Cardio and Competitions

Gray Matter Lifting

Just dropped the FEIER Star 100 Folding Treadmill Review this week. If you want the quick and dirty… this treadmill works, but it leaves a lot to be desired, especially at the price point they are selling it for.

For those interested in the written review, I got ya! Click right here.

What Is Up Next?

I just updated the Review Pipeline based on some testing and what is going on around the gym.

Next up is going to be the REP Pegasus, aimed at the week of November 9th.

Following that will be the Prime Fitness Prototype Bar the week of November 23rd.

The first week of December will be the REP Belt Squat.

After that gets a little iffy based on the Holidays, but hoping to finish the year with the Freak Athlete ABX, ANCORE Pro, and the NordBench Pro.

New Additions To The Lab

A couple items are on their way.

ForceUSA is sending us a care package, and I am really excited to have my first piece from them in the gym. Currently making room for it, looking at a review in March of 2026. More on that when it arrives. ForceUSA has also confirmed another toy in early 2026 that we’ll get our hands on. So expect more from them next year.

I’ve been trying to figure out a way to make our bike storage in the garage a little more space friendly. I might have just found it. These pieces will let my bikes handles rotate in line with the wheels for easier storage purposes. If this works, I’ll be moving them to a corner of the gym, and then repurposing the wall they are on for storage, and we will be looking at some extra space. Fingers crossed.

We are also keeping our eyes open for the REP Leg Developer, Dialed Motion Leg Developer, and some new cable attachments for 2026.

Facebook Home Gym Group Moderators

I admin a Facebook group that my buddy Alan of Garage Gym Fanatics took over awhile back. He is still kind of around, but mostly not… so it has been me, by myself, trying to manage an almost 400k member group from the Admin side of the house.

I had promoted 2 moderators last year, added a lot of rules, and cleaned a ton of stuff. These mods have done a LOT of heavy lifting, but recently realized the group was still growing and we were missing stuff. I spent some time adding new rules and features so the auto-mod handles a lot.

Just bumped one of the Mods to Admin, alongside another Admin from another group, so we now have 3 active Admins (I also removed an Admin that wasn’t active). I just promoted 3 new peeps to be Moderators as well, and the group is already getting cleaned up a LOT faster.

If you happen to be part of this group and want to join the Moderator Team, hit the button above to check the announcement post and chime in.

Black Friday

Black Friday is coming, and I go hard. I made a large list of items that we have been sitting on, in hopes of a deal. Quick note… if you plan to buy anything on Amazon for Black Friday, you can use this link and it’ll support what I do.

I will also have a completely updated page on all things Black Friday, including site wide sales and individual items as I see them. Same deal, this costs you nothing, likely saves ya some cash, and helps me out tremendously. Expect it to be updated on November 1st, and every day through the month of November.

I already snagged my first deal… we just upgraded the computer we use in the garage for workouts to a laptop. It was 50% off on clearance, so a killer deal. It has some set-up options and better connections that have already helped speed up my recording process.

To improve that content production timeline, I recently upgraded to a Google Pro Plan. It allows me to back up my entire projects folder as I go, instead of all at the end, which has already shaved an a day or two of processing time off the last project.

I’m going to snag an upgraded hard drive for my main computer, as well as that DJI Nano I mentioned, and then stock up on some basics around the house like floss, supplements, replace some socks, and other boring stuff.

If I can save a few bucks on each purchase, it might make a dent at the end of the month.

Whats New In The Community?

After dropping the Adjustable Bench Showdown, my guy over at Wide Body decided it was the perfect time to drop the V2 of his project which includes all new attachments, a completely redesigned bench, and the rack attachment system. I struggled with the original Wide Body, but this looks like a very strong redesign, so maybe he nailed it this time.

You can see a big walk through of the Bench here.

ANCOREX

ANCORE just dropped a product that they had at HomeGymCon, the ANCOREX. This takes their original ANCORE Pro, removes the “pucks”, and gives it a bump in resistance.

It is up to 80lbs now, but this thing is LARGE. And it looses most of the portability aspect of the original. AND it costs $1400 without any mounts. I can see where this would work in a CrossFit facility, where athletes have autonomy to use equipment by themselves (where a VOLTRA wouldn’t make sense) but you don’t want to invest the real estate into a full traditional cable solution.

Small niche audience, but I get it.

Porter PhysEd Tri Fighter

Matt Porter has been cooking behind the scenes, and he just dropped a new cable attachment. Check it out here on pre-order. I believe code GML should save you 5%.

NordBench Pro Leg Developer

They just announced a new leg developer option for the NordBench Pro. Should be interesting.

Garage Gym Competition

Very simple update this week… the 2025 Fall GGC is open!

You can submit your lifts right here:

r/HomeGym

Freedom Fitness AMA

Ashton at Freedom Fitness is doing an AMA that ends TODAY (Thursday). So make sure to hop over and check it out.

Black Friday

On November 1st, will be opening the Black Friday (Black November) thread. This will have EVERYTHING Black Friday. It’ll likely run for the entirety of November and December.

One Last Thing…

My daughter has Winter Break from school from December 20th to the 5th of January. Just a heads up that I plan on taking that time off ENTIRELY from email, social… everything.

I haven’t taken a real vacation in a few years, even when we went out this past Summer, my 10 Year Wedding Anniversary… I was on my phone at the hotel, in the car, writing, handling business. Not what I want to do, but what I’ve needed to do to get to where all of this is at.

The goal for 2026 is to have my To-Do list fully tackled with a lot of the items that I’ve been working on for awhile, so that I can do REAL vacations when we take off somewhere.

Shout-out to all of you for helping me get here. I’m looking forward to the next steps!

• Joe