The Training Equipment I’ve Used Over the Years

Over the years, I’ve used pretty much every bit of training equipment you can think of. I’ve gone through periods where I needed a massive gym bag just to carry everything I thought I needed, and I’ve gone through periods where I’ve walked into the gym wearing nothing more complicated than shorts, a T-shirt and a pair of headphones.

Looking back, my relationship with gym equipment has almost followed the same path as my training itself. At the beginning, every new bit of equipment made me feel more like a serious lifter. Then I became the bloke with everything. Eventually, I somehow ended up training with almost nothing.

But there was one piece of equipment that stayed with me through nearly all of it: an old black leather lifting belt I found underneath a table at a car boot sale.

The Belt That Started Everything

I’d only really just started taking lifting seriously when I found it. I was walking around a car boot sale when underneath one of the tables I spotted this old-school lifting belt. Black leather, gold edging, double prong, Bryan. It looked exactly like what I thought a proper lifting belt should look like, so obviously I bought it.

I got home, pulled it out and immediately tried to put it on.

The fucker didn’t fit.

Not even close. I was gutted. At the time, I was around 21 stone, and I’d basically bought myself a lifting belt that I physically couldn’t wear.

Most sensible people would probably have sold it again. Instead, I spent roughly the next two years training and losing weight until eventually I could fasten the bloody thing.

There’s something quite funny about that looking back. Before I had proper lifting numbers, before I understood half of what I was doing, I already had this belt sitting there waiting for me. Eventually I fitted into it, and when I finally started using it properly, the difference felt massive.

That was really the start of my obsession with training equipment.

Equipment Should Support You, Not Replace You

One thing I’ve always believed is that equipment shouldn’t replace your own ability. The way I was taught to use a lifting belt was that it came out for the serious stuff, roughly when you’re getting into that 90% area of what you can lift, so I took that quite seriously.

I never really understood the people who walked into the gym, put a belt on immediately and then seemed to wear it for the entire session. You’d see lads doing curls, walking around, chatting, going to the water fountain, probably going for a piss with the belt still strapped around them. At some point, I started wondering whether it was still a lifting belt or whether they were just using it as a corset.

I’m not saying there’s only one correct way to use one. I’m talking about how I personally approached it. To me, the belt was something I wanted when the weight justified it. It wasn’t part of the outfit.

Although, saying that, I was about to discover plenty of equipment that absolutely became part of the outfit.

Then Came the Wrist Wraps

After the belt came wrist wraps, and wrist wraps are a funny moment in the life of a lifter because I think most people who have used them will understand exactly what I mean when I say this: the first time you walk into a gym and put your wrist wraps on, you feel like you look the business.

You might not lift any more weight. Nobody else might care. But in your head, you’re suddenly a serious lifter. The wraps are on. Things are happening.

From there I bought elbow sleeves to give me some support when I started pushing bigger lifts. Then naturally I bought knee sleeves.

Did I desperately need knee sleeves at that exact moment? Maybe.

Did I partly buy them because I already had elbow sleeves and clearly my knees needed matching equipment? Also maybe.

And that is where the problem starts.

Then You Just Start Adding Things

Once you start buying training equipment, it seems to breed. Knee sleeves, elbow sleeves, wrist wraps, straps, belts, bands, different versions of the same thing you already owned. Believe me, I added them all.

There were periods where I would turn up with a massive bag full of equipment, and if you’ve never stood there wearing knee sleeves, elbow sleeves, wrist wraps and a lifting belt all at the same time, let me tell you something:

You don’t half look like a donut.

I Could Never Keep Hold of Any of It

I have another problem with gym equipment. I lose everything.

Maybe it’s forgetfulness. Maybe it’s ADHD. Maybe I’m just one of those people who puts something down, stops being able to see it and immediately forgets it exists. Out of sight, out of mind.

If you went through my old Amazon orders, I’d hate to know how much money I’ve spent buying the same things repeatedly. There are probably three or four pairs of knee sleeves, three or four pairs of elbow sleeves, there must be close to ten sets of wrist wraps, then bands, straps and different versions of everything.

