Rogue Froning vs standard medicine ball
This is a comparison of the Rogue Rich Froning medicine ball and the Rogue standard medicine ball including pros, cons, and alternatives. Follow the links for more details.
Overview and review of the Rogue Standard medicine ball
This is an overview of the Rogue Standard medicine balls including pros, cons, and alternatives. Follow the links for more details.
Overview of the Rogue medicine balls
Price $65 - $123
The Rogue medicine balls are available in 11 different configurations ranging from 4lb to 30lb. They have a double stitch and also provide extra padding to be forgiving on the user for throws and catches. This medicine ball is designed and manufactured in the USA which sets it apart from other medicine balls that are usually made in China. The available weights for this medicine ball are:
- 4lb
- 6lb
- 8lb
- 10lb
- 12lb
- 14lb
- 16lb
- 18lb
- 20lb
- 25lb
- 30lb
This is a solid medicine ball with a wide range of options that is not too expensive to outfit your facility. The only downside is that they are only available in black, except for the special editions that rogue branded for different athletes.
Pros of the Rogue standard medicine ball
- Good value for money
- American made
- Padded
Rogue took the
Dynamax design and cut out the fat to make these medicine balls a bit more affordable. This is what they do with many products without compromising on the quality. For the money you pay you to get a great medicine ball that is made in the United States. Especially if you are government-funded, you might want to take care that the products you buy are not made in China when it can be avoided. The padding works for any type of throws and catches.
Cons of the Rogue standard medicine ball
- Limited color range
- Bounce
- Finish
Just like any company that has a product, not at its core, so Rogue does fall a little short against the market leader,
Dynamax. What Rogue does best is the industrial-scale work of metal.
Dynamax has been doing this longer for sewing medicine balls together. Compared to
Dynamax rogue offers a limited range in colors, if you exclude the
Froning and Leblanc version of the balls. The finish is also slightly inferior to
Dynamax. That being said, they also come in at a lower price, which makes it way more attractive to buy them in bulk. Granted, you have to like black to buy a lot of these.
Alternatives to the Rogue standard medicine balls
The athlete branded medicine balls are available in 14lbs and 20lbs. The
Froning design comes in Balck and red, while the Leblanc design comes in white and blue. This gives the setup a little extra pop and should've especially interesting for individuals who equip their home gym.
The
Dynamax medicine balls are the gold standard for medicine balls in the current market. They provide the best finish and the most color options for you to customize. The disadvantage is that they also cost the most.
Rogue Slam balls are a good alternative if you will mainly slam your medicine balls and not throw and catch them often. In this case,
slam balls will not hit you in the face and are also cheaper to buy.
Conclusion for the Rogue Standard medicine balls
The
Rogue standard medicine balls are well balanced between price and quality. If you need a lot of medicine balls for your gym and want good quality you can save a couple of hundred dollars on these compared to the
Dynamax balls. Individuals might want to look at the branded rogue balls or get an individual
Dynamax stitched up. If you are a university or football club that wants their own colors at a huge scale,
Dynamax is probably the better provider.
This is an overview of the Rogue Froning medicine ball including pros, cons, and alternatives. Follow the links for more details.
This is a nice little customization on the
standard medicine ball to get a pop of color into your gym. The
standard Rogue medicine balls only come in black. That is not for everyone, especially if it is off-brand for your gym or the color scheme in your home gym.
These balls are $5 dearer than the
standard ball of the same size. This can make a difference if you are trying to outfit multiple gyms and buy somewhere between 20 - 100 medicine balls. For your home gym, it will probably be more a question of personal taste rather than pricing.
The standard for most CrossFit WODs for males is a 20lb medicine ball. For females, this drops to 14lb. If you like the color blue and want to equip yourself with an inspiring medicine ball you can get the
Camille Le blanc version of the medicine ball which comes in 14 lb instead of the 20lb the
Froning version has.
Dynamax is the market leader in the US for medicine balls. While Rogue at first resold these medicine balls they went on to produce their own brand to maximize profit margins on low price tag equipment produced in masses. There is not a big difference between the two. Still, if pressed, I would always go for the product that is core for the company. The core competency of Rogue is to work with Steel to build first-class racks and barbells.
Dynamax focuses on perfecting the stitch on their medicine balls.
Slam balls are a great, cheap alternative to medicine balls. If your medicine balls are used 90% of the time to be thrown on the ground, save yourself some money and yourself/or clients some injuries. These balls are cheaper to make and do not bounce back from the floor to hit you in the face. If your training is more about throwing against walls or to each other, stick with the classic medicine ball.
This is the right medicine ball for the dedicated CrossFit individual with great ambitions or the one's around him who want to give something nice. Anyone who buy in bulk is probably better off to either trade up in quality by buying
Dynamax or compromising in price and getting a lot of
Rogue standard medicine balls.