Experiences with the ShermWorks Self-Spotter

Last updated on January 11th, 2024 at 11:59 am

I got a message on Reddit from Sherm, the owner of ShermWorks, in late December. He was looking for someone to do a review on his ShermWorks Self-Spotter unit. We exchanged some emails and I bobbed and weaved between excited, to not interested, to REALLY excited, back to not sure. After about a week of back and fourths we landed on me getting a set-up for his straight bar Self-Spotter, and his Swiss Bar Self-Spotter. I would test them out for about 6 months, and at the end either keep them for a deep discount, or send them back his way.

At the end of February our communication started to break (I’ve had the occasional email issue in the past, so I’m not putting any blame on Sherm here). What ended up happening was that Sherm wasn’t happy with my review process (posting videos as we go, good or bad) and the fact that we were having issues connecting just made things worse. So here we are, middle of March, and I’ve broken down the Self Spotter and shipped it back to Sherm.

I’ve had so many questions about it that I didn’t want to leave anyone hanging, but please do not read this as a full review. Simply my experiences over the past few months. I won’t be including any pictures, nor doing a video review for this, as I’m just not going to dedicate the resources or time to something that I was only given a few months with.

Background

I’ve been eyeing a monolift attachment for my rack for a few years now. It has been on my list, then off, then back on, then off again. I see it and think, that looks like an excellent option for benching at home without having to wreck your shoulder placement unracking the bar. Then I get to the point of buying it and freak out over the $300 price tag, the fact that it would only fit on my current rack, and so much more. I’m also a huge advocate for safe training in your home. It is one of the primary reasons I believe anyone doing the traditional Bench, Squat, and Deadlift needs a solid power rack from a reputable company. Saving a few hundred bucks on something that will literally save your life if something goes wrong is just downright insane to me.

When the ShermWorks Self-Spotter entered my life, my goals were to replicate the monolifts abilities to let you “unrack” the bar from the starting position of the lift. I saw this as primarily a bench opportunity, with some squat opportunities mixed in. The other thing I know to be true after years of lifting is that the psychological benefit of having a “spotter” seems to instantly add pounds to your best lifts. There is something about knowing you can go to the very edge of your abilities that allows you to push into new arenas. So maybe this would allow me some psychological breathing room to push the limits a little farther.

After just two months, this was my experience with the ShermWorks Self-Spotter.

Overview

The ShermWorks Self-Spotter is a unit intended to replicate the safety of a Smith Machine, in that you can lock the bar at any point in the lift and not risk injury, but allow a free motion path of a traditional barbell lift. So an attempt at a win-win for safety and functionality. It accomplishes this with a few key pieces.

First Up

First are the ropes, heavy duty and built to support much more weight than most people could lift, they can be installed in a few different ways, including inside a Power Rack tied to the crossbeams at the top. The ropes are tied securely using a bowline knot, and then run down to the floor. You can connect them to ceiling joists, and a few other options where you don’t own a rack, or maybe if you have a dedicated bench set-up.

The second crucial piece is what attaches to your bar itself, the rope clamps. These lock onto your bar with a U-Bolt and two nuts, and then the rope is fed through the clamps. The clamps hold tight in their “starting” position, tight enough to support the bar from freefalling onto your face when weight is loaded.

The third piece that brings it all together, is the control bar. The control bar attaches from one rope clamp to the other, and when tension is placed on the control bar, it separates the rope clamps and allows the rope to move freely. As soon as tension is released, the clamps buckle down again and you are once again safe.

The fourth piece is the weights attached at the bottom of the rope. These are small and simply help keep the rope in a straight line and not move too much and help keep everything moving and hopefully not bunch up.

Swiss Bar

The Swiss Bar set-up is almost 100% the same, except that the tension rod has these little rotating handles so you can effectively pull down even though your grip is angled, and they move so you can do multiple grips.

The entire set-up is rated to 1000 lbs., but obviously you need to consider what you are installing them to.

So, to recap, the ropes run from top of your rack (or elsewhere) to the floor, the rope clamps are attached to your bar and slide over the ropes, and the control bar is pressed and released to make the whole thing work.

It is actually a fairly basic design, that I’m sure took hours upon hours of testing and design work to come to life. Sometimes the simplest concepts work the best. No need to overengineer something for no reason, and you can tell that a lot of effort has gone into some really basic details around how everything works together.

General Feedback and Notes

I’m going to provide my feedback here in two forms. First, for the straight bar, and second for the swiss bar. I think this is important for a number of reasons that will likely become clear below.

