Ep 128: My Favorite Gym Things (7 Gifts Under $100)
Are you ready with your gifts for this holiday season? Whether you’re shopping for a fitness enthusiast or someone just starting their fitness journey, I have you covered.
Today, I’m answering a question I get all the time about what equipment is most useful in your gym bag or your home gym, so rather than focus on the big stuff like a power rack or barbell, I put together a budget-friendly list for you just in time for the holidays or any occasion where you’re looking for a gym-related gift or toy to buy.
Stick around for the entire episode because I might have one bonus idea near the end.
Also, I’m not including affiliate links or anything like that because this is more about the equipment itself, the benefits, and how and why you’d use them. But if you want to know what I use in the gym or ideas for you or someone you like, just hit me up on IG @witsandweights or by email at philip@witsandweights.com.
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Click here to apply for coaching!
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Today you’ll learn all about:
(2:58) Dip belt (dips, calf-raises, belt squats)
(5:32) Lifting straps (deadlifts, rows, shrugs, pull-ups)
(9:38) Any power rack attachments [multiple in one]
(14:21) 12” box for box squats, step-ups, and others
(16:27) Microplates (BB and DB types)
(19:19) Deadlift jack
(21:15) Wrist wraps (wear them properly!)
(24:15) BONUS
(26:59) Outro
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Email at philip@witsandweights.com
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Transcript
Philip Pape 00:00
stick around for the entire episode because, in addition to the seven gift ideas, I might just have one more bonus idea near the end has a little twist on it and you'll see what I mean when I get there. Welcome to the Wits & Weights podcast. I'm your host Philip pape, and this twice a week podcast is dedicated to helping you achieve physical self mastery by getting stronger. Optimizing your nutrition and upgrading your body composition will uncover science backed strategies for movement, metabolism, muscle and mindset with a skeptical eye on the fitness industry, so you can look and feel your absolute best. Let's dive right in Wits & Weights community Welcome to another solo episode of the Wits & Weights podcast. In our last episode 127 Five fat loss mistakes women need to avoid what to do instead, we talked about why women should think twice before jumping right into a fat loss phase, the five most common fat loss mistakes women make and how to set yourself up for a successful healthy and sustainable fat loss phase. Today for Episode 128, which is going to be a fun one. It's titled My favorite gym things seven gifts under $100. I'm answering a question that I get all the time about what equipment is most useful in your gym bag or your home gym for maybe a gift idea or just something you want to buy for yourself. So rather than focus on the big stuff like a power rack or barbell, which I talked about many moons ago in one of my earliest episodes about setting up your home gym. For today, I put together a budget friendly list for you just in time for the holidays, or any occasion where you're looking for a gym related gift or toy to buy. And I'm wearing my Super Mario shirt that my girls got for me. Because when I was six back in the mid 80s. That was one of the most exciting gifts I got was a Nintendo Entertainment System. For those of you who are into games at all. I'm still a gamer. It's one of the fun things I do for fun on the side to relieve stress, but definitely getting in the spirit of gift giving right now. So stick around for the entire episode because in addition to the seven gift ideas, I might just have one more bonus idea near the end has a little twist on it. And you'll see what I mean when I get there. Also, I'm not including affiliate links, or anything like that in my show notes because this is more about the equipment itself. What are the benefits, how and why you would use this equipment. These are the most useful things that I found among the most useful things in my gym. If you do want to know what I personally use exact brands and Amazon links and stuff like that, or other brands that I use for ideas that you want for yourself or someone who you like or even don't like just hit me up on IG at Wits & Weights or by email at Philip at wits & weights.com all those links are always in the show notes. Alright, let's not waste any more time. Let's get into it. Here are my favorite gym things seven gifts under $100. Gift number one, a dip belt. What I'm talking about here is a what looks like a canvas or sometimes leather strap or belt that you can put about around your waist and it will have some way to cinch it up. And then hanging from that belt will be either a chain or some sort of strap with a hook that you can put into a plate and hang that plate from your body. And so it's called a dip belt because it's designed to add weight while you're doing dips, or dips are the most effective exercises you can have in your routine for your both for your chest and your triceps, there's different angles you can hit them with. And doing loaded dips is a fantastic way to progress the movement when you're working in say the anywhere from eight to 15 rep range and you want to push your press for example is really good at pushing the overhead press for a lot of people when you get plateaued on that movement. So dips are fantastic.
