of bars in the least amount of space possible.

All you need is a stringer ran across a couple studs, and you are in business. So there is still a small DIY aspect attached to this, but I’ve basically cut my barbell storage space in half with this, while making it cleaner and more aesthetic, and of course, getting them off the ground for easier cleaning.

These will be available through Aperture Engineering in the near future. Plan is to let them sit on my wall for a few months, unrack the bars, make sure we didn’t miss anything. Then let them out to the world. But as always, you get sneak peaks for being here.

Want To Win $100?

One of the companies I work with is conducting some research around benches and wants your input. A $100 gift card is up for grabs for ONE person who participates, and it is only two questions. Take a quick moment, help steer the decision making of a good company, and maybe win $100… Pretty good deal to me. This will close on 2/28.

Whats New In The Community?

This one dropped a couple weeks ago, but comes from one of my favorite dudes in the home gym space. Tim doesn’t do much in the realm of “content creation”, but when he does he kills it. Tim is a master of the DIY, is brutally strong, and a big jacked dude that understands how to get big and jacked. Him and I are often toying around with some of the same movements and ideas in our programs, and even seem to be dieting at the same time.

His video is on a dumbbell cart he made for his REP x Pepins.

New Product Releases & Sales

9.22 Designs just released a new bench cover option. This is pretty cool as it is meant to be a piece that can be customized for your bench to add some pizazz but also to reduce the sweat stain marks on the bench itself.

The site doesn’t have it listed yet, but you can check out his offerings. Marcus has been an active member of the home gym community for a long time and is now making products for us. He is also going to sponsor the GGC, so keep an eye out on details there.

Micro Gainz released some new DB plates specifically for NuoBells recently. If you happen to have a pair, take a look. Code: GGC10 should save you 10%

Torque Tank M3

This one is exciting. Torque just announced their newest sled offering with the M3. This looks to be like a play on the M1, but with the swivel wheels of the XT4 and a few tweaks here and there. The price is a little rough though.

Discount Codes

Remember that these discount codes are active all year round for you to save some cash and support what I do.

Garage Gym Competition

We are 12 weeks out of the 2025 Spring GGC. Most of us are likely coming off a deload and headed into a full Strength Phase or two to get ready for the competition.

Sponsor Highlight

Pioneer is back for ANOTHER awesome year of the GGC, which makes me super excited. Every year they have tossed up a simple prize… 1 custom belt per event. The crazy part is that behind just 1 or 2 of the top prizes worth THOUSANDS of dollars, Pioneer is always one of the fan favorites. People are more excited to win their belt than almost anything else we have ever given away.

And it makes sense, their custom belts are bonkers. And they keep coming up with new and fancier ways to make them more awesome. We own a Lever Belt, custom belt for my wife, my daughter turned a dog collar into her weightlifting belt, and I wear their knee sleeves. We are a proud Pioneer supporter in our garage.

Prize Announcement

Pioneer has not only handed out a custom belt in every event, they have also supported our Fall Non-Profit by creating a belt that aligns with the non-profit company and helping raffle it off. They’ve helped us garner several thousand dollars so far, and they are coming back for the 2025 Fall Non-Profit as well.

If you want to snag your own belt, custom or off the rack, you can use code GGC and save yourself some cash.

Training Tip - Nutrition For Powerlifters

This week I asked our Coaches and Contributors How Important Is Diet, to a Powerlifter?

I believe diet is absolutely crucial. Whether you're trying to build muscle for increased strength or you're already at the top of your weight class, nutrition plays a major role in your success. Getting enough calories to fuel performance and sufficient protein to aid muscle recovery is essential.

The old mindset of “mass moves mass” dominated powerlifting for years, but the sport has evolved to prioritize quality nutrition for strength, recovery, and longevity. As a Super-heavyweight competitor, I once ate anything to gain size, but I’ve learned that functional weight matters more than mass alone. Proper nutrition optimizes muscle growth, energy levels, body composition, and joint health while preventing long-term metabolic issues. Powerlifting isn’t just about getting bigger—it’s about getting stronger and moving weight efficiently. The right fuel can elevate performance, and every lifter, regardless of weight class, should see nutrition as a vital tool for success.

Jacquis Robertson

When I started powerlifting it was drilled into my brain that mass moves mass. The bigger you are the easier it is to move more mass. In that infinite desire to gain size and strength we run into a conundrum of how much is too much? We don't need "fat strongmen". This is where diet takes center stage. As much as we love to crush sour patch kids and honey packets at meets, we have to learn to dial it in every other day. Research has shown that anthropomorphic measurements can lead us to predict successful lifts. Furthermore data tells us fat free mass is a better predictor than "mass". This is where diet can take over and help dial in strength gains as efficiently as possible. 

Kirk Thomas

Want to dig deeper into Nutrition? Take a look at the newest contributor article…

r/HomeGym

This post is close to a month old but was on my list. This dude took a weight storage tree and managed to modify it to hold a lateral raise piece. Definitely caught my eye as this is a really unique way to turn something that is normally a space hog, into a full gym.

Current AMA

Today is the 2nd day of the Ironmaster AMA. Make sure to check it out.

Upcoming AMA

I got a chance to chat with Darko from Darko Lifting about his upcoming AMA.

One Last Thing…

We just booked our flights and some final details for our trip to the 2025 Home Gym Con in Louisville, Kentucky. This will be the 3rd HomeGymCon, but our first attendance as the first two years was much more difficult to get to.

With school stuff, sports stuff, and work stuff, we haven’t taken a good vacation as a family in a few years. So we are doubling down on this and putting some stuff before the con, and after, and will likely be gone for a solid 2 weeks and some change.

I plan to take copious pictures and videos and do a full write up and video about my experience at HomeGymCon for those that can’t go. If you are going, let me know so we can plan a meet up.

More details on HomeGymCon in a future newsletter!