Welcome To The NEW Gray Matter Lifting Newsletter

Reviews & Stuff

I have been writing… a lot. I finished up two more written reviews since the last newsletter. One on a piece I haven’t talked much about, the FIT KING Air Compression Recovery System. I had some ideas to include these in my regular recovery processes, and so far I have really enjoyed them. They are far from perfect, and I think the more expensive options MIGHT be worth it in some situations, but these have been a happy purchase on my end.

I also wrote up a review for my 2nd run a Test Booster supplement, The Lab T-Sterone10. My last experiment was a full year of Tongkat Ali, with before and after blood work. This was 90 days on T-Sterone10 and a few weeks off, the recommended “cycle” by Dante from True Nutrition.

I share my bloodwork results, and subjective results in and out of the gym. Tongkat Ali was cheap and mildly effective. T-Sterone10 is fairly expensive, so it needed to crush it. I cover it all in the review.

Fair warning, I share some downstairs sexy time notes (no pics). So if you want to keep our relationship PG, go ahead and skip this one.

What Is Up Next?

Part of doing the massage gun reviews, the FIT KING review, and the Chirp Halo review, was to put together a comprehensive video and article around recovery tools. We hopped on a plane this past weekend to visit some family and I managed to write up the script for that video on the plane. I will be filming very soon, so keep an eye out for this one.

Review Pipeline

You are probably familiar with the Review Pipeline on the website. Well now it has officially moved inside the Newsletter. Meaning, you have to be like you, one of the cool people, to be able to vote. This will be a quarterly vote in 2025, but you can go ahead and vote for the end of 2024 round before it closes below. I’ll add the votes here to the results I had on the website, and put it all together and share the official winners in the next newsletter.

New Additions To The Lab

Weight-it Out “Thumper” Plates

Got these in this week. This is a blend between a Bumper and a Steel plate, which in my experience is similar to a rubber coated plate like what Ivanko used to make for commercial gyms.

They are very pretty in person, so much so that my daughter declared that we needed more of them.

From videos I've seen so far, I think you could get away with some heavy lifting on these, but I probably wouldn't do traditional Olympic Lifts with them. The thinness might be a problem from an overhead crash, on top of the limited rubber.

Nice option for those that want to primarily deadlift with bumpers to keep the noise down, or simply want a clean option for plates that are basically the same size as calibrated.

Here is a comparison of my 45lb deep dish, 25lb bumpers, and these. As you can see, quite a bit thinner than even the 25lb bumper. So if you are in need of space on the bar, these could be your answer. They have mentioned they have additional sizes coming, so likely 35, 25, and 10 to complete the set. Will be interesting to see if they go with 45lb diameter or not.

N-Gage Grips

I wanted to snag a pair of these a few months back but their website and business seemed to be completely dead. But they recently “re-launched” with a new dual grip kit including the original and “pro” version. If you haven’t seen these before, they turn a normal grip into an angled “Ez-Grip”.

They arrived this week, so I haven’t had a chance to tinker with them yet. But excited to mix them into my cable work. I typically use my Fat Gripz and other grip modifiers with cable work. More on these soon.

Behind The Scenes

I just got a delivery from Freak Athlete this week with a new toy. Well, technically two deliveries. One was their BulletProof Bundle which includes their new Tib Bar. Nothing special here, a lot of companies offer something very similar.

But the other package contains something they haven’t teased yet, or shared anywhere else. I’ll be testing this here in the next couple of weeks and providing any additional feedback before they officially give it the “Joe Gray Stamp Of Approval”. If you own the Hyper Pro, this is going to be an exciting addition.

Whats New In The Community?

This week we have an initial look at the new CENTR (previously Inspire) FT2 Pro from Basement Brandon. I always love Brandon’s videos for a couple of reasons. First, he is one of the few dudes I see tear pieces apart. Second, Brandon is brutally strong. Third, he gets that not everyone is the same and he tries to be objective about who might like and not like certain pieces of gym equipment.

I’m looking at getting one of these myself, as a current owner of the original FT2. So Brandon’s video was very insightful.

New Product Releases & Sales

REP Fitness launched their second partnership last week with KLEVABUILT, looking to help produce their line of attachments and their deadlift jack at a larger scale. I own the limited release Ghost Strong x KLEVA deadlift jack and use it regularly. But their cable attachments aren’t my cup of tea. Exquisitely built with attention to details that are second to none, but at the end of the day two of their attachments are just neutral grip back attachments, and then a non-rotating V-Bar. I’m taking MAG Grips and the American Barbell V-Bar any day.

Bells of Steel Smith Machine & Kraken Releases

Bells of Steel dropped a number of new releases the past several weeks including their Kraken (rack cable system) and their rack attached Smith Machine. This Smith Machine is a doozie as they have an option that you can use your own barbell. Pretty nifty.

Speaking of Bells, they have a sale starting TODAY that includes over 30% off some items like the Arch Nemesis Swiss Bar and Open Trap Bar, 20% off the SS4 Safety Squat Bar, and more.

Garage Gym Competition

The Winter MiniGGC is rolling until the end of December. Super simple concept… pick something you want to accomplish fitness wise, and do it before the end of the year. It could be that 1 PR, or running a mile, or maybe something like doing MURPH. Whatever it is, knock it out before the end of the year and you are IN!

Prizes

I’m handling the prizes this go-around.

r/HomeGym

My favorite post from the past week was this one about a forearm trainer DIY build. I’ve been training forearms directly again and REALLY enjoying it. So this thing has my brain swirling.

Current Targeted Talk

We are currently talking about common mistakes you see people make when choosing home gym equipment. If you want to learn, or share your advice, stop in and chat.

Upcoming AMA

I got to chat with Mark from Flex Marks The Spot about his upcoming AMA. Mark is one of my favorite dudes in the home gym space, he just needs to produce more videos. Hopefully 2025 will be the year for him to get rolling again.

Regardless, his AMA is coming on January 22nd and 23rd. I am recording another AMA Warm-Up this week with IronBull Strength, and another next week with TrueForm. So stay tuned for those.

One Last Thing…

I believe in the power of community, and nothing says that more than sharing the platform I have with others.

If you want to sit back and read this newsletter every two weeks, awesome. I’m here for that.

If you want a more active role…

See ya in 2025!