Top 5!

Gray Matter Lifting

Last week I dropped another Cable Attachment video… this time on my favorite cable attachments for training Chest and Shoulders. I break down the attachments, why they stand out, and even give you some tips and tricks around how to get the most out of them.

What Is Up Next?

I recorded the next video… Cable Attachments for Leg Day! I will be editing that this week and hopefully getting it up before the week ends.

After that, I’ve got one on Arms, one on Back, and then a final one around Cable Machine accessories.

New Additions To The Lab

I got a special delivery last week. Something I’m not allowed to share with you yet. Oddly enough, it is a prototype cable attachment in the works. I’ll be tinkering with it for awhile, providing feedback and ideas, and seeing if this fits into the BEST Cable Attachments recommendations… or not.

Bench Design Survey - Thank You & Winner

Thanks to everyone who participated in the survey. This information will help develop a pretty nifty bench in the works currently. More details as we go!

Our winner is Bruce… who has been contacted via email earlier this week to collect his winnings.

Whats New In The Community?

A couple big things happened this week.

Top 10 Home Gym Reviewers List

Ashton from Freedom Fitness dropped his 2025 Top 10 Home Gym Reviewers List, and your buy grabbed the #5 slot up from #10. You can check out the article here, or watch the video for details.

I told Ashton that I was going to write up my comments on this list, so here we go.

First, the good...

I think a list like this is important because it helps people see new faces, new sources of quality information, and helps elevate those doing good stuff. It's the same reason why I include the Community section in this newsletter where I share videos, articles and updates from other content creators. It's the same reason why I have helped other content creators with behind the scenes details, setting up AMAs, or simply sharing a post on Instagram.

A good example of this was a chat on YouTube between me and Tim from GymCrafter. He has his Hyper Pro review coming soon and he said he's going to come after me and my fancy intros. I told him I already had mine planned and he better be ready. This is two guys doing a similar thing in the same space elevating each other's content through friendly collaboration and competition. This kind of list helps us do that, and I'm all for it.

The bad of the list...

Ashton's criteria for inclusion on the list, as well as what moves you up or down the list, seems to be very subjective. He bounces between content creator and reviewer throughout giving people with literally NO reviews in the past year a stamp of approval, while excluding others for technicalities that he doesn’t seem to apply consistently.

People like Kurt from the Kurt Locker should have easily been in the Top 5, but was completely left off the list because Ashton didn't know he had a website. Johnathan from NoFate247 doesn’t have a website and was left off as well despite having a very active YouTube. Both of them were left off when guys who have a website that are simply dumping grounds for their YouTube videos get a thumbs up.

I think this subjectivity and inconsistency turns a list of rankings into what appears to be more of a “friends of Freedom Fitness” list.

What he could do next year...

First, is an objective list of criteria.

• Are there certain requirements to be included? (website, youtube, minimum number of reviews for the past year, etc.)

• What criteria determines the “quality” of a review?

• Are total views of videos and articles a factor? Followers and subs?

• Is the number of reviews in a year a factor?

• Should there be any weight given to a more diverse set of equipment reviews?

• Are you including production value in the videos, the articles and pictures?

• Is this based on your website or is this a culmination of your entire work (YouTube, Instagram, Community Events, Podcasts, Moderation Activities)?

• Are items like Google Ranking, Website Navigation and Organization, and helpful functions and features included?

When I personally look at reviewers, I also factor in if they “walk the walk” or not. If someone LOOKS like they lift, and shows me they are relatively strong, I weigh their opinions much higher. If someone demonstrates that they don’t know anything about lifting big weights or packing on muscle, their reviews are mostly meaningless to me. Should this be a factor in the ratings?

Whatever Ashton lands on, it should be used consistently across every person who could be considered for this list, and the criteria should be openly available in the article and discussed in the video.

Second, is that Ashton needs a like minded group of people to do this with him.

What he needs is a group of people who are not content creators themselves, but are actively involved in the community. Know a great depth about the reviewers, the content creators, the writers, and the community at large. This would be people who participate in the events. Participate in the Facebook groups, r/Homegym, and Home Gym Discord. Are subscribed to the various newsletters. Watch the YouTube reviews. Read the written reviews. Watch the the Instagram reels and all around are educated members of the home gym community. Ashton, along with this group would take the criteria they create, put together a pool of possible people to include, and use the criteria to rank and file their Top 10 List.

Then we'll see how the list shakes out. I think you'll see a number of the people on this list drop off entirely, the entire order get organized quite a bit differently, and ultimately have more people be excited about what this list means to the community.

Gavin To BulletProof Fitness

Gavin Laird has been behind the scenes building some truly phenominal equipment for companies for years. He has a knack for leverages, creativity, but also creating something very user friendly.

