Category: Reviews

Initial Impressions Of Kettlebell Kings Powder-Coated Kettlebell

Is it really that much better than a cheap kettlebell?

Now that I have the nightmare of the site move over and done with, I can get back to work. Part of that work was in taking a look at the brand new kettlebell that arrived at my door yesterday.

You see, I’d always used fairly cheep kettlebells because, well, I was broke and I’m a cheap bastard. However, I’ve always appreciated finely made things.

Since I wasn’t completely broke, I decided to get a quality kettlebell and did some research. In a lot of people’s minds, the Kettlebell Kings bells are the cream of the crop.

But are they?

Continue reading “Initial Impressions Of Kettlebell Kings Powder-Coated Kettlebell”

Review: Titan Low-Bar Push/Pull/Drag Sled

I’ve been really slack on product reviews lately, and I don’t really have a good reason why. I’ve had a few products for some time now, honestly, nothing’s changed with them.

But, I haven’t done the reviews and that’s on me.

So, let’s get back into it and start with Titan Fitness’s Low-Bar Push/Pull/Drag Sled.

Continue reading “Review: Titan Low-Bar Push/Pull/Drag Sled”

Review: Titan Landmine Rack Attachment

There are a lot of cool exercises out there that, for a long time, I thought were outside the domain of the home gym owner.

Then I was introduced to the landmine. From the first moment I saw it, I knew I had to have one in my home gym setup…though I didn’t have a home gym at the time.

When I started building my setup, though, I knew damn good and well that I needed a landmine.

Thanks to Titan Fitness, though, I was able to get one for nothing. I mean, literally nothing. You see, when you buy from Titan’s website, you build credits. You can then use these to discount gear. I had enough built up that I could get the landmine attachment for free, so I did.

Here’s what I think of it.

Continue reading “Review: Titan Landmine Rack Attachment”

Review Of Titan Axle Bar And Why You Should Get One

When it comes to building up a home gym, there’s a lot of crap you probably don’t need. I’m in a garage gym group and I’m amazed at the number of people who fill their limited space with things like Nautilus equipment and things of that sort. That said, it’s their money and space, so they can do whatever they want.

In the end, though, you don’t really need all that stuff. What you need is a barbell, some weights, a rack, and a bench. If you’ve got that, you can do some seriously heavy lifting and work pretty much every muscle group.

But that also gets boring after a while, so people will want to start adding to their gear list. I sure as hell did.

And that’s why I picked up the axle bar from Titan, and you might want to get one of these too.

Continue reading “Review Of Titan Axle Bar And Why You Should Get One”

Review: Titan Mini Farmer’s Walk Handles

I’m a sucker for farmer’s walks as an exercise. Somewhere along the way, strength coach Dan John suckered me into embracing these things. Coach John refers to them as “game changers.” I’m not sure he’s right at this point in my training, but I do love them.

The reason is something I’ll go into later in more detail, but basically, when you talk about how strong someone is, there are usually a few ways we judge this. One is by carrying heavy things around.

Farmer’s walks are the epitome of that display, and if you want to carry heavy things, you need to carry heavy things.

With that in mind, I really wanted some farmer’s walk handles, but I wasn’t really in a position to purchase a really good set of handles. Or even a so-so set of handles.

But then Titan announced their strongman line of products a short time back and there they were. For $50, I could have something that would let me train farmer’s walks.

These are Titan’s version of the Fringe Sport’s mini farmer’s walk handles but at half the price.

When they arrived, I eagerly tore open the package, and here’s what I found: Continue reading “Review: Titan Mini Farmer’s Walk Handles”

Review Of Rogue Ohio Power Bar And Echo Bumper Plates

In the process of putting together a home gym, I didn’t want to buy everything from Titan. In hindsight, that was probably for the best. My issues with Titan are still a factor, but that wasn’t the only issue. Another was that because Titan is out of stock on things so often, buying bumper plates from them, at least as a set, wasn’t really an option. You can’t buy what they won’t sell.

Plus, I hadn’t heard good things about Titan’s bars, so I decided to not play around and turned to Rogue.

I picked up the Rogue Ohio Power Bar (45 lbs model) first, then later picked up a 260 lbs set of bumper plates.

So, let’s get into my thoughts. Continue reading “Review Of Rogue Ohio Power Bar And Echo Bumper Plates”

First Impressions Of Titan Yoke And Bench

Now that I’m back in the gym and can tell that I’m not revisiting past injuries, I decided it was time to revisit my home gym setup. The reason was simple. There are times when I want to workout but can’t really leave the house to lift.

That meant I needed a setup here, and I needed one that would fit what I was already doing.

After doing a bit of research while working around schedules to hit the commercial gym, I settled on a couple of items to start with rebuilding the gym.

I looked to Titan Fitness to see what they had to offer, and while they have similar products to industry giant Rogue–which makes sense considering Titan has basically ripped off Rogue’s designs–but have them at roughly half the cost.

Yeah, it was a no-brainer.

I selected two items to start with from them, the Titan T-3 Yoke and their 1,000 lbs capacity bench.

Pardon the mess. It’s been a hell of a weekend.

Here are my initial thoughts on both products. Continue reading “First Impressions Of Titan Yoke And Bench”

8-Week ‘Starting Strength’ Program Review


One of the recurring themes here at By Spear And Axe has always been the subject of strength. Yes, I’m kind of obsessed with the idea of it. Part of the reason for that is that for so much of my life, I didn’t have any. I was the proverbial 98-pound weakling growing up (though I weighed less than 98 lbs for much of that time).

As a result, I dealt with some variations of what I can only describe as hell because of it. I lacked the strength to do anything about it and, frankly, my requests for help in learning how to fight were rebuffed by my parents. I was kind of hosed.

However, as soon as I could get into a weight room, I did. The allure of iron was strong, and I spent a lot of time in the gym.

I didn’t have a damn clue what I was doing, but I spent a lot of time in the gym. I only wish someone back then had given me a copy of Mark Rippetoe’s book, “Starting Strength.” Continue reading “8-Week ‘Starting Strength’ Program Review”

DDP Yoga – Aftermath: Part 3

It hasn’t really been all that long for the “Energy” workout from yesterday to have done all that much, but it was long enough, and so far? Pretty much what I expected the aftermath to be.

I do feel some slight twinges of soreness in my lats–which oddly enough, have always been a trouble area for me to train hard enough with weights–but nothing spectacularly sore or anything.

To be honest, I’m a little pissed I didn’t finish the workout, but so be it. A lot of people can’t the first time. So I’m going to focus on just doing more next time. I got nine minutes, so next time needs to be 10 at a minimum.

Frankly, it was probably pretty stupid for me to expect to do a 21-minute workout with few breaks in it when I felt slightly winded from the intro workout. Live and learn.

I don’t have a lot of thoughts on any of this today, so I’m going to leave you there.

Moving forward, I’ll record my training logs here, but from time to time, I’ll also include some other things I’m looking at and thinking about, so sometimes there may be two posts on a given day. I doubt that’ll be the norm, though, just FYI.

Hell, I’ll be doing good to get a single post per day in with my workload. 🙂

DDP Yoga: Energy

First, I’m sorry this is late. This has been the day from hell on my end, which means I didn’t do any kind of workout until late. In fact, I’m still feeling sweat on my forehead at the moment from the workout, so all these recollections are pretty fresh.

As promised, today I did the DDP Yoga workout called “Energy.” Continue reading “DDP Yoga: Energy”