Our Story
We’ve been around since 2009 - yet somehow, we never told our story. We never had an About Us page.
The reason? Honestly… it's also because we’ve been around since 2009.
When Strength Shop started, our founders and team knew nearly every customer by name. They packed belts, bars, and sleeves for people they’d trained with, competed with, and met at local gyms.
We were just a small crew of strongmen living and breathing strength training every single day — making our own gear because nothing out there could handle the way we trained.
Joni Purmonen
Founder of Strength Shop
That’s where it all started.
Strength Shop was built by lifters, for lifters - people who wanted gear that could keep up with their training and help them to get better. Since day one, we’ve lived and breathed the ethos of strength sports.
Over the years, the strength community has grown massively, and it’s been incredible to see so many more people getting ‘under the bar’ and into strength sports. We’re proud to be part of this strong community and provide value back.
Today, our focus goes beyond designing reliable, competition-proven equipment - we’re going further by looking for smarter, more effective ways to train. Whether it’s developing features like our design-patented upright adjustment mechanism on our PRO Combo Rack, or engineering our space-enhancing modular rack MRR system: we’re here to keep pushing what strength equipment can be.
Our goal’s still the same as it was back then: to create gear that lifters actually want to use, that adds real value to the community - no matter how trends change, but also filling in gaps in the market and improving on what’s already out there. We’ll continue to never settle for less.
Where It Started
Strength Shop was founded in the UK in 2009 by Joni Purmonen, a competitive strongman who spent those years doing up to a dozen contests a season… and even placed a solid 8th at UK’s Strongest Man 2011.
Back then, good, affordable training equipment in Europe was very hard to come by. So Joni and his partners asked themselves the obvious question: how hard can it be?
They started designing and building their own: belts, barbells, steel logs, and everything else they needed to train properly.
What began as a quick fix for their own training soon turned into something bigger: a mission to make high-quality, effective equipment for passionate lifters, and to keep it accessible for everyone chasing strength.
What Drives Us
We’re all united by one thing: our love for heavy lifting.
The gym, the platform, the iron, the weight on your back - it’s not just a lifestyle for us, it’s how we live.
That passion for strength is what drives us to create gear you’ll actually love using: the belt that’s been with you through a decade of PRs, the barbell that becomes part of your story, the straps that don’t quit, the rack that turns into the heart of your gym.
We don’t just build equipment, we build what we’d want to train with ourselves.
What We Stand For
Doing things better. Delivering real value. Providing exceptional service. These are the principles that guide us.
At the heart of Strength Shop is the same idea that drives great training: progressive overload - constant improvement.
Load the bar. Lift it. Add more. Repeat.
That’s how we work. Whether it’s refining a belt, re-engineering a barbell, or perfecting a rack, we keep evolving. We listen to lifters, take feedback seriously, and build gear that grows stronger with the people who use it.
We’ll keep pushing. We don’t settle. Ever.
I never want to forget where we came from. We were all motivated by a passion for sports and lifting, and a love for the spirit of the game. We love to see the drive that people have to push themselves and to improve. To push through the uncomfortable barriers, reach new limits and enjoy that special moment, only to realise that there is a new goal on the horizon, and on we go. It takes a special kind of person to be in this frame of mind - in some ways we’re all a little damaged once we get bitten by the strength bug - I always remind myself about our humble beginnings, after all, this is where we get our energy from.”
Joni Purmonen
Founder of Strength Shop
Where we are going
The strength scene keeps changing - training styles evolve, athletes’ needs are becoming more diverse, and performance standards rise ever higher.
But one thing hasn’t changed: our drive to build gear that actually performs, holds up under real weight, and delivers genuine value to lifters, whether in training, on the platform, or in a commercial gym.
We’re always developing and refining new products to meet and exceed the demands of today’s athletes.
Every rack, belt, or machine starts from a simple question:
Would we train with it ourselves?
If the answer isn’t yes, it doesn’t leave the drawing board.
And About Those Faces…
When we realised we didn’t have an About Us page, we also realised we didn’t have any pictures of ourselves either.
So for now, this is us!
Soon, we’ll add faces too, so you can see the people behind the story.
Until then - keep lifting, stay strong.
– Team Strength Shop