Sunday, October 18, 2009

I Don't Get the Joke

The past few days have been just weird! I have been getting flooded with emails from customers asking if I had seen this sandbag or that sandbag. It seems like all of a sudden people found sandbag training to be an effective training method, almost overnight. I knew of course that companies one day would see what we were teaching and want to get in on sandbag training. Almost sad though what has just happened.

Most of these companies are straight up trying to take our design and resell it. Of course, if you aren't actually a sandbag user you don't pay attention to the details. Everything is important in the creation of the Ultimate Sandbag. There is a specific reason our sandbags are the size they are, remember in sandbag training you have to concern yourself with not only weight, but the dimension of the sandbags as well. People think our power sandbags are only for light sandbag training, the truth is everyone that attends our workshops finds the power sandbags phenomenal for rotational power development. You can see some of these examples below.



The construction of a great sandbag has to be right too! These other companies are selling cheap sandbags that the threading starts to fall apart and the material is thin and weak. Sandbags are different from any other training tool, most strength training implements are made out of metal. Pretty much metal is metal and as long as you can get the right price that is all that matters. However, with sandbags you have to concern yourself with getting strong enough fabric, the right threading, and the right type of stitching. Listen from a man that knows!


"As a Sports Performance Coach and US ARMY Veteran I am very particular when I make an investment in my fitness and training equipment. One thing that I can say is first and foremost is that nothing comes close to the Ultimate Sandbag and YES that even means the military issue duffel bags. The stitching on the bags far exceeds military standards and there was a lot of thought and planning in the design, function, and durability of this bag."
-Nii Wilson

Nothing is perfect, but you don't get much better than this! Being cheap doesn't pay as a well used sandbag will fall apart in days if you don't make them right. Don't worry though it is obvious who makes sandbags and who actually uses sandbags!!!

Then there are "sandbag like" products. I actually thought when a customer sent me a link that it was a joke product he was making a spoof, I was wrong!! This thing is being promoted as the Ultimate Sandbag (ok, we won't talk about the trademark violations), what a joke! Imagine that someone made a barbell that you could throw and slam, but you couldn't squat, deadlift, press, or row. That is exactly what this thing is, a somewhat glorified medicine ball. Hey just because you fill something with sand, doesn't make it good for sandbag training. You can't shoulder, clean and press, zercher squat, or perform hundreds of the sandbag drills that you should and when you only go to 50 pounds is it still strength training? Don't even get me started with the price!!!! To me, it is comparing apples and oranges.

Why do I bring this all up? Yes, I can admit, I am human and it ticks me off to see rip offs (don't worry we are taking care of it;), and I hate it when companies make products just to market and not to help people. Don't worry though, we are hard at work making exciting new DVDs and products that actually do something!! In the mean time see what our sandbags can do!!!



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