Rogue Premium Ohio belt vs Echo belt
This is a comparison of the Rogue Premium Ohio belt and the Echo belt including pros, cons, and alternatives. Follow the links for more details
Rogue Echo 10mm Lifting belt
The Rogue Echo 10mm belt can be had for $52.50. It is one of the cheapest leather belts you can get from Rogue. If you want to know more about the entire Rogue belt portfolio you can read my article "Which belt to buy from Rogue" in which this overview was originally published.
What else to consider from Rogue
Overview of the Echo belt
The
Rogue Echo belt is 4'' in width and 10mm thick. Production for this belt takes place outside of the United States. It comes with a single prong and in black color. The Rogue logo is stitched on in white. It provides 10 precision-spaced holes. The
Rogue Echo belt might not a lot of breaking in based on the quality of the leather and the production process.
Pros of the Echo belt
A big pro is the price tag. You get a 10mm leather belt for 52.50$. This is nothing to be scoffed at when you are only a weekend warrior or want to get belts for the entire family for Christmas for the home gym. Same goes for equipping a commercial gym. If I was to open a gym I would get one per rack and invest the money saved compared to the Ohio belt in putting my own gym branding on them.
Cons of the Echo belt
For a leather belt, the finish is poor.
This belt is mass produced in a machine in China with lower quality leather. This saves money and comes at the cost of longevity. This belt is more likely to fall apart and let moisture seep in where the finish is imperfect. If you are only using it occasionally or keep it for group use that is fine. If you want to go pro in lifting maybe wait and invest $100 to $150 bucks into something you can be proud of.
Alternatives to the Echo belt
This is the belt at the chasm between hobby and passion. If you only want to protect your back a little for occasional workouts you can also look into
Nylon belts which save you even more money. These also can be worn with greater ease.
Rogue Premium Ohio Lifting belt
What else to consider from Rogue
Overview of the premium lifting belt
The
Rogue Ohio Premium belt is one of the many products of Rogue which shows that they take customer feedback seriously and improve on existing designs.
The belt comes in 4'' width and brown color. It is 10mm thick and is made os US English Bridle leather. The leather has been vegetable tanned. The edges are finished with black Tuff Kote and a slip-resistant interior texture has been added.
It is great to see that Rogue took the
Ohio belt design and improved the leather, stitching, finish on the edges and provided better functionality in the middle. I have seen this happen many times in the product range of Rogue and makes me happy to be a customer of them.
Pros of the premium lifting belt
The
Rogue Premium Ohio lifting belt is the best all-purpose belt you can get from Rogue at this time. It can be used for weightlifters, powerlifter and bodybuilders alike. The new improvements are worth the extra $20 compared to the
Rogue Ohio lifting belt, which is also a very solid choice. The best improvement is the inner texture of the belt that avoids slipping..
That could be a problem with the
old Ohio belt.
Cons of the premium lifting belt
Alternatives to the premium lifting belt
Alternatives in the same price range are the
Rogue lever belt and the
Pioneer faded belt. The
lever belt would be the better choice for serious powerlifters who do nothing but going heavy on the deadlift, squat and bench press. The
faded belt can be a good choice for smaller lifter due to their Pioneer Cut system which enables 0.5mm increments in closing the buckle.