WHY CHOOSE US?
An Idea Was Formed
As a competing powerlifter (at the time), Christian Dyte was frustrated with a lack of well-made, heavy duty gym equipment. He pondered the idea of designing and manufacturing his own…but, where and how to start was going to be a little more challenging!
WHAT ABOUT THE GARDEN SHED?
After spending a few months bouncing around ideas for new equipment, space was needed for prototyping to begin and, as luck would have it, that space was found in the form of a large and relatively unused garden shed. Let the work commence!
WHAT ABOUT THE GARDEN SHED?
After spending a few months bouncing around ideas for new equipment, space was needed for prototyping to begin and, as luck would have it, that space was found in the form of a large and relatively unused garden shed. Let the work commence!
WE TOOK A LEAP OF FAITH
In a sleepy village of Wrington near Bristol in the UK, the exciting (and a little bit daunting) step was taken of moving from the shed to our first commercial unit. Here, we had even more space to showcase our equipment to potential customers.
WE STARTED GETTING BETTER (A BIT!)
Initial equipment designs were hand drawn (yes, really!) but, in our quest to keeping pushing ahead, we moved over to 3D CAD modelling. Despite this, the early days of renders were not quite what they are today.
OUR FIRST EVENT
Almost one year ago since we launched the Kombo Rack, we attended our first ever event in Manchester. Here, we were able to show off some of our equipment and we even got to meet David Haye. (He was suitably impressed by the way!
WE STARTED MANUFACTURING
Twelve months on and we started looking at ways of improving the manufacture of equipment. This is when we took another exciting step and moved everything into our first manufacturing unit. Here, the production of everything was kept under one roof and our processes started to become more refined, although it would be hard to tell with the mess shown in the picture
A BIGGER AND BETTER EXHIBITION
We decided to showcase the Kombo Rack and the Insignia V5 competition bench press at the Body Power Expo. We received really positive feedback on the kit and this encouraged us to keep pushing forward but, what should we launch next…?
THE BEST CALIBRATED PLATES….EVER!
OK, maybe we’re a little bit biased but take a look at their features to see why we think they’re so great. Why plates you may be wondering? At this point we were sticking to kit for powerlifters and we wanted to offer something a bit different aside from the standard cast iron powder coated ones.
TIME TO IMPROVE THOSE IMAGES
Two years from stepping away from sketched designs to 3D modelling, we thought it time to produce even better renders giving our customers a much better representation of the equipment. Upgrading our software and stepping into the complex world of 3D rending meant we could finally give the customer a near photo realistic view of their finished product
MILESTONE REACHED
Around 3 and half years from founding the business, we hit a milestone. 50 products within our range, all designed, prototyped and launched. Where did that time go!? We landed our first major gym overhaul. However, all these new products and extra sales meant we were running out of space. Maybe it was time to move.
THE BIG MOVE...
After viewing many premises and ruling them out, we finally settled on one. Again, in another sleepy village, this time near Glastonbury, Somerset. This unit at 3000 sqft felt huge compared to our previous 800sqft unit and we had doubts it may be too big. But, we pushed ahead as more space meant more manufacturing capacity and better products
OUR FIRST CNC LATHE
Now we had all this extra space, we took a huge investment to us at the time and invested over £75,000 in our first CNC lathe and milling machine. This meant we could start producing our own component parts for the equipment giving us more control over production and R&D
OUR FIRST PARTNERSHIP
After a few chats with Matt Wenning, renowned USA based powerlifter, it was agreed that we would promote, manufacture and supply his belt squat machine to customers located outside of the States. This was a win-win as the belt squat was a fantastic addition alongside our equipment and Matt was able to get his products into Europe that much easier.
GYM SHARK LIFTING CLUB
Following on from recommendations to the owners of Gym Shark, they invested in a number of our plate loaded machines for their brand new lifting club, a luxurious gym facility for their staff (lucky staff!)
OUR FIRST PARTNERSHIP
After a few chats with Matt Wenning, renowned USA based powerlifter, it was agreed that we would promote, manufacture and supply his belt squat machine to customers located outside of the States. This was a win-win as the belt squat was a fantastic addition alongside our equipment and Matt was able to get his products into Europe that much easier.
MORE SPACE ALREADY?
As the business continued to go from strength to strength, we had already outgrown our unit (the one we initially thought may be too big!). What we needed was more space for assembling the equipment and, as luck would have it, the slightly smaller unit immediately next door became available. So, we took it!
OUR BIGGEST INVESTMENT TO DATE
As we had now created more space in our manufacturing unit, we could push ahead with our purchase of a full CNC lathe from DMG Mori. This was a big deal for us as it now meant we could produce our popular Custom Steel Dumbbells and component parts helping us to keep up with growing production demands.
FIRST MAJOR INTERNATIONAL GYM INSTALL
We were very lucky to secure an order for a fantastic new powerlifting gym that was opening in Tazmania. The customer purchased many plate loaded machines for the gym and the entire order was shipped via a 40ft container just before Christmas 2021
WHERE WE ARE TODAY L
Since the early days of working in the garden shed and the formation of the business back in 2013, we have strived to continue to design and add new pieces to our range, which now sits at over 100 products. Not only that, but we revisit older products to make changes and improvements to give you better gym equipment. We take care to listen to you, our customers, as your feedback and suggestions are so important to help us to continuing improving.