MAG Pins and Prizes

Gray Matter Lifting

Looking For Some MAG Pins?

Last year in my new rack acquisition, I decided to buy every magnetic rack pin available. FOR SCIENCE! This week I’m sharing my results after months of use on what I think are the best MAG Pins available.

Key note - this is a pretty subjective topic. Simply sharing a picture of mag pins, I had half a dozen people tell me their favorite. Which were all different from each other, and different from mine. So… hopefully my experiences will help you choose the right one FOR YOU.

The video is currently being edited, and is on the way.

Freak Athlete ABX Video

Btw, since it wasn’t available before the last newsletter, here is the full Freak Athlete ABX Video Review for ya.

Tandem Tower Additions

ForceUSA just released some new items for the Tandem Tower, and they are on the way. The Center Connector gives us a center column for using with things like their swivel seat, leg holder, and the sliding bench.

I was able to use my Pegasus with some offset adjustments, but it will be interesting to give the “real deal” a go.

Muscle Insights Podcast

I was invited onto the Muscle Insights Podcast a few weeks back, just in time to use my new set up in the garage. This was an awesome chat with Jonathan Warren about all things home gyms and lifting. He is a competitive bodybuilder who has recently caught the home gym bug, and has been picking my brain ever since.

Garage Sale

Two items are added to the Garage Sale this week. One is the 2ND REP Leg Developer that I am giving away to a local lifter. First to sign up gets first dibs.

Second, available to everyone, I’ll be cleaning up my MAG Pin collection. So you can check out and get them for close to 50% of retail. I’m keeping my favorites all around, but these might work for ya.

Behind The Scenes & What Is Next

I had my meeting scheduled with Coach KAZ for the 2 Year VOLTRA Update, and then his scheduled got messed up, so he no showed. So that project got delayed a bit (again… sorry). We are supposed to be recording TODAY (Thursday) so hopefully we’ll be back on track.

A buddy is borrowing the ANCORE Pro for some testing, so that project is a little delayed as well.

So I’m going to dive into a few videos I’ve had sitting for a bit, looking at items I have already reviewed, but revisiting their use in my gym TODAY. We’ll start with the Sand Dune Stepper as I got asked about it this past week. Then we’ll likely dive into a few others before we make our way back to recent stuff like the Tandem Tower, REP Leg Developer, and ANCORE Pro.

I have a few items I have been told are “on the way soon” that I made room for in the pipeline, but so far haven’t seen any progress. So we’ll see how everything starts adjusting as we move into the Spring and Summer.

If you have a request for a project, video, topic to cover… fire away! I might dig into some non-review topics around home gym ownership like storage, cleaning and maintenance, etc.

Whats New In The Community?

BulletProof Direct Flight

BulletProof has been CRUSHING IT lately on the new releases. They just launched their rack attached multi-flight attachment. This is for lateral raises and other shoulder dominant stuff, and can typically be adjusted for some fly type movements as well. It looks like BulletProof addressed a lot of the weaknesses of the other rack attached versions.

I tinkered with the Gentleman Fitness version, which is meant to be floor standing/bench attached. I really disliked it. Too many moving parts, too many adjustments, and the movement felt very restrictive in the worst way possible.

This is one of those machines that would be so far down my list of pieces to add to my gym, that I’d need a 3000 square foot barn before it would get some love. I’d toss my money at a Leg Extension, Leg Curl, Leg Press, Hack Squat, Pendulum Squat, multiple chest press options, even some dedicated biceps and triceps machines, before I’d tinker here.

The reason is because with a basic cable set-up, you have a TREMENDOUS amount of options for shoulders. Add in dumbbells and you have another dozen. Legit too many to ever get through in a reasonable program, even for an entire year. And the set up and execution is super simple. Shoulder movements are also typically pretty light in terms of resistance, so we aren’t avoiding loading tons of plates here.

The Temple of Gainz option, that my dude Brandon just set up, costs $2300. That is the price of a VOLTRA. While this might be one of the most space saving machines on the market, it still takes up room. This is one other issue I have with the BulletProof piece, it doesn’t really save any space compared to the real deal. So if you were going to jump for this type of piece, I’d just go all in. But ultimately, I’d personally skip it.

Garage Gym Competition

Next week we are dropping Full Details for the GGC, with the website fully updated, all sponsors and prizes, top athlete details confirmed, live stream information, and more.

So, why not give you the first look.

Sponsors and Prizes

Here is the full list of prizes available from the sponsors this year.

Dates and Other Deets

The main event opens on May 2nd and runs through May 10th. You’ll be able to perform your lifts at any time during that week. You will upload the videos to social media, and then we’ll have a submission form available to make sure we don’t miss anyone.

The week after is Awards Week, where we will crown our Top Athletes for Top Female Totals, Top Male Totals, and Most Improved from Spring 25. As well as host TWO Live Stream Events… Prettiest Powerlifter and then Most 10 RPE Lift. The top 3 in each category will get an Executive Fit Sword adorned with Belt Fed Strength Leather strap. Should be pretty sweet!

The week after that is Prize Week, where we will announce all of the winners of the fabulous prizes. And then we’ll wrap it up with a few weeks of data and insights, comments and feedback as we deload before the prep for the Fall begins.

In the next newsletter I’ll share even more and walk through everything. But for now, enjoy the sneak peak.

Training Tip - Help With My Bench Arch

The bench arch is a fun topic because some people see it as cheating, and others are correct. But seriously, it is a tactic used in a sport where your goal is to fit inside the lines of the rules to push the most weight possible. So, better to understand it, and leverage it, so you can do it.

My arch is considerably higher than most flat backed dudes who learned to bench during High School Football. But take a look at our friend Pixie Lifter and you’ll quickly realize she might just be the master of the arch.

What I commonly see is that people perceive MORE arch to be a better thing. They see Danielle crushing weights and think “I should do that!”. Danielle is hyper mobile, and a female. Those two combine for a WILD arch. So unless if you are both, and have spent years perfecting that set up underload, probably not the best choice for you.

For me, if I don’t arch at all, I feel it in my shoulders. And if I arch too much (or incorrectly), I feel it in my shoulders. So I have to nail it. It is a balance.

I get set up on the bench, I then brace my midsection, grab the bar, and use my midsection and arms to arch my upper thoracic with the cue I got from Chad Wesley Smith - Tits Up! If I keep my pecs up, my feet and legs and core tight, everything else seems to work out. I’m stronger, nothing hurts, and the bar path feels “right”.

If you struggle with the bench set up, I’d highly recommend you take a whirl at something like a bench spec program. I ran the JuggernautAI one last year, and while there are some things I would change, I benched 4 days a week with a lot of opportunity to tweak and test my set-up until it clicked. I don’t think I made any progress on that program, but I did lock in my set-up, which is now sending me into one of the best bench related preps I’ve had in close to a decade.

Another dude dropped a Freak Athlete ABX review on Reddit, and thought it was a good write up.

Upcoming AMA

ANCORE is joining us next week, and is planning a big giveaway.

One Last Thing…

Basketball season ends this week, and then we dive into Flag Football here soon. Flag only has practice and games on Sundays, so I’ll be getting some time back during the week for a bit.

We are planning our 2026 Home Gym Con trip. The current thought is that we might set up a booth for basically exactly what this newsletter is… Gray Matter, GGC, r/HomeGym… We’d have some giveaways, we’d schedule some “AMAs” with fellow content creators during the event, and hang out and chat and see what is going on.

If you have any ideas around what you’d like to see from HGC 2026, whether you are going or not, drop me a note.

• Joe