Philip Pape 03:54
I regularly have them in my routine. And you can't go wrong with a dip belt. Now be careful especially for the guys, the the cheaper belts, they might be effective. But sometimes they'll have hooks or chains that hang in the wrong places if you know what I mean. And you got to be careful to avoid pinching in that in that area. But even for the ladies, you know you gotta watch out how it interacts with your clothes if it pinches your clothes and stuff like that. My brother got me one and again, I'm not including specific links, but you can find ones designed like this that the belt straps tight together. And then there's a long Canvas strap with a hook that connects to the other end and so that strap goes into the plate and there's really no chance of pinching whatsoever with that design. So I love it. A dip belt can also be used for things like calf raises. Yeah, if you want to get creative, this is where this stuff I love multi uses for these things. You can hang a bunch of weight from your body and use a power rack and just a calf block or box or whatever wedges and do calf raises with that weight hanging down from you You could even bend forward and do like a donkey Caffrey style movement with a dip belt. The other thing that dip belt is good for is belt squats at home. So if you have two platforms that you can stand on on either under either foot and hang the weight between, you can go down into a squat and have it loaded in a different way in a way that doesn't give you as much low back strain as a typical back squat. Okay, so that's number one dip belt. See, I told you this would be useful episode, it's not just telling you what to get, it's telling you how you can use them. Okay, gift number two lifting straps, and I'm talking about deadlifting straps. Now, there are different types out there, there, everyone has an opinion. When I first started, I got the ones that were figure eight shaped, but quickly found those were not the most effective. So I then moved to the kind that has a single loop. Now you can get the single loop deadlift straps, or you can go even all the way to the kind of hardcore, just a pure strap. And then you have to learn how to wrap it around your hand, which is a little tricky first few times. But there's plenty of videos on that. And honestly, if you're just kind of the average home gym goer, let's say or even if you go to the gym, the kind with a loop can work perfectly well. The way I like to use the lifting straps, and then I'll tell you what I use them on is I will send them to my non dominant hand first and use my dominant hand tighten it, and then tighten it around the bar. And then I'll use my dominant hand and tighten it around the bar, looping the strap with the same hand. So it's hard to describe on a podcast, I know I have video here too, but I'm not going to show it show that to you. You can just reach out to me or again, there's plenty of videos to show you how to use them. If you buy one from like Amazon, for example, there's usually videos that show you how to use a lifting strap. But why I like lifting straps. And again, some people you will hear I think even like the mind pump guys, for example, will say like Yeah, you never really need to use them. I liked them for a few things. First, I liked them for deadlifts when there's a lot of volume involved. So I'm a big fan of not using lifting straps when you're doing your novice linear progression when you're deadlifting for the first time, and trying to build that grip strength. And keep doing that as much as you can like to this day when I do very heavy deadlifts and lower reps, I will do at least one or two sets without the straps. But if I get into like testing my one RM, I might throw the straps on. The other time I would throw on straps is high volume work. So I'm doing if I'm doing you know, 10 sets of four or something like that. I'm not as concerned about the grip strength as just getting in the volume for the deadlift for my legs for my back and so on. So there's no shame in using them. And if they help you avoid the bottleneck of your grip, use them. Now, the caveat to this is, I also encourage you to learn the hook grip. Some people like an alternate grip as well, but I don't like the asymmetry of that. So for me, I like the hook grip, the front facing hook grip for deadlifts, but doing it the right way. And there's a special way to do that. I think I put a YouTube video about this like a couple of years back, but it involves having your thumb out at kind of a parallel to the bar as opposed to up and more across the bar. Anyway, I'm going off on a tangent has nothing to do with the straps themselves. I'm just saying that these are the things that you don't want to just give up and use straps too early. Okay? So lifting straps are good for deadlifts. When you're doing high volume or you know on your second, third, fourth set, whatever. They're also good for movements like barbell rows, for example, anything