Here’s an area that was in need of improvement so we attacked it. 

The padding we use on our ladder squat machine. The padding on our benches, split squat stands. All needed an upgrade. 

It’s really hard to get foam right. There’s 100’s of compounds out there.

And companies rarely talk about what they use. It’s proprietary this or patented that. 


First up we went with what’s called a close cell foam. 

It is rigid, holds shape, has give and bounces back into it’s original shape quickly. 

It also deals with water well. 

Within close cell foam, we narrowed down to EVA and PU foams. Each between 10-20 mm thick. 

EVA foams are more durable and denser. But are harder to shape when you work with thick sheets. You’ll find this in some shoe soles as a cushioning layer. 

PU foams are less dense. They are softer. More comfortable. But wears faster. 

To arrive at these, we went through 2-3 densities, cut up decathlon, bought some variants from US and found a chap in Madras whose warehouse is filled with this stuff. And then the squishing and making sense of specifications began. 

So we use some combination of the two to produce a comfortable sandwich to use on our benches, bars and squat stands. 

You can see me with 100-ish kgs on my shoulder in our v4 squat ladder. The pad is just the closed cell PU. It makes the 100 kg squat just a little more comfortable.