$10,000 TO
PROVE OUR
PRODUCTS
WORK.
12 weeks. 37 soldiers. Germany. We didn't hire actors.
Ever since I started SquatWedgiez, I had one dream that felt almost too big to say out loud: get the U.S. Army to use my products.
Not as a sponsorship. Not as a logo on a website. Actually use them. In training. With real soldiers who depend on their bodies for their jobs.
I knew that if I ever wanted that to happen, I could not just show up and ask. I had to prove the products worked first. Not with testimonials. Not with before and after photos from someone's Instagram. With actual data from actual athletes under actual conditions.
So I did my research. I figured out who the most credentialed military performance coach in the country was. I found out what it would cost to run a real study. I looked at what it would take to do this the right way instead of the cheap way.
And then I wrote a $10,000 check and made it happen.
I hired Retired Major Donny Bigham, a two-time IPF World Champion, Bronze Star recipient, and the first Strength and Conditioning Coach ever employed by the US Army Conventional Forces. I handed him the wedges, the tib bar, and 37 paratroopers from Dark Horse Troop at Tower Barracks in Grafenwoehr, Germany. I told him to build the best program he could and track everything.
Twelve weeks later, every single soldier improved across all eight performance domains. That is not a marketing expense. That is a bet on your own product.
The 1-91 CAV is the only airborne reconnaissance squadron in Europe. Part of the 173rd Infantry Brigade Combat Team based out of Vicenza, Italy. These are not weekend warriors. These are paratroopers. Their job is to exit aircraft, absorb the impact of landing while carrying 30 percent or more of their body weight, and immediately execute missions.
Their knees, ankles, and shins take a beating that most people cannot picture. Stress fractures are not a minor inconvenience in this world. They are a career threat. And the standard military training approach, which is essentially run more, do more push-ups, carry more weight, does not address the muscles that are actually breaking down under that load.
Nobody was strengthening the tibialis. Nobody was loading the quads through full range of motion. Nobody was building the calf resilience that determines whether a tibia bends or breaks.
That is the problem we showed up to solve.
If you want to know if a tool works, test it on people whose bodies are under the most demand. Everything else is just marketing.
Retired Major Donny Bigham. 27 years of service across the Marine Corps and the US Army. Deployed to Bosnia, Afghanistan, Kuwait, and Yemen. Over 45 months of combat deployments. Bronze Star recipient. Ranger. Airborne. Air Assault. Combat Infantry Badge.
And if that is not enough, he is also a two-time IPF World Champion in raw powerlifting and the current drug-tested IPF World Record Holder in the squat. The man does not just coach strength. He competes at the highest level in the world.
More relevant to this study: Donny was the first-ever Strength and Conditioning Coach for the US Army Conventional Forces. He was part of the team that changed the Army Physical Fitness Test after nearly 40 years. He designed the Tactical Athlete Performance Center at Fort Benning and Fort Jackson, training over 600 soldiers daily within a Combat Battalion. He was named TSAC-Facilitator of the Year in 2017 and Army Male Athlete of the Year in 2016.
We did not hire a fitness influencer. We did not write the program ourselves and hope for the best. We handed the wedges and the tib bar to one of the most credentialed military performance coaches on the planet and told him to build something that would actually work for soldiers.
The program he designed ran two to three sessions per week for 12 weeks. Integrated directly into the unit's existing training schedule. No extra hours. No gym overhaul. Just two pieces of equipment and a structured approach to lower body resilience work that soldiers actually had time to do.
Strength sessions with heel-elevated squats. Interval and tactical workouts with tib bar supersets. Foot marches with barefoot recovery work. Hill intervals. The full 12-week program was delivered through the Train Heroic app with video demos for every movement and coach communication built in.
Thirty-seven soldiers from Dark Horse Troop completed the full 12-week program. Pre and post testing across eight physical performance domains. Here is what happened.
