Gym Owners Read This

Took it easy today after work, didn't do any type of walking or anything as I am trying to be fresh for my max effort squat and the 4th week of the Coan - Phillipi deadlift program on Sunday.  Jersey Shore in the morning, and bbq's Sunday after training and Monday!  Free food!

I wanted to take some time to give some advice to local gym owners who want to be able to attract more true lifters to their gyms.  Here are a few things you should consider adding to your gym.  The first suggestion is a monolift, this is a little pricy and will only be used by Powerlifters.  The other suggestions should be seriously considered.

Monolift

If you want to attract powerlifters to your gym, you need to buy one of these.  Once you go Monolift you never go back.  Power racks are nice and are necessary for some other work (like rack pulls).  These are a bit pricy and are available from elitefts.com.

NJ Gyms With Monolifts:
Skiba's Barbell Club (Carteret)
Apollon Gym (Edison)
Strong and Shapely (East Rutherford)  They have a mono, yet gym bags are highly discouraged?

Special Bars

Just a 45 lb bar doesn't always cut it.  Every gym should have some Texas Power Bars.  The Texas Power Bar has a 1500 lb test, so the chances of it getting waffled is much less than those cut rate bars.  Texas Power Bar also has a special deadlift bar, and a 55 lb squat bar as well.  All of these are available at elitefts.com, and the price range is very reasonable (325 for regular; 385 for deadlift; 485 for squat bar).

There are also some real good squat bars on the market as well.  A good squat bar is thick so that it settles on your upper back, without relying on one of those stupid pads (throw those out).  A thick squat bar doesn't have as much movement on the upper back, so it is less likely to cause biceps tendinitis from the bar rolling.  2 great bars are the Mastodon bar and I have also heard great things about the Blue Whale Squat Bar.  These bars are quite pricy, but they will stand the test of time.

Safety Squat Bar is another bar every gym should have.  There is so much you can do with this bar.  I believe CJ Murphy of Total Performance Sports wrote an ebook an all the exercises you can do with this bar.

Other recommended bars:  Okie Deadlift Bar, Trap Bar, Cambered Squat Bar, Bamboo Bar, Swiss Bar.

Bands

Bands have various uses, and can be used for everything from static stretching to adding tension to squats, benches, and deadlifts.  A set of bands is cheap, it retails for 150 at elitefts.com.

Collars


I can't believe I have to put this item on here but we have found sub par collars at many gyms.  An easy fix to this is we went to walmart and dropped 9 bucks each on a set of Golds Gym collars.  There are much better collars available, but I think every gym should have many sets of decent spring collars at the very least.


A Proper Bench Press


A proper bench press is one which would be allowable in a powerlifting meet.  It should have adjustable uprights, be of the proper height, and the pad should be the proper diameter.  Most gyms I have seen have sub-par benches.  All I'm suggesting is to go out and get atleast one decent bench.  You can leave the crappy benches for everyone who doesn't know better.  Contact someone over at elite and see what they offer, other ones are available from Metal Militia, and Forza.

These are just a few suggestions, get started shopping, and lifters will come to your gym.