
Why it's so hard to find dumbbells in the US - pmoriarty
https://www.vox.com/the-goods/21396116/dumbbell-set-shortage-nordictrack-bowflex
======
GavinMcG
Finally, halfway through the article:

> [home weight] sales usually start in the fall, hit their peak with January’s
> New Year’s resolutions, then taper off as it gets warmer and people are more
> likely to venture outside or go back to the gym.

> ...

> 95 percent of the world’s dumbbells are made in China, Logan said. To curb
> the virus spread, China instituted strict lockdowns from January to April;

> ...

> “It takes a month or so to get the products made and get them to the port,”
> Logan continued. “Then it goes from China to the United States” — landing,
> she says in Long Beach, California — “and then if they’re going to the East
> Coast, they have to go through the Panama Canal.”

> Once weights do get to America, ports, too, are subject to lockdowns and
> social distancing, adding even more delays.

~~~
Joker_vD
So, the supply shock is followed by an explosion in demand, and since
"inventories are bad!", there is suddenly no goods available for purchase.

~~~
ch4s3
> and since "inventories are bad!"

It's not that it's "bad" to hold inventory, it's just expensive and risky.
Tastes change, there's shrinkage, some things degrade over time, rents are
high, and you have to finance buying/holding things you aren't selling.
Obviously, just-in-time inventory isn't super resilient, but it has a ton of
advantages most of the time. Perhaps it doesn't make sense for NOTHING to be
stored near the point of sale, but it's not clear to me at least how that
should be decided.

~~~
raverbashing
> Tastes change, there's shrinkage, some things degrade over time

I think most of these don't apply to dumbbells. At least not on a short term.

Now, the shortage seems to have kickstarted small shops dumbbell production
lines (which are easier to put together than kettlebells)

~~~
throwaway_pdp09
Or pick up 2 bricks. I did.

------
JackMorgan
For anyone reading this, let me recommend an extremely easy alternative: sand
packed into trash compactor bags and then duck taped into "bricks" of various
weights. This plus a big canvas zippered duffle are plenty for some very
excellent training. See
[https://www.goruck.com/equipment/sandbags/](https://www.goruck.com/equipment/sandbags/)
for a commercial and readily available option.

These suckers can get up to 200# really easy, and are an excellent way to stay
strong. Flipping one of these into a clean then front squatting it is PLENTY
for 90% of people wanting to stay fit. Plus, overloaded progression is easy,
just add more sand bags. Another classic is just to pick it up to one
shoulder, then drop over your shoulder behind you, then repeat. Deadlifts are
just picking it up to thigh height.

Add these homemade sandbags to a good rucking pack, and you're ready for an
intense cardio session and strengthening routine. Just don't overdo it,
rucking is really hard on tendons. Make sure to only ever increase weight or
distance by no more than 10% a week.

I made a set of them for rucking, and it's amazing how fast a ruck pack gets
mind alteringly heavy. At some point the brain just can't think any more. It's
very enlightening.

~~~
gameswithgo
you can also just do pushups and pullups, lunges, and other calisthenics. If
you hit 100 push ups with a backpack full of something on your back then maybe
you _need_ dumbells. All kinds of way to make these things harder. Go slow, go
down suuuper slow, use one arm.

~~~
Balgair
A good intro on Prisoner/at-home workouts can be found here:

[https://www.artofmanliness.com/articles/the-prisoner-
workout...](https://www.artofmanliness.com/articles/the-prisoner-workout/)

I'll add in that Burpees are real gut busters and that the 'Deck of Pain'
system is aptly named yet produces results quickly. I think it's the
randomization element that gives you the extra 'umph'.

------
sawmurai
We bought a home gym in March, just when the lockdown here was announced. We
made the decision at 8am, picked up the stuff by 12am the same day and by 6pm
all online shops were out of stock (within 24h after the lockdown was
announced). Best impulsive purchase ever.

~~~
InitialLastName
FYI your times are out of order. 12AM is the one in the middle of the night.

