Cobalt s1010 tablet - stay away

UPDATE: I'm even more pissed about this piece of shit. It fell off a stool in my garage thats barely a foot tall and the entire screen shattered as if it was made from the cheapest glass known to man. So now it not only is a subpar junky tablet its practically useless to resell since the entire screen is covered in a cobweb of cracks. What a waste....seriously DO NOT BUY THIS THING if you ever come across one. Cough the extra dough and get a decent tablet from a name brand.

ORIGINAL REVIEW:

Man this thing is just junk. I got it a few weeks ago from eBay and I got to say I've been had. Granted it didn't cost much but still I could have put a good payment on a decent Samsung tablet or something similar than this garbage.
So to start off the manual is in a laughable engrish format. Non of it really makes much sense. Even when booting up everything was set to Hong Kong time.
Secondly it claims battery in use lasts for hours. Up to six even. Try an hour and a half tops. And forget trying to use it while you have it plugged in on its short wire. Touch the screen with it plugged in and out goes nuts. Apparently it needs some alone time while charging.
The screen itself ain't terrible.  Nor the size. But the touch function is just off. It does not feel like a normal touch screen at all.  And the keys not nearly as responsive.
Wi-fi is shaky at best. If you are close to the signal it works well.  Move away and say good bye to Internet.  Even on strong signals.
The camera is just useless so I won't even bother going much further.
Lastly, but not least, I mainly wanted this as a mini laptop and a way to blog on the go using a lightweight platform. The text function does not come with a English dictionary! It says it does but any word you may type will be tagged as misspelled until you manually add the word. Well screw that,  I say to myself, I'll just type on! Wrong! Get enough of those 'misspelled' words and it will slowly but surely slow down to screeching halt. I made it about a large paragraph before it cropped out on me.  And apparently that went to my browser as now that is slowed to mush.
Really the only thing I have found this piece of crap to be useful for is playing Angry Birds. Even then this supposedly HD screen looks low res to me.  Everything's very grainy.
That's what I get from buying the equivalent of China's Walmart. Which would be like saying if the crap was so cheaply made in China Walmart itself wouldn't sell it.  Which is pretty accurate here.

Fat Gripz Review - Extreme's too

A long time ago I reviewed the Grip4orce grip trainers. I also wanted to pickup a pair of Fat Gripz as they seemed to offer some differences. Essentially the two trainers offer the same service- train up your grip strength by fattening up the bar or barbell you are grabbing onto during lifting.

The Grip4orce review can be found here- http://danprater.blogspot.com/2012/05/grip4orce-use-and-review.html

So for this article its all about the Fat Gripz and their bigger brother the Fat Gripz Extreme.

 Regular Fat Gripz










                                                   EXTREME!!!!









First off I will do my best to NOT compare these to Grip4orce. Instead I'd like this to be a standalone review of the product. Later on Ill get a writeup comparing the two products.

So what is the Fat Gripz system? Its basically a chunk of rubber that wraps around a bar to make it much fatter and therefore much harder to hang onto. The FGs do this extremely well as they maintain their original shape very well. This wraps the grip around the bar very tightly. Only very thin bars (<27mm by my estimate) have trouble with this as the opening in the gripper isn't small enough enough for those bars and it can slide. This only was a problem with the lat pulldown bar as if I wasn't careful the grips could slide off. However, the material is very clingy to knurled bars and even if the lifter doesn't grip tightly they tend to stick to the surface pretty well.

What about the difference between the FG and FGE? Almost an inch if I am not mistaken. The Extremes are MASSIVE compared to anything else on the market. Realistically this reduces their effective use to very limited amount of exercises unless you have Andre the Giant hands or a grip that can embarrass a gorilla.  Most of my athletes and clients cannot use them period and they give my older athletes a very hard time with simple lifts. To be totally honest I only bought them because they're just too ridiculous not to have. BUT I do find good use for them with very light small muscle work such as shoulder movements or holding exercises. If I'm feeling nutty then some pressing movements.

The material is pretty tough and durable. Even stretched it out it will find its way back to its original shape. What this means is it takes some work in order to open the grip up to get it on the bar. The FGExtreme is even tougher. I joke with my athletes telling them if they can't open the extreme then they shouldn't be using it. This really isn't too much an issue if you staying with one object at a time. I.E. just using a pair 40's for a few sets before moving on. However, if you are trying to superset multiple dumbbells or the like this will prove to be time consuming and a pain in the ass if you don't have a few pairs. And at $40+ a pair that is not likely.