I’d lose something and eventually just buy another one. Sometimes I’d probably find the original afterwards.

But there was one piece of equipment that, despite my best efforts, kept finding its way back to me.

That original belt.

I lost that thing more times than I can remember. Sometimes for days, sometimes for weeks, and somehow it kept coming back.

The Lever Belt

One time, the old belt disappeared for long enough that I finally accepted it was gone, so I bought one of those fancy lever belts. Changing the size meant moving the lever mechanism with screws.

Absolute ballache.

A couple of days later I walked back into the gym and there was a bloke wearing my belt. My actual old Bryan belt.

I’d lost it, bought a replacement, and my original had apparently just started a new life with another owner. And to make matters worse, he was wearing it as a corset.

Of course he was.

So I took my belt back.

That kind of thing happened more than once over the years. The belt would disappear, I’d think it had finally gone, then somehow it would find its way home again. Everything else I owned seemed replaceable.

That belt wasn’t.

Then One Day It Actually Disappeared

Eventually, though, it went missing for the final time, and this time it didn’t come back. No bloke wandering around wearing it. No random appearance weeks later. Nothing. It was just gone.

Strangely, once that belt disappeared, most of my other equipment seemed to disappear with it. Looking back, I think that belt was almost the anchor for my whole collection of gym gear. Once it went, I stopped caring as much about the rest.

Over time the sleeves vanished, the wraps disappeared, the straps went and the bags got emptier. For roughly the last two years I’ve trained with virtually no equipment at all, which is quite a change from being the bloke who once needed half the contents of a sports shop before he could start training.

The One Exception: My Lifting Shoes

There is one piece of equipment that survived: my lifting shoes.

And I still rate them.

The first day I bought proper lifting shoes, I put them on, headphones in, belt fastened, got underneath 150 kg and squatted it for 10 reps. No word of a lie.

Now, was that entirely because of the shoes? Probably not. Maybe I was excited, maybe there was adrenaline, maybe I felt so good wearing them that I attacked the set harder than usual. But I remember that session because the difference felt immediate.

For a long time after the belt disappeared, the lifting shoes were the only piece of proper training equipment I consistently kept using. Everything else had gone.

I Spent Years Trying to Replace That Belt

The funny thing is, I did try to replace the old Bryan belt. I just never found one that felt right.

A lot of modern belts I came across had thick padding across the back, and I hated it. I’d spent years lifting with a plain old leather belt pressing directly into my back, so putting on something with a big padded section felt completely different.

Every new belt I tried was being compared with something I’d spent years getting used to, and none of them felt like mine. That’s probably why I ended up spending so long training without one.

What Do You Actually Need?

After all those years and all that equipment, I’ve come to a fairly simple conclusion: it depends what you’re trying to do.

There’s nothing wrong with using equipment, but none of it changes what you actually have to do. You still have to train. The equipment supports what you’re already doing. It shouldn’t replace it.

What makes sense at one stage of your training might also be completely unnecessary at another. There was a point in my life where I genuinely carried a bag full of equipment everywhere I trained, and there was another point where I trained for nearly two years with virtually nothing.

Both worked because the important bit remained the same.

I kept training.

And Now I Own a Belt Again

About six months ago, after years without one, I finally bought myself another lifting belt. It took me long enough.

And after spending years complaining that every belt I found seemed to have padding across the back, I eventually settled on one.

It has padding across the back.

Of course it fucking does.

So after all those years, all those knee sleeves, elbow sleeves, wrist wraps, straps, bands, belts and massive gym bags, I’ve somehow ended up almost where I started: shorts, T-shirt, headphones, lifting shoes and one gym belt.

The original belt is long gone now. I bought it at 21 stone when I couldn’t even fit into it. I spent roughly two years changing myself until I could. I used it for years while I became stronger. I lost it repeatedly, and it repeatedly came back. At one point I literally walked into a gym and found another man wearing it.

And eventually, after surviving all of that, it disappeared for good.

That belt was there for the transformation.