where you're lifting a heavy bar and you don't want the grip to be the bottleneck, you're actually trying to get back work done. And you don't care about the grip, you're just trying to get all those reps in and really focus on the mind muscle connection and contracting that back and getting the squeeze and, you know, pausing at the top for a split second things like that, that can get bogged down or be harder to do when you're just trying to hold on to the bar. shrugs are another great example both with a barbell and dumbbells or trap bar or whatever you're using for shrugs where you just take the grip out of the equation, you're you're trying to load up as much as you can for those traps. And then the other. The other place I use lifting straps all the time is pull ups. Okay, I don't use them for chin ups, which is the supinated grip palm facing you. I use them for pull ups which is the pronated grip with the palms out right where you just have a wide grip and you're pulling yourself up, classic pull up. I like lifting straps there again, so that the grip doesn't give out before my back is fatigued. I want to fatigue my back when I'm doing those. So there you go. Number two was lifting straps. Number three is this is kind of a multiple gifts in one idea, any power rack attachment. So this is generally going to refer to a home gym. I suspect if you go to a regular gym where you know what the rack dimensions are and they allow you to bring in some sort of attachment great, but this is mainly for a home Jim. And what I'm thinking about here are things like J hooks. So a J hook is the hook that holds the bar when you rack the bar. And, you know, when I first got my power rack, I had one pair that wasn't enough because I wanted to have a couple bars on at a time or I wanted to leave hooks in place. So I didn't have to kind of figure out where they go. And so I might have two or three pairs of hooks all over my rack. So those are J hooks, and there's different designs of those, there's the kind that are just like a small piece jutting out and then they have ones that have like a big back piece against the rack. So when you slam it into the rack, you're not scraping the racks, metal, you're putting it right on the hook, etc. So J hooks, a landmine attachment which can go on the bottom of your rack, right your rack is this big, heavy thing so it can hold the landmine in place. And, you know, a landmine is where you can put the barbell in the in this cylinder down on the floor and then it pivots in all different directions. So you can do things like landmine presses or landmine rows, landmine calf raises whatever. Okay, spotter arms are another great power rack attachment if you if you have say, you know spotter arms or spotter pins depending right like pins are good, because they go kind of inside the rack but spotter arms can be put outside the rack, giving you more versatility. Again, for safety, you want to have spotter arms, whenever you don't have a human spotter and there's an opportunity, you might miss a rep and you need to set the weight down. And then another one I love is dip attachments, you can get either the separate attachments, those are the ones I have that I like because when I say separate I mean there's there's one for the right one for the left, and they kind of go at a diagonal angle so that you can pick the width of your dip grip, because everybody has different anthropometry, right like your fit your body is different. So like a smaller a petite female might need to go up to where it's really close together. And then really big guy might need to go where it's farther apart. So I like that now, a less flexible version of a dip attachment is called a matador. And that's a single attachment where it comes out at a diagonal, and you can do your dips inside the diagonal, I find that it doesn't have quite as much width outward for me. But that's just me. So this was number three is pretty much any attachment that goes into power rack. The caveat here is you got to understand the size of your rack and the spacing of the holes. So for example, I have a small two inch by two inch, right, I wish I had a bigger one or rogue or something. But it's the one I've had since I started lifting and it works just fine. But it's two inch by two it so I need to buy two inch attachments. And if I buy one that isn't made by the manufacturer of my rack, the hole spacing may not work. And so some attachments, it doesn't matter. Like it just has one peg that goes in one hole, then it doesn't matter how it spaced others though, might have two pegs, for example. And then of course, it won't fit if it's not designed for that space. So if you have a well made rack that has their own brand of attachments, that's always a good approach. So think ahead when you get your rack but otherwise there's there's plenty of generic attachments that will still work with most racks. So I think yeah, that's those are the ones I can pick up for that.
