Sierra Exercise Equipment - www.sierraexercise.com

Last year I moved to a place without a nearby gym and started exploring options to keep myself in shape at home and on the road — beyond the usual push-ups, sit-ups and other floor-based body-weight exercises. I got interested in suspension trainers (notably the Freestyle Trainer, The Human Trainer and the Hook) as well as resistance band/tube systems (notably Bodylastics, ElastiTone and the Hook).

After much pondering, I finally decided on the Hook, for several reasons. Price wasn’t one of them, alas (the ‘Freestyle Trainer + Bodylastics’ combo I ended purchasing is a lot less expensive). But speed of use was, and versatility: Instead of carabineers or rings, the handles and the anchors sport big hooks, and the suspension trainer is a simple daisy chain webbing (a webbing with loops all over its length). It means you can easily set the length of the trainer by using two anchors (you just leave part of the webbing dangle between the anchors). It also means you can quickly switch from one exercise to the next just by hooking the handles on different loops. You should even be able to use the (smooth) anchor’s hook as a pulley, if you want to do the Rip:60 kind of exercises. As for resistance training, you can add more rubber tubes than with Bodylastics (et al.), which means it’s easier to increase the weight incrementally and, most important to me, to quickly remove band after band for multiple drop sets.

On the downside, the webbing can be too short if your attachment point is high, and is as expensive on its own as the Freestyle trainer, even though the Freestyle trainer includes handles, foot straps and anchors. Sierra Exercise Equipment sells you those separately, and for a good deal more money than other suspension trainers and resistance band/tube systems. Also, even if (big) hooks are safe, they probably don’t *feel* as safe as carabineers. Finally, unlike the rubber tubes sold by Bodylatics and ElastiTone, those sold as part of the Hook system by Sierra Exercise Equipment don’t have any ‘anti-snap’ safety feature.

Still, I’d have bought the Hook, if not for the downsides of Sierra Exercise Equipment being a one-man show. When I got in touch with the owner, he told me he didn’t have foot straps (an essential part of any suspension trainer) but intended to add them to his order page (which he still hasn’t done, one year later) and in the meantime could make them as a special order. I asked how to pay for this special order … and didn’t get an answer until, finally out of patience, I emailed him a reminder three weeks later, at which point he informed me he was currently too busy with a different job. He told me to consider him ‘persona non grata’ (he actually meant ‘incommunicado’) for the next month. As I had previously mentioned to him, however, I needed the equipment in order to get back in shape for a specific event in October, so waiting until September until he could find the time to build and ship my order (shipping itself taking a couple of weeks) wasn't an option.

Which is why I ended buying something else. The Hook looks like a fine product, it really does, but its depending on only one man who has other priorities can be a problem, both when ordering and further down the line. The owner can take weeks to get back to you, months to actually take action, and should anything happen to him the product’s attractive lifetime warranty will be void, and even buying replacement parts will become impossible.

To conclude, my experience with Sierra Exercise Equipment was a time-consuming disappointment.