Mike Rojas and Scott Frasco set out to make a smarter dumbbell.
The former roommates at the University of Southern California came up with safer, more durable and easier to use weights.
They designed weight plates with 12 sides so they wouldn’t roll around on the floor. Then they added two handle slots that made free weights easy to grip. They injected the weight’s steel plate into a sturdy urethane coating and patented it.
Their Santa Ana-based Iron Grip Barbell Co. still is relatively small with $13 million in yearly sales. Yet it’s one of the largest makers of dumbbells, barbells and weight plates. Iron Grip employs 52 people.
Fitness clubs are the company’s biggest customers. It also sells to the military and corporate gyms. Rivals include Pennsylvania’s York Barbell Co. and Hampton Fitness Products Ltd. in Ventura.
Iron Grip has a distinction,it’s the only large company that makes weights in the U.S., in Santa Ana, nonetheless.
A few years ago, York shifted production of free weights to China. That’s about the time Chinese competitors began to undercut U.S. makers.
Iron Grip started its own China import line called IGX. The weights are simpler to make,minus the urethane,and cheaper. Final IGX weights are assembled in Santa Ana.
The company’s premium Iron Grip brand is its bread and butter. Those barbells are made at Iron Grip’s factory off Harbor Boulevard.
Iron Grip recently expanded across the street,it now has about 43,000 square feet of space,where it gets three truckloads of steel pipes a week. The pipes are sliced into plates, heated and injected into urethane.
About $5 million worth of machinery is tied up in the new building, including a dozen machines that cost $100,000 and are used to make weights.
Venting About China
Iron Grip made some of its own machinery from scratch, Frasco said. There isn’t a manufacturer that makes barbell-making gear, he said.
Frasco said he’s mechanically inclined and got help from his brother.
Walking through the Santa Ana factory, Frasco vents his frustration with production in China.
“It’s pretty much slave labor in China,” he said.
The industry is dangerous as it deals with heavy steel and heat. Regulation in China is lax, according to Frasco.
And making barbells in China takes longer, he said.
“That’s the biggest problem,” Frasco said.
It takes several weeks for products to be shipped, he said. When they arrive, weights have to be picked through to ensure quality.
York Barbell had some China woes in August. The company recalled its Chinese-made Olympic Weightlifting Bars, saying they could snap under pressure.
But the gap between U.S. and Chinese production is closing all the time, Frasco said. As wages rise in China and industries become regulated, the competitive advantage of producing there may narrow, he said.
Iron Grip’s Santa Ana factory runs 10 to 12 hours a day. A second shift could be added, Frasco said.
The company plans to hire 15 more people this year, he said. Factory workers make $9 to $17 an hour. The company pays about 60% of healthcare costs for employees and dependents.
Iron Grip is growing along with gyms, Rojas said. Baby boomers and younger people, who grew up with fitness, are driving the sector.
The fitness sector saw nearly $16 billion in sales for 2005, according to the Boston-based International Health, Racquet & Sportsclub Association. It’s been growing at a steady clip since 1995: There are 29,000 clubs now, up from about 12,000 a decade ago. Some 41 million people have gym memberships.
Iron Grip customers include Bally Total Fitness Holding Corp. and 24 Hour Fitness Worldwide Inc.
The company’s weights are in about 250 of some 330 24 Hour Fitness clubs.
If you’ve seen “The Biggest Loser” on TV,sponsored by 24 Hour Fitness,you may have noticed Iron Grip’s logo alongside that of 24 Hour Fitness.
“It’s one more subliminal message,” Rojas said.
Iron Grip makes barbells for the military and the government, including for the FBI, Army, Air Force and the Central Intelligence Agency, Rojas said.
The company benefits from the government’s preference to buy from U.S. makers, he said.
Iron Grip also makes weights with logos for corporate gyms, which are seen as a means to cut employer healthcare costs.
The folks at Google Inc. have their own Google weights. So do Oracle Corp., General Electric Co. and Xerox Corp.
A newer segment for Iron Grip: junior high and high school athletics programs. Mater Dei High School in Santa Ana recently submitted an order, Rojas said.
Iron Grip started, as many do, in the garage.
Rojas was working as a buyer in the fashion industry. He worked for department store Bullocks for 12 years, and later for Polo Ralph Lauren Corp.
Traveling took a toll on his family, he said.
Frasco had been a vice president of a commercial lending company for 12 years.
The pair, who still work out at the gym, stayed in touch after college and decided to start a business together. Frasco came up with the idea of putting grips in the weight plate and making them so they wouldn’t roll.
“It was too much to do by myself,” he said.
In 1992, he and Rojas designed the barbell. They experimented with wood.
“We tried everything,” Frasco said.
Once they solidified the design, they found a foundry in Los Angeles to make the barbell.
They painted their prototypes in the garage the night before they took them to a trade show in San Diego.
The day of the show turned out to be less of a splash than they would’ve liked. The plates still were wet. They had to hand out baby wipes so people could clean their hands.
The guys also wore suit and ties. Everyone else was in polo shirts and jeans.
“We had 100 people tell us what a great idea,” Frasco said, but that it would cost too much to make in the U.S.
The pair said they learned a lot about the industry at the show. They determined they needed dealers to sell their product and hired their first one.
It was informal: “Here are the brochures, the equipment, let us know when you sell,” Rojas said.
First Sale
Shortly after, they landed their first sale,a $5,000 order from Powerhouse Gym in Vancouver, Wash. They thought they were going to be quick millionaires. They soon found out it was going to get tougher. The first couple of years, the guys had quality issues with their foundry. They met at the warehouse at 8 p.m and often worked until 2 a.m. sorting out reject plates.
In the past two years, Iron Grip started tapping other countries for sales.
The strategy is to build Iron Grip’s brand through advertising and then enlist salespeople in other countries, Rojas said.
Take Mexico. Once the Iron Grip brand was known there, Rojas flew to meet with the executives of the four largest gym chains there. Iron Grip recently signed a deal to make custom logo barbells for Mexico’s largest fitness chain Sports City.
A typical order is $35,000 to $50,000. A big order would be $60,000 or more.
The partners said they’ve done whatever they could to protect their patents.
“We’ve been in numerous lawsuits as plaintiffs and we’ve prevailed in all of them,” Rojas said.
Competitors can’t make 12-sided weights or two-side handle grips. But there are a lot of ways to get around patents, he said.
Companies have come up with different numbers of sides and five grips or circular grips.
Now that Iron Grip is established, patents aren’t as critical, Rojas said. Although the company still fights for them when it needs to.
“For us our patent portfolio is nowhere near as important to us as it used to be,” Rojas said. “Our brand name is carrying us.”