~~~
sawmurai
Ah, thank you. Always confusing that :) I meant noon.

~~~
InitialLastName
The way to remember is that all the minutes after noon are definitely in the
afternoon (including 12:01PM) so noon is the PM one.

------
pmoriarty
_" Even casual gym-goers might be able to justify the spend since weights at
home are the only option when gyms aren’t open"_

Which is false, as you could always just do bodyweight exercises instead.

 _" You can overload the body with bodyweight, but at some point you are going
to have to add more."_

That may be true, but I would bet 99.9% of the people buying dumbbells aren't
anywhere near that point.

~~~
polote
> Which is false, as you could always just do bodyweight exercises instead.

lol, why dumbbells have been used for so long if they are useless ?

bodyweights exercises are quite limited, only three of them can are usefull
for athletic people, dips (triceps) and pull ups( back + biceps) and handstand
press (this one is very hard, shoulders). Push ups are very limited in term
weight, about 50kg bench press equivalent (which is nothing). Raw squat is the
same , doing 100 reps is not the same as doing 10 reps with 80kg on the back.

If you really want to exercise your legs, chest, biceps you have to use
weights.

But of course if you are not into gym but only into fitness, you can do
anything bodyweight

~~~
dogma1138
Because body weight exercises are much harder for most people it also is
harder to progress from zero to hero with them but hero to super hero is
pretty easy.

For chest you have push-ups and their multiple variations which most people
still can’t perform correctly (even “lifters”) as well as body weight rows.

The moment you’ll be able to do even one parallel wide grip pull up which at
that point is an unsupported chest row so it’s essentially a bench press in
reverse just 100 times harder I’ll concede that you might be done with body
weight.

For biceps just do chin-up curls, row curls or towel curls.

For legs there are a ton of them and if you think they don’t overload you well
then I want to see you do even a single pistol squat.

It’s also much easier to add progressive overload by a) changing the mechanics
of the exercise so you isolate muscles more effectively and b) by adding a
backpack with a few water bottles filled with water or sand.

So the real issue isn’t that they aren’t effective, but that most people lack
the strength, stability and range of motion to start doing them and it’s very
demotivating when it might take you 4 months to do even one rep correctly. And
that is without doing really hard stuff like planche which might take 2 years
for an average person to do unassisted.

~~~
shmel
I disagree, the progress from hero to superhero is much more difficult. I can
do many pull ups, I can do archer pull ups. In the gym I was just adding
weights every time I felt it is too easy, 5kg at a time, nice little step up.
During the lockdown I thought, okay, I can train for one arm pull up, I add
half of my body weight in iron anyway. I still don't know how to do it
gradually. I tried resistance bands and various progressions I found on
youtube. They all feel like much bigger steps than adding 5kg every time. I
ended up pulling my biceps when I moved from one resistance band to another.

Overall, I found it very irritating when people repeatedly told me: "oh, gyms
are closed? try pushups at home!" Gym goers are already not "most people".

~~~
dogma1138
You know how many variations are there on pull ups? change your grip width and
angle, can you do a parallel pull up? regular pulls up are so easy to overload
even if you can't do the variations a backpack is all you need.

And honestly i want to see a one arm pull up with and a proper one (not when
you hanging willy nilly sideways) with 150% body weight that puts you not only
well above the average gym but well above the elite athlete territory here is
Magnus Midtbø doing one arm pull ups
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7zoN4DvEpKA](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7zoN4DvEpKA)
and there is no way he can do it with 150% bodyweight, I don't know of a
single climber that ever achieved that.

~~~
shmel
I do normal two arms pull ups with additional weight. If I could do weighted
one arm pull up, I wouldn't have a problem to do them without weight at home.

I admit I was a big fun of bw workouts for 3-4 years. Until I realized that it
is much easier to add another plate than dig youtube for more difficult
progressions and suffer.

Pretty much the same way I can do a dozen of handstand pushups, but I have no
idea how to move to one arm handstand pushup. I am not even sure I saw a video
of one on youtube.