He just teamed up with BulletProof Fitness, as they plan to push the envelope together to take the BP designs to a new level. If you checked out my Isolator review, you know I was VERY impressed with the build quality and creative features, but ultimately didn’t like the product due to the cumbersome nature of the set-up, design, and use. It truly had TOO much to offer. I’m hoping that Gavin can help the BP team in this regard.

Garage Gym Competition

This Friday is the cut-off for any Sponsors to get me Prize Details and Contracts confirmed. We are sitting at around ~35 sponsors right now, with upwards of $20k in prizes per event. A few last minute sponsors might push that number up quite a bit, but we will see where it shakes out.

The plan is to drop FULL DETAILS for the Spring event in the next Newsletter. Then go outbound onto Reddit, Instagram, Facebook, etc. We’ll have everything ready for Local Meet sign-ups, all the details around prizes and sponsors, I’ll drop info on our Live Stream plans, and more!

Sponsor Highlight

Prime Fitness is BACK. And every year they are arguably the FAVORITE sponsor of the GGC athletes. For good reason… their prizes are BONKERS. In the time Prime has been with us, they have handed out multiple Single Stacks, a full HLP Prodigy Rack, multiple Prime Shorty Benches, Super Squat Bars, Cable Attachment Prize Packs, and even a handful of unreleased products as prizes.

Their prize total might make up 10% of the total prizes we’ve ever given out. And they just keep coming back every year for more and more.

If Prime Fitness is a new name to you, let me give you some details. They partner with some of the best educated athletes and coaches to produce equipment that actually works. Their focus is predominantly on Hypertrophy, building a badass physique with the most badass tools available. I’ve had the fortune of using their cable attachments, several accessories, their Shorty Bench, and one of their bars (soon to be two), and everything is unique and built for purpose. Their Super Squat Bar is my GO TO bar for Squats. Their Shorty Bench opens up a TON of options in the home gym. And their racks, cable towers, and more are space efficient and pack a PUNCH.

Their price tag is high. American Made, Custom Colors, Unique Designs, and a high focus on details is going to do that. But very few people who use their equipment turn to anything else.

Prize Announcement

Prime likes to tease us and put up their Mystery Prize. In fact, the winner of the 2024 Fall GGC is getting something that hasn’t even been teased to the public yet. It is so far back in production that it should be shipping in the next couple weeks and he is sworn to secrecy to keep pictures and details off the internet.

One of our dudes was told he had won a Single Stack. Which is an AWESOME prize. And Prime upgraded him to the full HLP Prodigy Rack for funsies.

So we don’t yet know what the prize is, or how many winners there will be. We just know it is going to be awesome, and someone is going to be VERY excited.

BTW - Prime Fitness gave us a 5% Discount Code so you can save with Code GGC

Coach Spotlight

This week we get to know one of coaches a little better, Michael Shae. Mike runs coaching services from https://www.shaestrength.com/ and has volunteered his time with the GGC for feedback, tips and tricks, and more. He currently holds 4 IPL Drug Tested World Records, 3 USPA Drug Tested National Records, and 17 USPA Drug Tested/Non-tested State Records.

Training Tip- How To Get 1 More Rep TODAY

I asked our coaches this week “If you had an athlete, client, or friend… random gym bro… who NEEDED to get 1 more rep next week. What would you tell them?”

r/HomeGym

Our dude Darko showed up and dropped updated pics of his gym. This thing is a beauty! And he is primed for his upcoming AMA as well! Color coordinated, Wall Control, a VOLTRA I, and lots of goodies.

Upcoming AMA

I got a chance to talk with the man behind HAVAK and the new managing director of Takeover Strength (formerly Kabuki) about his past 40 years in fitness and whats going on today. Also we talked about Death.

One Last Thing…

I am an overheater at sleep time. Even in the winter we have the fan on and window open. We've been using a BedJet for the past several years with mostly good luck... But wanted to try out the Perfectly Snug. The idea is that it is a mattress topper that runs cool air all around you. 

We are already unfortunately returning it. Big cons on our side were...

1) This thing costs almost $2k! So at that price it needed to REALLY work well.

2) The mattress topper itself was uncomfortable. Very firm and was giving my wife back issues.

3) It didn't work. I mean, technically it worked. But it didn't work for me. The system is set to turn the cooling air on and off in an attempt to "maintain" temperature. Almost like an AC unit does in your house. Once it reaches the right temp, it turns off until it determines it needs to kick back on. The problem for me, is that this means I get down to the right temp, and then quickly overheat while I wait for the system to kick back on and cool me down. By that time I've already woken up completely, and have to go through an entire cycle again.

So… luckily they have a good return process and we’ll only be out about $100 for the test.

Just wanted to share my thoughts briefly here as I don't plan to write an entire review on it. In case anyone was considering it for themselves. 

See ya in a couple weeks…. Joe