The straight bar rope clamps ONLY fit a traditional Olympic bar. This means no specialty bars made of schedule 80 pipe, it means no fat bars, and it means no squat bars. It actually doesn’t function well for front squats either without getting fairly creative. You need a straight bar where your hands are coming over the top of the bar and applying pressure.

The way the rope comes down through the rope clamps, and then drapes over the bar, creates an immediate issue in my mind. The knurling on my bars is fairly aggressive, and over time I’d be concerned that the rope’s integrity would be compromised. The biggest issue here isn’t so much that you couldn’t replace the rope occasionally, but a matter of how often you might need to do that would be difficult to determine. If you went even 1 rep too far on the rope you could put yourself in a LOT of danger. The entire system relies on the rope and clamps to hold tight.

Tension

I mentioned that you need to put tension on the control bar to release the bar for movement. This is a very awkward feeling in the beginning that I would hope gets easier with months of use. You put your hands in the right spot to bench, but only open palm hold the bar, and then you need to put your fingers around the control bar to pull it down to the barbell itself. You need to keep squeezing the control bar the entire time, while also benching and squeezing the bar. So you have effectively added some diameter to the bar. The one nice thing here, is it forces you to squeeze the bar which is always a good idea, but the downside is it just feels weird. If you were pushing hundreds of pounds in the bench, I’d honestly be concerned safety wise to recommend that you open palm press the bar and then close your fingers around the control bar to the barbell. It feels like a potential accident waiting to happen, but that said, I know that people suicide grip regularly just fine. Regardless, not a fan of the execution of this.

The concept of releasing your grip on the bar is awkward at best. You kind of get accustomed to it over time, but I’ve found that if I don’t release the control bars at the same time with each hand, I end up with a huge issue of one side having slack and the other being tight.

One Bar?

If you are a one-bar shop, this likely won’t work for you either. You could easily set this up in the rack for bench and squat, but if you deadlift, or do any landmine work, or anything else outside of the rack like rows, cleans, you name it, you’ll either need to undo the 4 nuts holding the U-bolt in place every time you want to move the bar, and then reconnect it when you want to use inside the rack again, or you need a second bar.

When It Works

When it works, the overall functionality is interesting and serves the concepts of what I was hoping to do. I can get tight and under the bar, press up slightly and go to work, then when done simply “rack” the bar at the top and end my set. The problem is, the first several months I had nothing but problems getting the unit to work correctly. Constantly having the rope get caught and hang up on me, forcing me to rack the bar which is insanely awkward with the rope clamps, readjust the rope, and try again.

Sherm and I exchanged multiple emails, with pictures, feedback, he even sent me new springs. He was very helpful, but the fact that I had so many issues trying to get it to work out the gate was just bad. It really concerns me that putting the ShermWorks Self-Spotter together, you have to be pinpoint accurate in which way the rope goes, the clamps face, the springs sit and angel, you name it. One small tweak in the installation, and the entire unit is faulty and you are risking major injury.

For the Swiss Bar set-up, you can use the same ropes, you just need the slightly altered control bar and rope clamps. I should note, I use a Football bar, not Swiss Bar, but the application is the same.

Issues

The issues I noted above with the straight bar set-up are almost entirely non-existent here. The rope and clamps seem to work in unison exactly like they are supposed to. I’m not sure if this is entirely due to the fact that my specialty bars do not have knurling where the rope makes contact with the bar, or if it’s a slightly different build of the clamps, or maybe a combination of the two, or something different entirely. All I know is, it works as intended, and has from the very beginning, every single time.

The small bars you pull to bring tension into the control bar are far less intrusive to the lift in this manner than they are on the straight bar model. It is a simple small adjustment to loop two fingers around and pull together. I can’t explain entirely why this feels much more natural, even at very early stages of use, but it does. And amazingly enough, you ALSO get the benefit of the increased tension in your hands. Using this has forced me to get tighter in the hands, arms, etc. which increases the feel in the pecs instead of the shoulders.

The U-bolt and rope clamps here can accommodate a schedule 80 pipe, so we now have options for benching with swiss and football bars, cambered bars, and axles, and we can now squat with a squat bar. We are still stuck when it comes to squats with a SSB or Cambered Squat Bar, but we are getting a lot closer to tackling the full spectrum of inside the rack lifting.  In fact, the Swiss bar rope clamps can even accommodate a traditional straight bar without any issues.

