Setting up a basement gym. Goal is squat, bench, deadlift, RDLs. Limited to no olympic lifting, so nothing is coming down from overhead worst case is a deadlift set down or a rack-miss into safeties.

My instinct was bumpers, and I've narrowed to Weight It Out's Thumper (polyurethane, 1.3" on the 45s, $259/pair) or Fringe Sport savage rubber. But the more I read, the more it seems like a powerlifting-only setup wants calibrated steel or thin cast iron instead thinner, cheaper, more accurate. Weight It Out sells those too and they're less money than their bumpers.

So:

1. For pure powerlifting, is there any real case for bumpers over iron?
2. Basement, so noise and floor matter. Does a platform plus horse stall mat make iron a non-issue, or is that wishful thinking?
3. If bumpers, does the Thumper's thinness actually pay off, or is it a spec-sheet win?
4. Anyone gone iron in a basement and regretted it? Or gone bumpers and wished they'd saved the money?

Currently repping in the mid-200s and climbing, so sleeve space matters to me over time. 83" ceiling if relevant.

I have an 83" ceiling wrapping an and looking to build a finished basement gym. Hard constraint: 83" ceiling. Tonal is already mounted and I use it for cable/functional work. PRx plate storage is up, bench and dumbbells in place.

Goal: mount a folding squat rack (leaning PRx Profile PRO 73", no pull-up bar) with the uprights flanking the Tonal, so the same wall gives me Tonal cables plus a rack for heavy compounds — squat, bench, RDL, deadlift. Pull-up bar and standing barbell press are already dead at this height (I'm 6'3").

Two things I can't resolve from spec sheets:

1. PRx folds up, and a 73" no-bar reportedly needs ~91" to fold. At 83" I'd be running it permanently deployed. Can anyone confirm the fold is dead at this height, or is there a real low-ceiling fix?
2. The Tonal arms sweep wider than the unit. Do uprights at squat width foul the arm path on wide movements? Or did you set the rack far enough off to one side to clear it?

Ruled out Rogue, REP PR-4100, and Bells of Steel on upright height. Also weighing a fixed Titan X-3 80" if folding buys me nothing here.

Anyone flanked a Tonal with a rack? What would you do differently in this footprint?

Just closed out six months of back-to-back Joe Rodonis programs and wanted to write up how it actually went, because progress posts are what kept me going early on.

1/30 — starting 12 Weeks to Unleash

Came into this upper-dominant and honestly a little soft on the legs after reemergence of my lower back pain. I'd been training and seeing upper results, but very tentative on legs/lower focused lifts, and it showed. Picked 12WTU because I wanted something that would tell me what to do instead of me improvising every session.

Strength score at the start: 880. First few weeks felt unremarkable. I was showing up, loads were creeping, and the chart barely moved. That's the part nobody warns you about going in.

4/29 — finishing Unleash

48/48 workouts. 739,122 lbs of total volume over the block, and my best week was the last one, 28,586 lbs. Strength score closed at 1104, which the app flagged as 50% Stronger. Picked up the 50 Hours of Time Under Tension badge along the way, and somehow finished a workout on Friday the 13th, which felt like it meant something at the time.

What the program actually did was build the base and teach me it was ok to load my lower half again. By the end I was moving loads I wouldn't have programmed for myself, and the leg days had stopped being the ones I dreaded. That mattered more than any single number.

5/11 — rolling into 12 Weeks to Jacked, second time through

I'd run 12WTJ before, so I knew what was coming. Running it a second time on top of an Unleash base was a completely different experience. Starting loads were way up, the volume that used to bury me was manageable, and weeks 9 through 12 were the best training I've done on this machine.

8/14 — finishing 12WTJ

48/48 again. 99% movement targets. Volume for this block: 1,060,187 lbs, nearly 50% more than the first program. Last set of the whole thing was Barbell Deadlift, 200 x 7, which is the machine's hard ceiling and it flagged as a Strength PR on the way out the door.

Strength score today: 1310

\- Upper: 1,337 (+83.4% since I started tracking)
\- Core: 1,390 (+93.3%)
\- Lower: 1,203 (+100.2%)

Lower body doubled. That's the number I keep staring at. I've been upper-dominant my whole life and legs were always a weak point that these programs helped me to stregehtn and regain my confidence in again. Running the programmed leg days and focus on movement quality has removed the pain and timidness I've had and made me feel stronger than my old D1 track days over 20 years ago.

Does it carry over?

This was the question I actually cared about. I spent a week traveling with nothing but a barbell gym and found out.

Benched 185 x 6. Pulled 225 x 3 conventional with reps left in the tank. Hit a 265 sumo single that had more in it. EZ bar curl 70 x 8.

Six months ago none of that was in reach. The carryover to real iron was better than I expected, and it's part of why hitting the 200 lb ceiling on deadlift didn't bother me. I know there's more there, I just need a bigger platform to find out how much.

Reflections on the last six months...

Both programs are put together well. The progression makes sense, the accessory work isn't filler, and I wasn't dreading sessions at week 9 of either block. That matters more than anything else, because the program you finish beats the perfect one you quit. Running 12WTU into 12WTJ was the right order and I'd recommend it to anyone deciding between them. Thanks Joe for really helping build programs that make us to be better athletes and demonstrate that the standard remains the standard!

If you're earlier in this:

My chart is not a straight line. Look at the shape of it: flat for two months, then it just doesn't stop climbing. There were stretches where nothing moved for weeks and I assumed I was wasting my time.

Six months, two programs, 96 workouts, and about 1.8 million pounds moved. Consistency beat every clever thing I tried in my first year on this.

Happy to answer questions on either program.

