The Home Revolution

Jessica Bento, Physical Therapist (Co-Creator DVRT Restoration, Pelvic Control, and Shoulder Courses)

To think that our DVRT Ultimate Sandbag Training program started with a crazy thought while in the garage, all the way to seeing it in some of the most popular fitness magazines, well, it is a bit surreal. Yea, it is cool to see your hard work being recognized, but I also thought it was cool for a very different reason.

When I was flipping through one of the recent magazines at a checkout line, I started to chuckle. After all, I normally wouldn’t be interested in “how to get chiseled”, but none the less I was wondering what was being said. Yet, this article isn’t what made me smile to myself.

While examining the article Josh asked me why I was giggling, I told him, because they are doing it wrong! He asked me what I meant, he thought I was referring to form or programming, but that isn’t what I meant at all.

I was thinking about how they had used five pieces of equipment for this workout that I could have done with just with my Ultimate Sandbag. It wasn’t just the fact I could do it with one Ultimate Sandbag, but to me, more importantly I could do it at home.

Some of you guys may not understand, but there are some of us ladies, myself being one, that has never really felt comfortable at gyms. There are more than a few reasons but I have always just felt that way and really just hate to go to any type of group training or gym setting.

Going back to when I was in physical therapy school and also trying to work, going to the gym felt like the least appealing idea in the world. Trying to find the time was literally impossible, the energy I needed to go to the gym and deal with all of that was definitely beyond me. What do I mean?

Whether it was about the drive, which I usually worked 12 hour days so with traffic and everything after work who knows what time I could be done with a workout and find time to cook dinner. Or the fighting for equipment and crowds at peak hours, or having guys stare at you all strange on you while you are trying to have five minutes to do something for yourself, the gym was just far from ideal. Even back then I did more home workouts or used my little apartment gym center, nothing like I do today, but it allowed me to build that healthy life style. Let’s face it though, when you are young you are still doing it to look good, but it taught me lessons I would appreciate a lot more today.

Fast forward a decade and it is funny to think about the fact I never really ended up at the gym. It is especially interesting due to the fact my husband had his own training facility and access to some pretty nice places. When I first started working with Josh I thought he was going to make me hit the gym a lot more.

Some excuses that I had in my younger days really didn’t exist. I didn’t have to brave the winters of Michigan, wasn’t worried about immature guys wasting my time. Yet, these issues were replaced with a lot more “adult” type of issues. Splitting my time between in home physical therapy and helping with DVRT Ultimate Sandbag Training I found my time to still be the most challenging and precious thing to me.

I just flat out told Josh, “I can’t be living in the gym!” I thought I was going to be in for a response like, “well, I can’t help you then.” Instead I was pretty surprised by the fact he said, “you don’t have to!”

The plan was to develop a home fitness plan, but I wasn’t stupid. You couldn’t REALLY achieve great results or goals with training at home. Why would so many people go to the gym if they could!?

I had to come to terms with the fact that this was really my only option. So, I had to give it a chance or try to stick with a plan that I knew was doomed to fail. Home it was!

I was completely astonished with how incredibly challenging and yet fun, the workouts were. I really expected Josh to give me some “dumb down” version of what he could have given me if I went to the gym. To this day, I swear he makes them even harder. He gave me kind of a hard time, “we do almost the same thing in the gym that I make you do here.” I didn’t realize it up to that point, but he was right.

What was I missing by not going to the gym? It made me realize how powerful not just the Ultimate Sandbag, but the DVRT based workouts Josh designed actually were. It was pretty funny to think about, Josh had really never thought about the home gym perspective, but inherently the perfect reason to train at home was created.

I use our DVRT Ultimate Sandbags for about 85% of my training. That means a piece here or there extra is all I ever use. The best part is I never find myself bored and am actually reaching my fitness goals! All with an incredibly busy work schedule that not only takes a lot of my day, but my energy as well.

That was probably the other really interesting idea, my 20-30 minutes were way more effective than anything I had done before. Including my stints at the gym I had in the past.

These are all the reasons I couldn’t believe the magazine made such a complicated and gym based program. So much more could be achieved with so much less, both in terms of time and equipment.

Now, some of you trainers may not like what I am saying, but there is something I didn’t mention. I am spoiled! I get to work with the guy that created this system, it taught me something really important. A great tool is important, but the knowledge of the tool is so much more. We hope we inspire people to come to many of you fitness professionals for guidance, motivation, and instruction. This ultimately makes a winner for all.

The most important thing though is that people learn that developing healthy lifestyles are possible, no matter how overwhelming you think they may be to achieve. We hope we give you the resources in both information and training tools to really see this idea come to life!

During these challenging times we are trying to help people stay motivated with their fitness by giving real solutions! You can get our 3 level DVRT workouts for FREE with code “train” HERE and save 30% on all our Ultimate Sandbags, Online Courses, and other great DVRT workouts with code “save30” HERE. Be safe and be strong!