Philip Pape 13:17
Hey, this is Philip. And I hope you're enjoying this episode of Wits & Weights, I started Wits & Weights to help people who want to build muscle lose fat and actually look like they lift. I've noticed that when people improve their strength and physique, they not only look and feel better, they transform other areas of their life, their health, their mental resilience and their confidence in everything they do. And since you're listening to this podcast, I assume you want the same things the same success, whether you recently started lifting, or you've been at this for a while and want to optimize and reach a new level of success. Either way, my one on one coaching focused on engineering your physique and body composition is for you. If you want expert guidance and want to get results faster, easier, and with fewer frustrations along the way to actually look like you lift, go to wits & weights.com and click on coaching or use the link in my show notes to apply today. I'll ask you a few short questions to decide if we're a good fit. And if we are, we'll get you started this week. Now back to the show. Gift number four is getting a 12 inch plyo box plyo meaning plyometrics meaning jumping, but this is not for plyometrics. I'm not going back to CrossFit here, a 12 inch box I like 12 inches and not 18 inches, for example because 12 inches for most people will allow you to get into a below parallel squat when you're doing box squats. So if you haven't progressed to that point, if let's say you're brand new and you have mobility issues and you're using boxes to progress to your squat, and you're at a high box now and you're eventually going to get to a low box. The 12 inch box is the ultimate goal. right to get you below parallel, and it's also low enough that if you need it a little bit higher, you can always put it on a 45 pound plate, for example, or put it on a mat to bring it up a little bit. But if it's too high, if you buy too high of a box, you can't lower it, right. So definitely get that 12 inch box, I have one that's metal, and it has like a rough textured, kind of reminds me of like sandpaper or stucco or it's very nice, high friction, textured top, which is you know, no, no slip top. And I use it for box squats. I use it for step ups. So like if you do barbell or dumbbell step ups, you could do it for CAP music for calf raises. So think of a step, but now you're up, you know, decently high height. So you've you can go deep in the stretch at the bottom. And then you could use it as a platform to get up onto things. So if you if you're kind of short, and you need to get up to the pull up bar, you could use it to get yourself set up or to get up and do you know hanging leg raises, or I don't know anything, just use it as a step, right. So I really love having a box. Now if you get a second box, you could then do the belt squats that I talked about with your dip belt. Okay, I actually don't even have a second box, I keep thinking I should just get another box. So I have that option. So maybe that's that's a gift that I will be asking for here. All right, so that's the 12 inch plyo box. And I like the trapezoid shape. By the way, I feel like it's just more structurally sturdy, like it's not going to tip over. Alright, gift number five is microplates Oh, these are super useful, okay, microplates, both for barbells. And dumbbells. Even if you go to a gym, there's a decent chance they will not have these, they might have the two and a half pound plates, which are def a definite must, okay, in any gym so that you can go up by five pounds. But what I'm talking about are the little plates that are in increments of a quarter a half, three quarters and one usually maybe also one and a quarter pounds. So that you can get you know, when you double it, you get, say a two pound jump or two and a half pound jump or a one pound jump. So it's a way to increment and progress on a barbell in much smaller increments. That's the barbell microplates. And those are simple. They just look like you know, smaller disks, small plates with the two inch hole in the middle dumbbell microplates. There are a lot of different types of those. I've talked about these wax I don't know if I have on the podcast, I did a video long time ago. But you could get either the magnetic type that will go on a cast iron dumbbells and they just snap on, or the ones I like are the thereby micro gains. And I have no affiliation. And I think Gaines has a z there. These discs that look they remind you of like Pac Man, but they actually don't really have as open of a mouth as Pac Man. And they snap right on to the handle of the dumbbell. And so you could get two pairs of one and a quarter pound each. And if you do the math, one and a quarter plus one and a quarter is two and a half