As for training the FG and FGE give a very 'natural' expansion to the bar. You simply need to just hold on and pull or press to your hearts content. If the bar is wider than 28mm (which most are) the grips will stick to the bar and rarely ever move unless pulled open. This is great for when doing exercises that require a neutral grip like hammer curls or tri-extensions. Some fatter bars can be annoying as they grips will expand even farther leaving a gap. Not a huge issue.

I mentioned for a moment the material is very tough. I've had my pair for almost a year and between my athletes and myself they show no signs of degradation. So its a very solid design. My gripe with the FGEs is the steep angling on the ends. If your hand finds its way to either edge the grip will collapse slightly. This seems to be a design fault and hopefully they look into changing the sloping. It really should just go straight down instead of sloping inward as sharply as it does. The material isn't THAT strong.

Lastly, just something I wanted to note about the cost and the materials. The FG is priced comparatively to other grip trainers while the FGE is about 10-20 more per pair. What concerns me is where these things are made from. Likely China but to date I have not found anything listed. So if buying American or where the product comes from is a concern then it should be noted that FGs do not have that openly listed. It also makes me wonder why the price is so damn high.

Bottom line.
 I like FGs and the bigger Extremes as well. They add a unique variety to same old lifting routine and really do a number on the forearms and hands. I don't like the idea that they are not made in the good ole' U.S. of A. especially at the price. They do however offer a stable fat bar alternative to those on a budget that don't want to buy specialty bars.

Ultimate Sandbag Review

I bought these some time ago so its high time for a good ole review.

Well first off I'll admit I think I got carried away originally buying all these. I bought two regular sized and two larges. Or whatever they are called. Basically I wanted a 30lb, 45lb, 80, and 110. I came real close to buying a XL shell, as they are called, and putting together a 150+ bag but that sounded excessive. Im glad I went with what I did, however.

First off shipping was solid. I remember they arrived a few days after I ordered. Packaging was nice. They ship as empty 'shells' so there is some assembly required which I'll get into later. But they came packed up all nice and tight and ready to put in work. My first impression is they felt extremely sturdy which was well observed as a year and a half later they are still as good as the day I got them.

The regular shells came with 7 handles. Seems like a lot and it sort of is. The bag itself is not very big so when doing certain movements the handles are uncomfortable. Especially if the movements involve the bag resting on the body in any way. They simply dig into the skin. On the flipside having all those handles is a nice feature. Gives the bag a lot of variation. Whats interesting is the large bags do not have side handles like shown above. Instead they have ...flaps. Just a piece of extra vinyl hanging off with a little padding in them for a grip. I'm not really a fan of those. In fact they're pretty useless with a heavy bag.

I mentioned a few times already the material and structure seem to be solid. And after a years worth of punishment its holding up to its end of quality. I havn't even noticed any breaks in stitching, handles are still intact, and so far no sand has leaked either.

Speaking of the sand, USB does sell filler bags to put the sand in. They are essentially the same material only allow the sand to stay inside the bag and not spill out. The shell itself is not 100% sealed so sand will leak out if you just fill it up. I opted out of the filler bags and just went with some 3M Industrial Grade garbage bags from Home Depot. These worked just fine. I did layer about 3 bags for the bigger shells just in case. Then used zip ties to seal them shut. I probably should have filled the 80lb with rice to help fill the bag out. 80lb of a sand has made the shell itself rather awkward to work with at times as the sand will shift from side to side. So far the garbage bags have been holding up well. No leaks recorded to date.

As for effectiveness I really like using these things for just about anything. They don't offer the weight resistance or intensity to really hit some serious strength training but anaerobic or fitness work they're awesome. I will say the price tag is a bit steep. Most start around $70  and then theres the bags, ties, and sand to fill each one in. Oh yea, and shipping. So it is a bit of an investment. There are cheaper alternatives. Mainly just getting some old canvas duffel bags from a military supply and using the same methods to fill those up should work just as well. But if you want to drop the coin on some high quality, and good looking, bags then USB has some great products. Plus their site has a pretty extensive database on training and exercise programs to keep ideas fresh for clients.

Enjoy!

Crappy service...again?!?!

