The five-time Fittest Man on Earth®, Mat Fraser, has been busy since retiring from competitive CrossFit in February 2020. He has a podcast with Sevan Matossian and CrossFit Games veteran Josh Bridges, a new supplement company with the Buttery Bros called Podium Nutrition that was recently released in GNC stores nationwide, he wrote a book with Spenser Mestel, and he finished setting up his new 1,000 square foot home gym.
A top-corner camera shot of Fraser’s new home gym could be confused with a fully equipped CrossFit box. A custom rig houses a squat rack, a deadlift platform, multiple sets of dumbbells, wall balls, and pull-up bars galore. The other walls are decorated with several Rogue Echo® bikes, ski ergs, a glute-ham developer (GHD) machine, a treadmill, and lots and lots of weight plates. Check out Fraser in the video below, courtesy of his YouTube channel, wherein he gives a full tour of his new training facility:
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When acquiring all the equipment for his home gym, Fraser sent a large order to Rogue. He received a reply inquiring why he was making such a large order. Once Rogue learned of Fraser’s intent to build a home gym, they denied his order request and instead sent him a blueprint of custom equipment for his specific space.
Custom Rig
The most notable aspect of Fraser’s new home gym is the custom rig designed to fit the space. It was delivered in sections without much instruction and took three days to solve how it fit together before being assembled and mounted to the walls.
Once fully assembled, the rig is home to a squat rack, a deadlift platform, a wall-mounted pull-up bar, stall bars, a pair of plate trees that support multiple sets of weight plates and barbells in a barbell holder. As the rig crawls along the second wall, it supports several sets of dumbbells and wall balls of ascending weight.
Types of Barbells
- Ohio Barbells (Men’s and Women’s)
- Pyrros Barbells (Men’s and Women’s)
- Uesaka Barbell
- Axle Bar
- EZ-curl Bar
- Safety Squat Bar
- Bamboo Bar (for stability training)
- Metal Log (for log lifts)
Shelving along the rig supports mobility balls, theraguns, resistance bands, towels, and music speakers. Under the shelves is an unorganized trove of kettlebells ascending to 203 pounds. Linking the shelves to the rest of the rig are pivots at the top and bottom that support a cable system for pulley work via the use of accessories like ankle straps, ropes, handles, and various accessory bars for pulling movements. In addition to its use for box jumps, a Rogue plyobox functions as a separator for the rig and the slew of cardio equipment.
Cardio Section
An entire corner of Fraser’s gym is dedicated to cardio equipment. Any cardio machine that one might find in a CrossFit box or CrossFit competition can be found in Frasers’s gym. He has a pair of Concept2 ski ergs, a pair of Concept2 bikes, a pair of Assault® bikes, stairmasters, and a couple of Concept2 rowing machines.
I basically just wanted two of everything.
The purpose of multiple machines is that if Fraser has a training partner for a particular session, they would not have to coordinate when each person could or could not use a specific machine.
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Old Toys, New Gems
Although Fraser reinvented this gym from his garage gym of old, he still kept some of his former gym’s treasures like the speed bag trainer, forearm pinchers, landmine post, ab wheel, floor sliders, jump ropes, drag ropes, Fat Gripz™, and Iron Neck™.
Fraser asserts that he will never have a gym without a reverse hyper and has one prominently featured on the wall opposite the cardio equipment. Next to the reverse hyper is Fraser’s newest toy — the Rhino belt squat machine.
The Rhino belt squat machine allows Fraser to squat with weight strapped around his waist rather than loaded on a barbell on his back. It fulfills the same lower body work of a full squat workout without the added compression on the spine.
Weight Vest Wardrobe
Although not new, Fraser’s weighted vest wardrobe has its rack in a corner of the gym. It features standard weighted vests, calibrated vests used in CrossFit Games competition, and military-grade vests that can support weight plates with a built-in mechanism to drop them at any point during a workout.
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Building Your Own
Fraser’s gym was designed with the versatility of doing CrossFit-focused workouts and “Globogym” workouts. The latter meaning workouts with movements for hypertrophy purposes beyond functional fitness.
A version similar to Fraser’s rig is available via Rogue Fitness. It is called “The Monster Cave” with a price tag of $4,950.
Feature image: @mathewfras on Instagram