204.6 → 230 lbs
28 → 35 reps
Throw and catch test
Across all 8 domains
| Assessment | Average Pre | Average Post | % Change |
|---|---|---|---|
| Squat | 204.6 lbs | 230 lbs | +14.3% |
| Bench Press | 142.88 lbs | 156.54 lbs | +11.6% |
| Deadlift | 196.86 lbs | 219.82 lbs | +11.9% |
| 2 Mile Run | 15:01 | 14:37 | -2.5% (faster) |
| MS Supine to Stand | 7.25 sec | 7.04 sec | -2.7% (faster) |
| MS Throw and Catch | 10.48 | 13.35 | +43.8% |
| HR Push-Up | 28.04 reps | 35.93 reps | +37.0% |
| Strict Pull-Up | 5.54 reps | 8.29 reps | +77.0% |
Yes, pull-ups went up 77 percent. No, a squat wedge does not train pull-ups. But when your lower body foundation is weak relative to the physical demands placed on it every day, your whole system is working harder than it needs to. Strengthen the foundation and capacity goes up across the board. The pull-up number is a byproduct of a body that is finally working efficiently.
The numbers that are directly attributable to the wedge and tib bar are the squat, the deadlift, the run, and the motor skills. All of them moved. In the right direction. In 12 weeks.
The numbers are compelling. The quotes are the part that got me.
"The tools were easy to use and comfortable during training. I could feel my muscles in my lower leg for the first time versus always feeling soreness in those areas after running and foot marches."
Read that again. A trained soldier who runs and marches regularly had never felt his lower leg muscles actually work. He had only ever felt them hurt afterward. That is the difference between training a muscle and just repeatedly loading it past its capacity. One builds it. The other slowly breaks it down.
"I enjoyed using the heel-elevated slant boards. Most of the time, I cannot squat to end range of motion, but I could with the slant boards. My quads were super sore after the workout."
This is exactly why heel elevation exists. Not as a shortcut. As a tool that lets someone access a range of motion they could not reach otherwise so they can actually train the muscles that need training. SM3 had likely never properly loaded his quads in a squat before. Twelve weeks later, his squat was up 14 percent.
"For the first time in my military career, I don't feel overtrained. It's a great tool for Airborne Soldiers or a way of keeping in shape."
Not overtrained. For the first time in his military career. That is a sentence that should make every military training program director in the country stop and sit with it for a minute.
"I have had issues with stress fractures for most of my military career, and now, with these tools, I know how to prevent them today and in the future."
SM9 has been managing stress fractures for most of his career. Nobody gave him the tools to prevent them. Twelve weeks of targeted work and he now understands exactly what his body needs to stay healthy. That is not a minor result. That is the difference between finishing a career on your own terms and getting medically separated.
When the program ended, 17 of 20 soldiers said they wanted to continue. The commander of 1-91 CAV recommended integrating SquatWedgiez into the standard soldier human performance package.
Now look. I want to be straight with you about something.
The U.S. Military did not officially adopt SquatWedgiez. We did not land a government contract. The Army did not start issuing wedges alongside rifles and body armor. That is not what happened and I am not going to pretend otherwise.
What did happen is that after this study got out, soldiers started reaching out to us directly. Guys stationed overseas ordering a unit or two for their personal use. A few small groups within different units buying them on their own. Nothing massive. Nothing official. Just individual soldiers who heard about the results and decided they wanted in.
Honestly? That might be cooler than a contract.
Because a contract means a purchasing officer signed off on a spreadsheet. Soldiers buying my product with their own money while deployed overseas means they actually believe it works. That distinction matters to me.
I started SquatWedgiez because I believed heel elevation and tibialis training were two of the most underused tools in strength and performance. I spent $10,000 to test that belief on 37 paratroopers in Germany. Every single one of them improved. And somewhere out there right now, there are U.S. soldiers using my products to protect their bodies and do their jobs better.
I think that is pretty fucking awesome.
You do not have a strength problem. You have a resilience problem. And resilience is trainable.
- 37 airborne soldiers completed a 12-week program using SquatWedgiez and Versa Tib Bar at Tower Barracks, Grafenwoehr, Germany
- The program was designed by Donny Bigham, former Director of Human Performance at Fort Benning
- Every single soldier improved across all eight physical fitness domains
- Squat improved 14%, push-ups improved 37%, motor skills improved 44%
- Soldiers with chronic stress fractures learned how to prevent them for the first time
- 17 of 20 soldiers wanted to continue after the program ended
- The unit commander recommended adopting the tools into the standard soldier performance package
SEEN ENOUGH?
LET'S GET TO WORK.
Join 40,000+ lifters who train smarter with SquatWedgiez.