Not Bad

Since this seems to work 100% of the time, I’m actually really fond of this set-up. The ability to “unrack”, go to work, and then “rack” without ever leaving the sweet spot of tight everything is not only likely to have a nice carryover to strength, but also shoulder health. This accomplishes exactly what I was hoping for in many ways. The other really nice part about the ShermWorks Self-Spotter is the fact that you can go 100% to the edge and not worry about missing a J-Cup, or running out of steam. If you do, you just let go and the rope clamps take care of the rest. With the Swiss Bar set up, the release of the tension rods is a lot less sketchy feeling too, I think because you can release them without completely letting go of the bar.

I will say, in my short stint with the ShermWorks Self-Spotter, I couldn’t get the idea out of my head that releasing the bar when missing a lift was a bad idea. I think after a few months of reprogramming your brain it would work, but I just didn’t get there.

So in general, the straight bar set-up seemed to provide nothing but issues for me, whereas the Swiss-bar set-up nailed it on every front.

The “Other” Stuff

I wanted to start with the functionality piece, as that is honestly the most important. The rest of this section is going to be the other things that make a difference in the overall experience of purchasing a product, but in the end don’t impact the performance. If this is your first experience reading one of my reviews, you should know that I am a little picky and bring my background of business, instructional design, and more into my reviews. You’ll see this here.

The shipping was more than adequate, coming in a USPS box wrapped to death in tape so everything came in solid working order. Pieces come in labelled and separated bags, which is helpful, especially if you are getting both the straight bar and swiss bar set-ups. Especially helpful since the pieces are fairly foreign and need to be installed correctly. Overall, packaging, shipping, etc. was fast, easy, and to the point.

Since you won’t be using the ShermWorks Self-Spotter for everything you do in the rack, you likely want to be able to get it out of the way. Luckily, taking the bar off the ropes and storing it is fairly easy. Even in my vertical bar storage, the rope clamps and everything stay attached easily and out of the way. The ropes can then be easily tied up however you deem fit, looped around the top, tied off against the back post, etc.

Instructions

The instructions were really choppy and confusing for me to follow. It took a solid hour to set-up the straight bar ShermWorks Self-Spotter as I jumped through the pages trying to figure out what I was doing. As an indication of how much this was impacted by what I believe to be poor instructions, the Swiss Bar set-up took me 5 minutes because of how similar it was. I’d expect a few minutes difference because I’m using the same ropes, and just for general verbiage and learning curves, so I’d accept maybe 30 minutes to 5 minutes.

But a full hour down to 5 minutes is insane. There is a reason that technical writers exist, it is an art and a science to explain how to do something in simple words, both visually and in written form, that allows people of all skill levels to complete the task. Since this is such a DIY heavy install, and setting it up incorrectly could easily result in injury, this piece scares me more than a little bit. There are entire steps that seem to be missing, things are out of order, the images are blurry, and they are missing some very useful technology advancements like QR Codes and other opportunities to provide video tutorials and more.

Aesthetics

The rope I received is white, the weight plates at the bottom are bright yellow, the clamps for the plates are cheap plastic and orange, and the rope clamps look extremely DIY, as in, looks like something you made yourself in your shop. There aren’t any rough edges, or jagged pieces, or anything like that. Everything is “finished”, but when my wife comes home after it has been set up and says “It looks cheap”, that isn’t a good first impression. I’ll note that I asked Sherm about this and he mentioned that he gets requests for varying colors of rope, and he typically paints the weights black.

But I don’t believe that he necessarily gives you an option for those items to come in anything besides what he currently has in stock. For someone that takes pride in their garage gym and has a certain theme to the colors and equipment, I’d really like to see the ability to request these customizations. With that, as I own a decent amount of equipment from places like Rogue and other commercial outfitters, I’m accustomed to a more presentable finished product. What I mean is, having exposed nuts and washers, having the rope just “tied off” on the rack, using the cheap plastic weight clamps, they all add to the “I made this myself” effect.

UHMW

The U-Bolt doesn’t have UHMW plastic on it, which isn’t a huge deal breaker as there isn’t any moving parts here, but for those that have spent hundreds of dollars on a bar, that might be a hard pill to swallow. Another note here, the rope clamps attach very far out on the bar, almost to the collars. So I don’t think this will impact the knurling in any spot that would really matter.