pounds. Now you can take a dumbbell add two of those plates and you get an increase of two and a half pounds. Since in the gym, most dumbbells go five pounds at a time, right? You go from 10 to 15 to 20 to 25. Well, if you are going from 10 pound dumbbells to 15 pound dumbbells, that's a 50% increase. That's a lot. Even though you know you can say oh, they're only 10 pound dumbbells, but it's all relative. So adding those microplates will let you go up from 10 to 12 and a half, and then eventually to 15. And they snap right on. And if you have adjustable dumbbells, some people find that when you put these microplates on the handle on the inside of the weights, it's too tight of a squeeze for your hand. Like my wife tried this out and she was fine with it because she has smaller hands, but for me it like squeezes both sides of my hand. The trick there is to simply snap the microplates on to an empty part of where the discs are. So again, we're talking adjustable dumbbells, you're going to have like empty slots when you take the dumbbell out. Unless you're at the max weight in which case you're probably not going to need the microplates you can use you can snap it right on to the to the spindle if that makes sense. Where were the one of the empty slots is that's the way I've done it. So microplates can be hugely helpful in not making excuses about why you can't progress your weight. Okay, number six is a deadlift Jack now I think I heard about this first from Juji MUFA right crazy guy you don't know who that is look him up but anyway I think and the one he used was this fancy name brand one that looks like a hook and everything I was cheap I just went again online and just like googled it and found a cheap deadlift Jack whatever works folks right like it perfect is always the enemy of the good. So if you want the whiz bang more expensive one and it's a little more convenient, go for it. If you've got the money great if not any deadlift Jack will work the way a deadlift Jack works. It's very simple. You can position it under the barbell and just push it flip it up in kind of angle it up just like a jack like as if you're jacking the car up to change the tire, but it's not hydraulic or anything, it's just a simple wedge, if you will, that's at an angle that when it's under the bar the bars just above the ground. And now you can put the plates on the bar without having to shimmy them on, or, you know, all the fun dances that we do trying to get a plate on the bar for deadlift, we're like scooching, and holding it with one arm and kind of jimmying it on. This just holds it up in the air, you know, few more inches clears it from the ground, so you can slide plates on. And then you can bloop. Like, you know, drop the jack now, you know, get your foot out of the way, drop the track down, do it on the other side, same thing. And then when you're all done now when you've got your four or five or 495 pounds, right, because you've been progressing your deadlift, and you've got 440 fives on each side, you can just stick that Jack in again, and then slide him right off without all the the crazy dancing. Okay, so deadlift Jack, you might find you might not have ever thought of it before, but it can be an extremely useful piece of equipment, anytime you have to load up a heavy barbell on the ground. Okay, give number seven. Now this is the last gift, but then I didn't I hinted before, I'm probably gonna have a little bonus gift in here. Gift number seven is wrist wraps. So this is different from lifting straps when we're lifting straps. I don't know if I thoroughly described what the heck they were earlier. But lifting straps allow you to put straps around a bar and have a better grip, you know, with the bar. So you can avoid slippage wrist wraps, they actually wrap around your wrist just like they sound and most of them have a little loop that goes on your thumb. And then you can start to wrap it around. Now the biggest mistake people make and I made this myself for a long time is they will wrap it around their wrist and you're like wasn't at the point, well, where on your wrist are you wrapping it, most people will start to wrap it where the base of their hand meets their wrist, you actually want to wrap it where part of the wrap is over the base of your palm. So it should clamp practically clamp up your thumb to your hand when you wrap it nice and tight. Where it's like a little cast so that it's connecting your hand to your wrist. And they cannot pick they cannot bend like you don't want to be able to bend your hand. That's the whole point of wrist wraps, wrist wraps, keep your wrist neutral beach from your you know your fingers all the way through to your forearm. So when you wrap them, and again, you could probably Google this, but there might be a lot of people