Man, I don't if I'm going to learn my lesson here. Buy from trusted sources and you can't go wrong. Even if it costs a few extra bucks. If you read my McMaster Carr post you already know where this might be going.

So before I blow up on some uncontrolled fit of rage theres a few things that any business should be good at-

NUMBER F&$%ING 1!! (so much for holding back already)
COMMUNICATION- Is it so damn hard to respond to emails? I know it takes time but if you are so busy go hire an intern or some broke college kid under the table to at least answer the easy shit and forward on what he/she cannot reply to. Wait...can't afford someone? Once again if you are THAT busy and still can't spring for some help then your prices are simply too low. Hey its great you want to cut the public a deal but when you can not even respond to some very concerned questions then you are going to have some pissed off costumers.

Number 2- Keep your stock updated
This I understand can be a little more complicated as it requires regular updating to the website. But my gripe here is how eagerly a company will charge you for a product that is not in stock nor won't be for some time. That essentially goes back to number-effing-1 on communication between supplier and distributor.

Number 3- Customer is always right
And for this the company that I am referring to just saved their ass from me bashing them on every forum I could find (of course, looking around there seems to be plenty out there doing that already). Sure I got better things to do with my time (lies) but when you almost get ripped for 1,500 you need to spread the word. Anyways, if the customer didn't get their product in a somewhat reasonable time frame then a refund needs to be issued. Most business I can think of won't even charge if they don't have the item in question and I like Best Buys policy (did I just say that?) that if it is not shipped in 30 days its automatically refunded. 

So anyways to my closing statements I need to make a note that I seriously need to only buy from Rogue as much as I can and, at times, EliteFTS. Seriously some hands down best service I could imagine so far. Granted EFS is a little pricey but when they have a sale Im all over it. Especially their bands.

Grip4orce - Use and review

Long time ago I ran across something interesting and what I thought at the time sort of bizarre. An ad on a forums saying how great these little black rubber handles that snap onto bars and what they did for grip strength. I wasn't sure what to think since I never heard of this company nor had much experience with grip training. Not even sure what possessed me to buy them but what I do know is Im glad I did.

The funny thing is when I first bought these things they were on back order for what must have been 4 or 5 months. Their website wasn't fully functional yet but I saw they had an offer so I figured what the hell? I also bought two pairs, regular and stiff. Apparently the initial design department didnt think that there was any reason to put any sort of distinguishing mark on them as until you squeezed them you couldn't tell which was which. A pair of wire cutters taking a snip off a corner on the stiff pair did the trick. I havn't tried the newest but with all the new colors and that Im hoping they did something to resolve this issue by now.

As far as construction and cost Im pretty surprised at how durable these are. I've had them for almost a year now and have been regularly using both and they are still as good as the day I bought them. Cost was roughly $40 each minus a %15 discount on the back order which I thought was solid. And considering these can be attached to practically any bar or object the cost is well within reason.

So what do my athletes and myself use these for?
Everything.

Quite frankly theres very little in the lifting department that you cant just clamp these things onto. And compared to Fat Gripz the Grip4orce grippers need to actually be squeezed onto the bar and can easily open up during the lift if you are not careful. This really puts your grip on notice if its lacking. So all the wrist wrap junkies out there may not appreciate what Grip4orce will do to their egos.

So far what I have found most effective using the G4's is during either dynamic or high volume upper and lower days where the weight just is not as heavy and the extra reps will really blow up my forearms. Pretty good example is doing simple exercises like DB shrugs or rows for 12-20 reps. Also lower work performing deadlifts or trap bar deads really hits the hands as well.

Lately, I've noticed I have been using them more and more during heavier workouts. Can really feel my grip strength increasing and catching up to the rest of my lifts. To put it in perspective I couldn't even pick up 315 off the rack much less shrug or dead lift while not Im pretty confident with that and more. What really hammers the grip strength, bottom line, is any sort of high rep pulling work (back and bi's for example). It definitely adds a little variety to press work but not nearly as effective as pulling weight.

I still plan on getting a few pairs of Fat Gripz down the road and will definitly buy a few more pair of Grip4orce for my future gym for extra grip work. I really like the product and between the cost and abuse they are definitely worth it when considering how much they save from buying fat bar equipment.

So if you are wondering I'd highly recommend these. Check 'em out -  http://www.grip4orce.com