Nike’s home gym gear is starting to look a lot more like its sneakers, with the brand bringing familiar colourways and recycled footwear materials into workout equipment. Nike Strength CEO Drew Conant said the idea came from wanting the equipment to feel unmistakably Nike. (via The Manual). Instead of making home gym products that look like standard black or silver gear, the brand looked to its footwear history for inspiration.
That includes the orange colour of Nike’s classic shoeboxes, which now appears on curl bars and barbells. Nike Strength’s Shield Curl Bar, for example, is offered in an orange finish that directly references the brand’s original shoebox colour.
Volt is another major part of the lineup. The bright neon shade became closely associated with Nike around the 2012 Olympics, and it now appears on some of the brand’s barbells and curl bars. For anyone building a home gym, it is a much louder alternative to the usual grey steel setup.
Nike is also using its footwear production process in a more direct way. The Nike Grind Dumbbell is made with at least 20 percent Nike Grind rubber by volume, using material that comes from Nike’s footwear manufacturing process.
That gives each dumbbell a speckled look, with no two pieces appearing exactly the same. As new footwear colours move through production, the recycled rubber mix can change too, giving the equipment a more varied Nike-style finish without relying on one single colour.
The equipment still has to work like proper gym gear,for sure . Nike’s Grind Dumbbell includes a knurled handle, anti-roll geometry and rubber construction, while its bars use Cerakote finishes designed to resist wear.
This is not just Nike putting a Swoosh on basic equipment. The brand is clearly trying to make home gym gear feel closer to the culture around its shoes.
For people who care about how their setup looks as much as how it performs, Nike’s latest strength gear could make the home gym feel a lot less boring.