that are telling you the wrong way to do it, you want to you want to wrap nice and tight up a lot higher than you think. So that it kind of closes in your thumb against your hand. And now you've got these leg, okay, you can move your fingers, we can't really move your thumb type of deal. And so what that lets you do is when you get under the bar for a bench press or an overhead press, let's say or even dumbbell bench presses, you know, you you keep a nice neutral angle, so that all the load is transferred through your arm to where it needs to go. Instead of extending your wrists like a lot of people mistakenly do. And now you're putting force, you're creating a moment arm that makes the lift much harder, increases chance of injury, it puts the load in the wrong place. Okay,
Philip Pape 23:17
so the neutral wrist with wrist straps really help you kind of get a feel for okay, this is how I do it. And then you're going to find like in the bench press and overhead press that your fingernails are now facing more forward. That's one of the cues I learned early on when I was overhead pressing is fingernails, looking at the wall, like fingernails staring at the wall. If they're staring at the ceiling, your your wrist is probably to extend it. For some people this is going to feel like the bar is going to like maybe slip forward but there's a sweet spot where it's sitting right on the base of your palm and transferring that load where it needs to be. So it's wrist wraps can help with that proprioception as they call it. Like I said that right? And I still use them. I like the feel of them. I like to feel like it's just the solid structure. And I feel like I can get just a tiny bit more weight on the bar that way. Okay, so that's number seven. So we had number one dip belt, number two lifting straps, number three power rack attachments number 412 inch box number five microplates number six, deadlift, Jack, number seven wrist wraps. And now I have a bonus number eight for you and it is a food scale. You're like really had to do it right you had to go there a food scale only because only to imply that nutrition is always a big part of your strategy here when it comes to strength, muscle health, fitness, physique, body composition, all of it. And we just never want to forget the fact that what we put in our mouth has a huge impact on our results in our performance. And if you don't have a Food Scale. And you've been listening to me and you know the importance of tracking and awareness. What are you waiting for this is the perfect time get it as a gift. They run the gamut in terms of price, he gets super duper cheap Home Depot food scales, and you get big fancy ones that have removable displays and special bowls and whatever, you know, have fun with it, right like experiment get to get three, I have three food scales, I have a big fancy one. I have a little one for kind of the the table to the side, like the snack table, just for convenience. And then I have a tiny travel food scale, which I rarely use, I'll be honest, but if I ever want to pop it in my jacket or pocket, it's there if I need to use it. So food scale is the bonus item for your gym. Because again, the gym, you know only means so much when you are not fueling properly and when you are fueling properly, then your results go through the roof. Alright, I hope you enjoyed the list that I put together for you. And as always, you can reach out to me anytime at any of the links in the show notes if you have questions about these. Any other questions for the podcast? I do occasional q&a episodes. Or if you just want to chat about what's going on with your health and fitness journey. I love meeting people I love having honest authentic conversations. So if you just want to bounce ideas off me if you want to share what you're going through, I'm all ears. I'm here for you anytime you need it. In our next episode 129 Why passively consuming my podcast is getting you nowhere with Carl Berryman. Carl is back for his third appearance, this time to talk about how to implement the content you're consuming to integrate it into your life. Rather than being a bystander and constantly binging podcast without taking action and you know who you are. So many of us do that. He'll share his mental muscle up formula that I will be using myself over the next few weeks. So you can do this yourself. As always stay strong. And I'll talk to you next time here on the Wits & Weights podcast. Thank you for tuning in to another episode of Wits & Weights. If you found value in today's episode, and know someone else who's looking to level up their Wits & Weights, please take a moment to share this episode with them. And make sure to hit the Follow button in your podcast platform right now to catch the next episode. Until then stay strong