Moving through advanced progressions of bw exercises is much much more
challenging than increasing number of plates on barbell. That was my whole
point. I can see why people do it as sport, but it is a handicap for everyone
who just wants to lift more.

~~~
dogma1138
For one arm standup push-up if you have push-up handles then you use one of
them and the other arm on the floor and you alternate this basically puts more
of the load on the arm that is on the floor while providing some support.

You can also use a palm on the floor and forearm on the floor if you don’t
have the handles or just use a book/anything to elevate one arm to reduce its
range of motion and to allow you to transfer more and more weight to the
other.

But for hand stand push-ups you have other ways of progression such as curling
your body to reduce the center of mass and to isolate your arms, chest and
shoulder more from your back and core.

I generally avoid one hand anything because it’s too easy to get injured which
is one of the main issues with body weight.

Most people won’t be able to lift enough weight to get injured and unless you
are doing singles/doubles you are more or less safe.

With tings like one armed handstand pushups it’s way too easy to get to a
point in your range of motion where you have absolutely no chance of holding
that weight in fact it’s rather easy to do it with normal hand standing
pushups. There are safer options for shoulder/delts dominated pushups than
hand standing ones.

------
leftnode
Dumbbells may be harder to find, but Rogue has consistently had kettlebells
(made in America, in various sizes) for the last several months. Kettlebells
are amazing tools for exercise, and can offer more movements than just
bodyweight alone.

Shipping is not cheap, but you can outfit a perfectly good home gym with 3 or
4 kettlebell sizes and a jump rope.

~~~
css
Yet, Rogue has been out of all of their plates, barbells, dumbbells (both
static and loadable), and most racks since lockdown, all of which are
supposedly made in America.

~~~
juvinious
Not true. They have a rotation of weekly stock in the last few months. You
just have to be on top of it to beat everyone else as most items go OOS within
5 minutes. Barbells are consistently stocked weekly and plates as well. I've
managed to build out my gym within the last 4 months with everything I need:
rack, adjustable and flat benches, multiple barbells, over 700 lbs in
bumper/iron plates, powerblocks and an echo bike. You can follow along (as
well as tracking other companies stock) on the stock and shipping thread at
r/homegym.

~~~
css
I've checked every couple weeks and never seen anything available for sale, I
guess they moved onto the hypebeast business model.

------
aphextron
I've taken to filling 5 gallon buckets with beach sand. Cheap and it works.
Put a broom handle across two and you've got a 100lb bench press/curl.

~~~
fullstop
Have they ever fallen off, spilled the sand, and then you find that you hate
sand because it's coarse and rough and irritating and it gets everywhere?

------
benbojangles
I'm a parcel courier and I know first hand that not many postal companies will
accept or burden their staff to handle 20kg or over and the few specialist
heavy package postal companies that exist both struggle and churn through
employees by the day. The reason is quite clear all postal companies are using
zero-hour staff on minimum pay, and if you're a job seeker you will be better
off being an office cleaner for the same rate of pay than to be ordered to
deliver 20kg+ packages for 11hours a day with no time off, work health care
plan, and the employers right to replace you at will. It's simple economics of
health and well being.

------
el_don_almighty
What is the community experience with resistance bands? I see them more
frequently now and wonder if they aren't a reasonable alternative

~~~
scottlocklin
I've been using them for years; I took a job where I was on the road a lot,
and they're way better than hotel gyms. I like them better for arms than
weights. Middlin to very good for upper back and shoulders. Buy a chest
expander. "The Hook" by Sierra exercise[0] or Samson Cable Set[1]. Then read
"Fatman's guide to cable training."[2] Useless for lower body, and they build
a fairly different kind of upper body strength; more useful for grappling than
picking up barbells. The True Archer Pull is pretty amazing as an exercise and
should be considered a standard feat of strength the same way as the deadlift,
IMO. They make a great combination with sandbags and/or kettlebells and are
now part of my staple exercises (unnatural garbage like bench press are long
gone).

[0] [https://www.sierraexercise.com/](https://www.sierraexercise.com/)

[1] [https://leviticus11.com/exercise-equipment/samson-cable-
set/](https://leviticus11.com/exercise-equipment/samson-cable-set/)

[2] [http://yoga-horizons.com/pdfs/Fatmans-Guide-to-Cable-
Trainin...](http://yoga-horizons.com/pdfs/Fatmans-Guide-to-Cable-
Training-2.pdf)

~~~
el_don_almighty
Excellent, thank you.

------
joezydeco
Sounds about right.

Now do office and children’s desks at IKEA...

------
akeck
Rowing crews often make barbells and dumbbells out of steel pipes, small
buckets, and concrete.

