Fitness Equipment Pads:

Durability

Two reasons why Training Buddy pads
outlive all typical industry standard pads:

• new polymer chemistry film coating - a genuine breakthrough;
• permanently supple, physically tough, and fluid resistant;

After twelve years spent testing twenty different cover materials in health clubs like yours, we know what works.

Factory vinyl benchafter a bit more than a year of heavy use. Gone the way of all vinyl.

TRAINING BUDDY flat bench after nine months in a metro Y. Condition is mint. Two pairs of streak marks (left, center left) are temporary indentations left by previous user, who had used the bench as a 'rack' for 65-pound dumbbells! "Normal use"? Absolutely!

Companion seated biceps arm pads in the same club. Early non-vinyl polymer cover (right) outlasted a cowhide cover (left), and at least one subsequent, club-installed vinyl wrap.

• each pad design based on function it must perform;
• padding profiles developed from thin, supple, firmly laminated layers, allowing board edges to be amply padded;

TRAINING BUDDY elevator or 'loose prop' cushion for Nautilus, after seventy-one months of service. Early vinyl covered prototype. Nothing takes a worse beating than a prop pad; they're literally thrown all over the gym! Obsolete Masonite back panel shows the abuse, but the perimeter is undamaged by impact.

TRAINING BUDDY Olympic Flat for Polaris, after eighty-nine months of service at a busy, heavy, 'downtown' club. This early prototype is vinyl covered. It succeeded due to a properly designed padding profile, and cover configuration

• multilayered padding construction also allows for a variety of padding profiles, tailored to functional demands;
• padding profile is kept as slim as possible, within biomechanical constraints;
• TRAINING BUDDY presents a gently domed, convex surface to the user. This will deflect downward smoothly, without crushing, folding, or wrinkling

Training Buddy design VS the industry standard
TRAINING BUDDY Domed surface deflects smoothly downward		Industry standard high profile, right-angle surface crushes into loose, hinge-like wrinkles

The industry standard design. 2" of foam in a single slab on the top of the board. Board edges are unpadded. Seaming is excessive. Cover tension is usually inadequate. The vertical, box-style apron will crush under load, and wrinkle into hinge-like folds. The flat panel and vertical aprons form 90° cross-sections with no cushioning properties.

The industry standard design after a little more than a year of heavy use. This is a better-than-average pad by a manufacturer of superior equipment. Note the innovative 'impact bar' on the side. The result was simply to move the impact zone higher up the apron. The basic design is flawed.

TRAINING BUDDY Bench for Nautilus NG Bench Press, after twenty-one months of service at a metro YMCA. As you can see this pad is not easily distinguished from a new one.

Another industry standard vinyl covered pad, this one of an industry standard design, after only about eight months of heavy use. Note how the apron is already 'set' into crushed wrinkles. Its days are numbered.