I bought mine from Walmart on a crazy dea and expected it to be super sloppy, inaccurate, and maybe have terrible finish. I think the listed company was “FitVids” I was pleasantly surprised to see that each plate was within about .5% accurate listed weight and fit just as good, if not better than, my vintage Ivankos on the bar. There is slight slop compared to milled Yorks and perhaps smooth and easy to grip alternatives, but I think some will appreciate that wiggle room when loading weights compared to a tighter tolerance. The finish does occasionally shed some material on my ribbed sleeves, but honestly mine have held up quite well after my first 9 months of Starting Strength. Had there not been an opportunity to “upgrade” into some more interesting vintage weights, I’d be lovingly using these still. The price is right, especially if available for less than $1/lb.

For about $10 they fulfill a role as a slim, inexpensive collar. I do always have an anxiety of pinching myself when I close them but they have been secure for me over the last 3ish years. Some companies that use this design have magnets, mine do not. I’ve heard that while Bells of Steel’s version has magnets, they don’t really hold to a rack anyway (no shade to Bells, I expect this is the case for all companies that use this type of clamp). These are still much better than spring clips and I would recommend them for folks are low on barbell sleeve space (shorty bar users for example).

I got mine as a gift, and it was fun to play with and compare scores against my brother. It was branded as a rehab tool, which maybe it could be in controlled and informed use, but I don’t think either of us considered it a workout tool as a first impression; it seemed more of “as-seen-on-tv” Fushigi/Shakeweight garage sale dollar bin fodder. To it’s credit, my brother and I were competing with each other all night going as hard as we could to beat the highest number. In that regard it was fun, but I didn’t feel like I was doing an exercise after about a cumulative hour of attempts that were done through the evening. Build wise, it’s a pretty solid feeling plastic and has an interesting tactile feel as it gyrates around the mechanism in there, but I did still feel like an oddball toy. My big gripe was that going so hard on trying to reach the highest score on like a dozen attempts did lead to my first tennis elbow spell. I didn’t realize how seriously awful that injury was to get and it took me 2-3 months of very intentional forearm extensor rehab exercises just to get my grip back strong enough to hold a 40 oz yeti water bottle or more than a bag of groceries in that hand (shout out to Great Ape Grips and Ironmind Expand-your-hand bands for getting me back in the game). I threw mine away the next day and will never use one of these again because of the injury experience coming from what I considered to be within the middle of the bell curve of expected use, but I also won’t be so closed minded to think that what led to my injury is the only application that people will find for it.