Customer spotlight - Iswinder Singh
Over the last 30 years we’ve met a wonderful variety of customers across Australia from gym owners, gym goers, weekend warriors, fitness enthusiasts and people just starting their fitness journeys. Whatever a customer's goal is, we strive to be able to help them achieve it. A long term customer we’ve got to know well over recent times is Iswinder. During Iswinder’s customer journey with us he has transitioned from being a regular gym goer to creating his own garage gym. If you’re currently in the middle of this process and need some inspiration we asked Iswinder some questions about why he started his own training set up at home.
What made you start investing in your own garage gym?
What made me start investing? Interesting story here, I have a good friend who lives in Las Vegas who already had his own home gym. When the Coronavirus situation started to unfold he advised me to start stocking up on fitness equipment so I could continue my training uninterrupted. His advice was a godsend because by the time the initial lockdown came into play I had a fully equipped gym in my house (minus the cable cross attachment and the 55 and 60 kg dumbbells and 200 kgs less of plates). Ever since my home gym has been a huge time saver especially with running my businesses from home and looking after my sick cat. Plus, I love that I don’t have to line up and wait for equipment anymore.
What are your essential items for a home gym?
You can’t go wrong with a decent power cage or squat rack, an adjustable bench with a leg developer attachment, an Olympic barbell and some weight plates. With that combination there’s pretty much everything you need to do pull ups, deadlifts and rows for your back, presses and dips for your chest, presses and side lateral stuff for shoulders, plus squats, leg curl, leg extension, hip thrusts and stiff legged deadlifts for leg workouts. Even better if you can get a power cage that comes with a cable cross over and pull down attachments.
If you were starting out again, would you do anything differently?
Yes I would have stocked up 6 months prior and had more equipment and plates!
What motivates you to train in your home setup?
Two things - there’s literally no excuse to miss a workout, I’m 15 feet away from a gym with no crowds. My good friend in Las Vegas who inspired me to create my home gym motivates me to train. Also, my strength gains have been phenomenal by training at home, I know everyone is different but this is a point of motivation for me. I’m putting up close to 170 kgs for a 1 rep bench press and rack pulling/shrugging 260 kgs just by using my home setup which I’m really happy with.
What are the challenges of working out at home?
One of the challenges of working out at home is that it can get a little lonely. However, I try to use that to my advantage because it means NO distractions.
If an asteroid was about to hit earth and you had to go underground to survive and were allowed to only take one piece of equipment with you - what would that be and why?
Easy answer, my Xpeed Power Cage along with the Cable Crossover attachment because like I said earlier you can train everything on that.
The team at our Glenelg store have got to know Iswinder really well over the last few years. We’re really proud of our customer relationships and also love that we’ve been part of helping Iswinder transform his training space to suit his needs.
If you’re looking for more information on creating your own home setup or garage gym we’ve written previously about that here. Happy training.
Written by Fitness Warehouse Personal Trainer, Simon Mitchell. Simon has a Bachelor of Human Movement, is a certified FMS trainer and has worked in the fitness industry since 2003. Simon started his fitness journey as a trainer with iNform Health and Fitness before moving into commercial radio and then back into fitness with Bodyism in the United Kingdom and Australia. A career highlight was being one of the cast trainers on Star Wars IX - The Rise Of Skywalker.