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Our Universal Strength Apparatus has arrived. Here’s a breakdown of the product and our first impressions.

What’s in the box?

The USA comes with two ‘fitness ladders’ that can be used individually or attached to one another to create one long unit, and a duffel bag for storage and portability.

The duffel bag is of OK quality, it’s a nice addition but we’re focusing on the fitness ladders themselves.

The ladders are basically made up of thick canvas, with some heavy duty stitching holding the whole thing together. The canvas rungs are thread through a durable plastic cylinder which is what you grip onto when using the apparatus. The final piece to the equipment are the carabiner style clips attached to the top which allow you to fasten the ladders together or suspend them from your anchor point.

Setting up the Universal Strength Apparatus

The USA can essentially be setup in two ways; by suspending it from an overhead structure of some kind, or rigging it up to a door. Generally, fixing it to a door is more for your traditional suspension training exercises. You will find examples of these in our suspension training exercise directory. Attaching it to an overhead structure allows you to climb the apparatus, which is where we really value this equipment.

We setup the Universal Strength Apparatus on our garage rafters in minutes with the help of some step ladders. We also wrapped an old towel around the rafters to minimise the abrasion between the USA and the wood, and help prolong the life of the equipment.

Here are a few photos of our first attempts at training with the Universal Strength Apparatus:

The first is a pullup using the USA, and the others are of attempts to climb it!

Verdict

This is a really fun and novel piece of equipment and we definitely recommend it to anyone who wants to inject a bit of variety into their training regime. It’s much more difficult than we ever imagined and after a very brief first time training session we were aching the next day particularly in our lats and upper back muscles.

We really see the value of the Universal Strength Apparatus in the climbing and pullup exercises as opposed to the more traditional suspension training moves as it’s simply not as good a product as the TRX for suspension training.

One improvement we could suggest for the USA is to the plastic rungs which can be quite slippy and uncomfortable on the hands although this is easy to get round by wearing gloves or training with chalk.

The Universal Strength Apparatus is available now from Bodyweight Culture.

A product sold by bodyweightculture.com called The Universal Strength Apparatus has been getting a lot of hype in the online fitness community. Described as a suspension training system which can be used by anyone, anywhere, anytime, the USA really had us excited when we stumbled across this YouTube video of the kit in action.

We’re waiting on ours to arrive but on first look, I really don’t think it will replace our TRX Suspension Trainer for the standard suspension exercises, but that isn’t what captured our interest. What really grabbed us is the climbing action. To us, this was the unique selling point and we can really tell this will have a great impact on the core body. It will take some explosive body power to hoist yourself from one rung to another as demonstrated in the video.

We’ve placed our order and will be posting articles on our thoughts and experiences when it arrives, but for now here’s a bit more information on what it is, and what the Universal Strength Apparatus has to offer:

What do I get with the Universal Strength Apparatus?

The package comes fully assembled and includes:

• Two USA units (12 handles per unit with two hooks and foot attachements)
• Two door attachements
• Duffle bag for storage

The two USA units can be joined together in series to create one long climbing piece over 16 feet long with 24 rungs.

Where can the Universal Strength Apparatus be used?

The USA can be attached to a door, branch, bar or any stable overhead structure in a few seconds.

Are there any weight limits with the Universal Strength Apparatus?

The USA can support up to 300 lbs, but unofficial tests have seen the equipment support four grown men with a total weight of over 600 lbs.

Our final thoughts:
The Universal Strength Apparatus has been designed for developing strength and explosive bodyweight power. The unique selling point over all other equipment out there is that it can be climbed, hands only. This should be really good for developing the upper body and abs.

The multi-level handled design is unlike any exercise equipment we’ve seen, and we’ve really bought into the climbing action. We firmly believe variety is key to any successful training regime, both to keep you interested and to continuously challenge your body, so this should compliment our standard suspension training regime nicely. We’ll keep you informed!

The Universal Strength Apparatus is available to buy now from www.bodyweightculture.com.