SW: 296 | CW: 190 | ~18 months on Zepbound. Max dose : 10MG

I don’t post much, but I hit a point where I wanted to write this down.

A year and a half ago I was 296 pounds. High blood pressure. High cholesterol. Early-stage sleep apnea. I was tired in a way that sleep didn’t fix, and I’d stopped believing I could change any of it. I’d told myself that story for years.

Today I’m 190. The blood pressure is normal off medication. Cholesterol is back in range. The sleep apnea markers have basically resolved. My doctor’s reaction at the last visit said more than any number on the scale.

I played Division I sports in college. For 20 years I carried the memory of being in that kind of shape while moving further from it every year. I never thought I’d get back there. I’m now in the same shape I was the day I graduated, and honestly in some ways better. I didn’t expect that to be possible at 42.

But the part I didn’t expect most is what it did to my head. Losing the weight gave me back faith in myself. When you watch yourself do something hard and stick with it, it changes how you show up everywhere else.

I’m a better father for it. I’m on the bike with my kids instead of watching from a chair. I say yes to things in my community I used to dodge because I didn’t have the energy or didn’t feel like myself. That’s the real win. The health markers are the headline, but being present is the story.

I also want to thank this community. Over the years I’ve read more posts here than I’ve ever written, and the honesty about the hard parts, the wins, the side effects, the plateaus, kept me going more than once. You helped without knowing it. So thank you.

This drug isn’t magic and it isn’t easy. The work is still yours. But for me it cracked open a door I’d given up on.

To anyone early in this and not sure it’s worth it: it was for me. Keep going

Happy Mother's Day to all!

I just finished 12WTU and wanted to share my experience over the past three months. A little about me, I'm a 42-year-old male and started actively using Tonal about a year and a half ago when I hit the big 40 and was really focused on improving my health and longevity. I also started the program after coming off a lower back injury and getting clearance from the doctor to really start hitting the weights again. This program has pushed me to new levels on the platform and has truly felt like training for my old D1 track days. I feel much stronger as a result and I'm even in probably better shape than I was in my 20s at this point.

Starting month one I was definitely a bit more gun shy especially on leg days and my movement score reflects that because I was hesitant on hinge focus movements due to the lower back issue. I will say the double leg days definitely helped to improve my strength, my mobility and overall get my confidence back. The use of the juggernaut method as well also helped me to move past my preconceived concerns by pushing good weight towards the end of each month cycle. By month 2, my confidence was back, and I was really starting to feel much more confident with my lifts. I really enjoyed the progressive weights from week one to 2 to 3 and the deload week really helped me to stay fresh while still challenging me moving into the next month. I also appreciated how Joe focused on mobility and technique throughout the first two phases which helped me to rebuild a solid foundation.

It was finally in month three where I really felt like my form was back to where it should be and my confidence in my movements really allowed me to push much more weight than I had historically on Tonal. The contrast sets where you spend the first 2 days push pushing towards max weight and the cluster sets really challenged me, but also pushed me towards high athletic performance. I really enjoyed the program and the results speak for themselves and the fact that I was able to increase my strength score by over 200 points and I truly feel much more powerful and strong stronger than when I started the program three months ago. I highly recommend this program and thank Joe for also being there with us every step of the way. This programs has been my favorite so far. Joe: thanks for helping me become a better version of myself and giving back to the Tonal community as you do. You rock brother!

TLDR: if you're concerned about a three month or advanced program, I highly recommend this for anyone who is looking to push the boundaries and really break through plateaus. If you're hesitating, my highest recommendation is don't and enjoy yourself. The "new" standard is the standard

I have been using Tobal religiously for the past one and a half years and unfortunately broke my streak with a one week trip to Europe around Xmas. I had the chance to start 12WTU on the first day of the programs release and it is really pushed me to new levels over the past three months. A little bit about me, I'm a 42-year-old male and struggled with my weight for many years through my 20s and 30s and finally used Tonal as one of the catalysts when I hit the big 40 to drive my weight, loss journey and to get healthy. Since then, I've lost over 100 pounds and I'm finally in nearly the same shape that I was when I was a competitive track athlete in college (if not better!).

If you were thinking about doing this program and feeling like it might be too advanced for you, my recommendation is just to lean in to the program and try your hardest. I came off a lower back injury, which caused me to plateau for several months as I was working through physical therapy and getting back into shape. As a result, i had severely had to limit my lower back focused exercises, and that was reflected in my strength score. Over the past three months, I really worked through Joe's coaching on improving my bracing, slowing down in the eccentric portion and my overall technique which caused a 200+ point jump in my strength score and I'm now officially in the triple comma club!!

The first two month phases focusing on the juggernaut method really help you to build a solid foundation for leading into the final month and for me really helped to stabilize and improve my baseline strength of my weaker lifts, focused on the lower back, including my dead lift and RDL. I really through Joe's coaching focused on improving my technique slowing down the lifts and that really helped me to build a foundation so that I could push hard in the final month. I was holding back in the initial phases and frankly struggled during month one on several leg days, which reflect my 98% movement score. After I was able to build my confidence back up and also my base strength levels. I was really able to push myself to new heights.

Moving into the final month of the program and the shift to contrast sets and the focus on athletic performance,. I was able to really push maximum weight on all of my lifts and reach PRs in effectively every lift. Tonal has really helped me to dial in my physical fitness and I cannot be happier with the results. Huge shout out to Joe for the amazing work that he does in the community and the fact that he's there actually lifting with us was a huge motivator for me. The new standard is the standard for me!

TLDR: if you're sleeping on this program and feel like it might be too much my recommendation is DON'T! The focus on athletic performance has pushed me to new heights and I'm excited to continue my strength journey on Tonal.