TSB Labs: Fat Bastard Barbell Company

I?ve been in training for a variety of events and sports for about as long as I can remember: baseball, soccer, footbag, hockey, boxing and ultimately strength sports – so I?ve purchased a thing, two or a million from a wide variety of suppliers over the years.? If you deal with enough retailers you?re bound to have good and bad experiences, normally you just hope that the good experiences outweigh the bad, and when you find a supplier that you provides a quality product along with top notch customer service – you stick with them.

With the way I?m training now and the goals that I have, I need some specific types of equipment to train with – I can?t just run to Wal-Mart or Sports Authority and pick up an implement that will help me reach my goal.? I may be able to find a hand gripper that my two year old son could close, but that won?t necessarily help me improve my grip strength.

I was kind of on my own as far as training was concerned – as I described in my poker card tearing article last week, the information on this type of training wasn?t as extensive as I would have liked and at the outset – I really didn?t know who to trust in terms of equipment suppliers.? I went through a trial and error process where I bought some low quality equipment and I went through a period where I put together some training implements on my own (some where good, some not so good).? I was making progress, but not nearly as fast as I knew I could if I had the best equipment available.

I eventually stumbled onto Ironmind?s website and found the CoC hand grippers.? This was the first high quality piece of grip equipment that I owned and I could immediately feel the difference between this piece of equipment and what I had been working with.

I looked to expand my personal gym with equipment of this level of quality that would help me reach my goals faster – Ironmind made other equipment that would certainly fit the bill but the problem was I couldn?t afford it.? It was around this time I had found the GripBoard and subsequently one of its sponsors, Fat Bastard Barbell Company.

John Beatty, proprietor of FBBC, was an accomplished strength athlete himself, having competed successfully in Power-lifting, Strongman and Grip competitions – he wasn?t some armchair expert that didn?t know what he was talking about.? John has dead-lifted 700+ pounds and flipped over cars, he?s bent insanely tough pieces of steel and placed top five in strongman competitions – this is a dude that knows a lot about the world of strength.