Sherm’s customer service has been fairly solid. Multiple emails back and forth, helping me figure out issues with how I installed the unit, feedback on how to test different lifts, you name it. Whether I received this because of the inherent review coming, or this is what he provides everyone, I do not know. But it was nice to have the ear of the creator on stand bye.

Feedback From the Community

When I first got the system running, I posted on Reddit and Instagram about the unit and my testing and asking people what they wanted to see. The comments were so mixed in terms of peoples gut reactions, it is mind blowing. Spanning from “This thing looks terrible, why would anyone use this!” to “This thing looks badass!”. The important feedback however, is from several people that have owned and used the ShermWorks Self-Spotter for years, and I think their notes about it are vitally important to painting a full picture of the product.

From user Moherman

“In using the shermworks for something like 2 years, connected to a wooden 9 ft. tall “power rack” at one point and later tied to joists in my ceiling, I found it to be an excellent tool. My wife appreciated it as it wasn’t so much an eye sore, so I could keep my home gym in the house, I just tucked the ropes and bar away in a closet and the only real clue there was a gym in that space when not in use was my lifting platform.

The major complaint I can give is the mechanism is NOT easy to remove from the bar you attach it to. That bar is basically your shermworks bar from then on. Also, it’s horrible for deadlifts or any other lift below the belt. Can’t do Pendlay rows with it. Can’t do front squats with it. Lastly can’t clean and press with it or any kind of transitional grip movements. It works great when you’re just starting out, for a $100 investment you can’t go wrong really.

Squats

It’s good for back squats, squats, bent over rows are okay, but not heavy weight if your grip goes even slightly slack, the bar stops moving because you’ve released the retention bar. It’s even good for pull-ups! Just heft the bar up to where you want it and slip your fingers under the retention bar to do pull-ups like a trapeze man! I got a message from Sherm and he sent me a video of how the ShermWorks Self-Spotter could be used for front squats. In looking at it I could see this working, but once again, once you get into high plate counts, I wouldn’t suggest relying on two strings for safety.

Of course it depends. All of it is subjective. The question is, how much weight is enough that the retention bar digs too much into your hands. The question is, how much weight until you feel like you don’t want to trust the locking mechanism or yourself to let go of the retention bar on both hands at the same time, or fail to let go when you miss a lift. It’s all subjective, just like anything else.

Could say the same thing about Titan’s J-cups or a squat stand. Everything about it is subjective. If you’re comfortable with high plates, you’re comfortable with high plates. Hell, there’s videos on YouTube of Indian lifters cleaning, pressing, and squatting on dirt comfortably, the kind of weight some guys would demand a squat rack and safety bars for.

Bench

This system is made with bench in mind, if the retention bar becomes a problem at 1 plate for someone, it’s too much. For me personally it wasn’t an issue up to 3 plates. It was the other movements that became trouble really. I was plateauing on DLs due to not being able to have an even slightly loose grip, or the bar wouldn’t move. So, got a squat rack.

But, as I said, for $100 bucks, it worked for me for all barbell movements for 2 years before I replaced it. I got serious with lifting, bought a rack and got to invest in a good bar and plates before the rack for the money I saved with this apparatus.

Used mine for years before I got a rack. Sold it for same price I bought it for too. I put 45 lb. plates on my bar to the very end and my body weight, hung from it, no problem.”

From user Necropancer

“I’ve been using these things for a few years now for all my benches and squats. It came with the power rack I bought off craigslist used. The first thing I did was put all my weights on it and tried to make it fail before using it with the weight on my shoulders. All the pushing, banging and what not would not budge the bar and the release handle stops the bar dead on the spot. I check the knots, rope, and hardware once in a while and it still works like the day I got it.

I don’t even rack my squats anymore I just release the bar and step out from under it. Btw, I still use safety pins, only because you can’t be too safe. To be honest I probably wouldn’t have bought these as they do look very sketchy but I haven’t had a single problem. Would definitely buy again.

You can see the entire discussion here: https://www.reddit.com/r/homegym/comments/ah0xx7/testing_out_the_shermworks_self_spotter_details/?utm_source=reddit-android

A few key takeaways from their experiences are, that they didn’t have any of the set-up or hanging issues I did. And the fact that they have both used it for several years, speaks to the longevity of the product, and possibly squashes my concerns about the rope having issues on the knurling.

Comparable Alternatives

Because I think we need to examine the possible alternatives to the ShermWorks Self-Spotter, let’s dig into that now.

