About the Exercise Equipment Expert

I hope you're enjoying your visit here to the exercise equipment expert website.

I spent hundreds of hours putting together the most comprehensive guide to treadmills, home gyms, ellipticals and exercise bikes on the entire Internet.

So who am I and why should you care about what I have to say?

Fair question, keep reading to find out more about me, my background and my credentials about exercise equipment...

Bret Spottke - The Exercise Equipment Expert

My name is Bret Spottke, the face behind the Exercise Equipment Expert website.

I've been involved with exercise and fitness for the past 20 years of my life starting in high school where I was introduced to strength training for hockey, up until now where I run multiple health and fitness websites.

In between those events I spent a great deal of time using and reviewing every piece of exercise equipment you can imagine (maybe I should get out more?)...

Anyway, I was also certified by the American Council on Exercise back in 2000 as a personal trainer...

American Council on Exercise Certified Personal Trainer Scan

In other words, I know my way around the gym pretty well and I decided to pass along my knowledge to help you take the guesswork out of shopping for your own exercise equipment.

Here's a picture of my gym in the basement of my home that's about 3/4 of the way done. It's a work in progress (does remodeling ever end?) and still needs some repair work to the drywall and ceiling, but it's fully functional and really a joy to use...

Bret's Home Gym - Remodel Almost Completed

I used to have my gym in a small room in the basement (10'x11') and decided to knock out a wall so I could add some equipment.

Here's what I'm currently using:

Smith Machine
I have the Parabody Smith System which is really nice and super versatile. I would have bought the Body Solid Smith Machine but I found this on clearance and couldn't pass up the deal.

The Parabody has a 7 degree linear bearing smith carriage, high and low pulley with 200 pound selectorized weight stack, built-in weight tree and a gun rack on the front for free weight lifting.

I highly recommend getting a nice smith machine if you have the room and like free weights.

Elliptical Trainer
Since my wife and I aren't serious runners we opted for an elliptical machine. We used to have an old Nordic Track Elliptical in the old house and upgraded to the Octane Q45e Elliptical pictured above.

I love ellipticals, but if I had it to do all over again with my choice (the Octane is great but really expensive) I would buy the Sole e95 and use the extra money on a big Samsung LCD TV (live and learn).

Dumbbells
With the extra room we picked up by moving the home gym we picked up a nice set of hex dumbells with a rack. The dumbbells range from 5-50 pounds and are a great addition to the gym.

Bosu Ball
The Bosu Ball didn't make the picture (oops) but we do have one. It's a great device for core training and balance training that is a nice supplement to weight training and cardio.

Treadmill
I have to fess up here, even the Exercise Equipment Expert makes mistakes. What's mine you ask?

I bought an expensive $2500 treadmill locally because I got such a great deal and I friggin hate the thing to death - in fact it's a total piece of junk that I need to send to the scrap heap.

The deciding factor to buy the treadmill came down to my wife needing it for her personal training business. Against my better judgement I signed the dotted line and the rest is history.

Exercise Ball
There are two exercise balls in the gym. The first is an old piece of junk I bought at Target for about 30 bucks and the second is the exercise ball I recommend in the ab machine guide.

Bodylastics
I found these online by accident while researching home gyms. The Bodylastics Exercise Bands are the best product of their kind on the market.

They have quick change clips and are super sturdy. They also make a nice addition to the free weights because you can do things with them that are physically impossible with dumbells or barbells.

Bayou Total Trainer Power Pro
The Bayou Total Trainer Power Pro is a nice piece of gear for doing body weight exercises and pilates moves (if you're so inclined).

I opted to spend a bit more to get the Power Pro over the DLX model because of the aluminum rail construction and think it's worth every penny - not to mention it was $1000 less than a Total Gym.

Well, that's about it for now. If you have any questions of comments about the website I'd love to hear them. You can drop me a line here...