The ShermWorks Self-Spotter costs $130 plus shipping. A decent rack with spotters and j-cups is going to run you circa $500. If you really wanted to mimic the experience of the Self-Spotter as close as possible, you’d need a pair of rack Monolifts, which are another $150-$300.

The ShermWorks Self-Spotter wins for price, and one of the big wins for the ShermWorks Self-Spotter is what we would call, in case of emergency situations. If you are benching, or squatting, and tear a muscle, you could instantly let go and rack the bar in place. Whereas, with a rack, you either dump that bar and hope it goes where it needs to without doing more damage to you, your bar, or anything else in the surrounding are, or you somehow have to finish the lift which likely causes more damage to yourself.

Benefits

The other bonus, is the ShermWorks Self-Spotter’s ability to essentially disappear when connected to a structure like your ceiling. A rack, unless it is a folding wall rack, likely doesn’t get out of the way very easily.

The benefit of the rack and monolift attachment however, is that you can use it with any bar you own, it requires no adjustment to your grip or set-up, and it doesn’t require any set-up or breakdown. A rack also gives you tons of options for things like Rack Pulls, using it for ring work, multiple athletes at one time, dips, and so much more. So, compared to the $130 for the ShermWorks Self-Spotter, you are getting a LOT more potential utility for the increase in cost and space.

When we examine one of the ShermWorks Self-Spotters main objectives, to provide a safe lifting environment, we need to look at our rack comparison too. The Self-Spotter can support around 1000lbs, same as a solid rack. I’ve missed a handful of lifts in my garage training days including squats and bench, and because I know where to set my safeties and j-cups, I’ve had no problems. I’ve never been stuck, I’ve never had to lift hundreds of pounds off my chest, risk injury, or dump a bar dangerously. I purposefully bought a good rack, with good safety, so I could lift confidently. Because of that, I don’t give the Self-Spotter any points over a rack for safety purposes outside of our previous in case of emergency situation.

20 Years In Development

Sherm mentioned to me that he had been making ShermWorks Self-Spotters for almost 20 years. I think back to that time and the ShermWorks Self-Spotter makes perfect sense. You didn’t have Rogue Fitness or any of the options for a quality, fairly priced power rack for home use. You bought a Bowflex, or you lucked out and snagged a power rack from a near bye gym closing down. The ShermWorks Self-Spotter would have allowed you to buy a basic bench, bar, and weights, hook it up to your ceiling, and safely lift in almost any room of the house or garage. The garage gym community at that time was non-existent, so resources on how to acquire gear, buy used plates and bars, and so much more that we have today was just not there. It was clearly solving for a gap in the market.

But today, with Rogue, Titan, Bells of Steel, Rep Fitness, and a plethora of Amazon options from Powerline, Body Solid, and more, all well under $1,000 or even under $500, the ability to take the full plunge towards a rack with safeties, a set of squat stands, or even a fold back wall mounted rack, is a very possible option for just about every consumer with basic internet access.

Not Today

The same can be said about bars. You can get decent specialty bars like a cambered squat bar, axle, Safety Squat Bar, and more, from almost every big name retailer. Each bar is somewhere between $200 and $500, but you could put together a full assortment from say, Edge Fitness Systems, for under $1000 total. 20 years ago, I’m not even positive these bars all existed, let alone were as available as they are today.

Taking this same time jump concept, you can look at Sherm’s website. It looks like something I would have built in a computer class in High School (which just so happened to be in the early 2000s). To be honest, if I happened on his site randomly looking for a product like this, I would assume the business wasn’t functional anymore and the site just had not been deleted. In a world of free e-commerce templates, WordPress, Jinx and more, as well as sites like Fiverr, I just don’t see any excuses for a business to not have a clean and presentable website.

Website

This is the only way to find and purchase the ShermWorks Self-Spotterr, and often times this would be people’s very first impression of the product. Again, when so many of us have grown accustom to a smooth and engaging web experience from the common retailers, it makes the ShermWorks Self-Spotter feel outdated and a relic from a past life. Sherm is also non-existent on social media, with only a very small presence on YouTube. In today’s world, I just can’t imagine being successful, getting your product out there, without a Social Media presence.

These things don’t impact the ShermWorks Self-Spotters performance by any means, I just feel they are a part of the overall experience of finding, researching, purchasing and owning the ShermWorks Self-Spotterr. And they seem to line up to a bigger picture of the ShermWorks Self-Spotter, and everything in its world, needing to take a leap forward to catch up to its current place in the market.

So here is the final breakdown

If you are here, you are probably thinking “I read all of that and still don’t know whether I should buy this damn thing or not.” So let me clear that up. After using the ShermWorks Self-Spotter for a couple months, after exchanging multiple emails with Sherm back and forth, after reading his instructions and his website, after discussions with the community at large, and learning all things ShermWorks Self-Spotter, I have a few final overarching thoughts.

In the camp of the Other Stuff, I think Sherm has a lot of work to do to bring his products up to speed. Aesthetics, customization options, website design, instruction rewrites, and overall marketing is a lot of work. And for someone to have the skills in ALL of that is rare. Personally, this is where most companies stall out. They try and do it all alone, instead of bringing in experts to help them move forward.

In the camp of performance, I’m just not a fan of the straight bar set-up. It regularly didn’t work, it is constrained to ONLY a regular straight bar, and the control bar process is just awkward. The Swiss bar set-up however, functions perfectly, can accommodate MANY more bars (it can even accommodate regular straight bars), and the control bar process is much less awkward. I can credit the Swiss Bar unit with pushing me forward into definitely buying a Monolift attachment in the very near future. The ability to stay tight, unrack, go to work, and re rack safely is something I truly enjoyed.

Tip Toe

If you plan to tip-toe into the weight lifting arena, you have a need like Moherman did to create a safe lifting space with little to no space dedication, or you often bench on a standard flat bench set-up like commercial gyms do, the ShermWorks Self-Spotter is a fantastic option. It will allow you to lift safe for only $130. I could easily see past any of the set-up issues and performance problems for someone in this setting. I’d probably recommend you buy the Swiss Bar set up at $145, even if you only have a straight bar, as I liked it better and I think it gives you room to explore specialty bars in the future.

If, however, you already own a power rack, we are now more likely comparing the $130 for the Self-Spotter, to the $150-$300 for the monolift attachments. Considering the Self-Spotter doesn’t work for all bars, requires regular adjustments to accommodate different specialty bars, changes your technique, etc. I just do not see the Self-Spotter winning here. Especially if you add the Swiss Bar option for another $145, we are talking about Apples to Apples in price, and Apples to Oranges in functionality and versatility. A good final note here is, because I use so many different bars in my training, I won’t be purchasing a Self-Spotter for myself.

2.0

What would I like to see in a Self-Spotter 2.0? I want to see the multiple versions gone and to likely just use the Swiss Bar version control bar (or something like it). I want to see Sherm figure out how to hot-swap bars much faster. I don’t want to keep a wrench handy to exchange bars, nor do I want 5 minutes before each workout to be dedicated to loosening and then tightening bolts. I should be able to drop the bar in, latch it, and move on. No bolt tightening needed. If I can swing in a J-cup or safety and have it support 1,000 lbs., I should be able to do something similar with the Self Spotter. I also want him to figure out how to make the self-spotter able to accommodate any bar. Safety Squat Bars, Cambered Squats Bars, Front Squats, etc. I should be able to use ALL of my bars, for all of my squat and bench movements, without any concern. The inconsistent experience of jumping between bars is just not acceptable in my eyes.

The self-spotter in every single way seems like a great idea 20 years ago that just hasn’t caught up with the growing trend of affordable home equipment. The website is outdated, the aesthetics of the spotter are lacking, and the functionality, while innovative, serves a much smaller purpose in today’s market than it would have in the early 2000s. The lack of ability to use for every bar, and the need to own multiple bars to perform even the Big 3, leaves the Self-Spotter with some very strong performance gaps compared to the current market.

Specialty Bars

If you follow my personal training on Instagram, you know I use specialty bars a lot. That might not be you, so please, PLEASE evaluate that statement based on your own training and needs. But that is truly a deal breaker for me.

I’ll leave you with this. I enjoyed my time testing the Self-Spotter and I learned some helpful information for me and my own training and future purchasing plans. The feedback from those that own the Self-Spotter in the community is very positive, and I think that speaks volumes, especially when people are talking about years of regular use. The negative feedback is almost entirely from people who have never touched the unit, which I think should be taken with a HUGE grain of salt if not entirely ignored.

I think if you see the self-spotter and it fits your needs or piques your interest, whether you are looking for a compact and safe training solution, or you are merely dipping your toes into the home gym environment, less than $150 is a fairly cheap investment to give this very unique training option a try.

If you want to find out more about the Self-Spotter, head over to Sherm’s website here: http://www.shermworks.com/

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