In this solo YouTube review, Victoria S. Dorsano explains why strengthening the tibialis anterior is crucial for preventing shin splints and protecting the knees, then evaluates the Iron Tib Bar 3.0 from Freak Athlete Essentials. She details the bar’s unique double‑leg design, generous top and bottom foot padding, lightweight iron construction, removable loading bar, 150 lb capacity, and included clamp. Dorsano highlights the bar’s portability, optional Olympic‑plate bundle, and compares it to the multi‑use TriFlexor, emphasizing the efficiency of training both legs simultaneously. She notes the 90‑day money‑back guarantee and provides a 10 % discount code (Victoria S. Dorsano 10). The video ends with a call‑to‑action to like, subscribe, and purchase the equipment.
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So if you've ever had shin splints, then you know how terribly annoying they are, which is why I am super excited to review today's product, which is the Iron Tib Bar 3.0 from Freak Athlete Essentials, which they gifted me to try out this past week. And I have so much I want to say about it. It's just amazing. Now, just a brief anatomy lesson before we dive into the product review. The tibialis anterior muscle is the muscle that gets sore when you're feeling your shin splint. It's the thing that's the most annoying when you're walking around after you— maybe you've had a soccer game or you've gone hiking or you play basketball or whatever it might be, and you feel the fronts of your shins just light up and it's like so annoying. I don't need to go into it. We've all probably had them at some point. And it's funny that we don't really often think to train the tibialis muscles, even given that shin splints can be so annoying and just not fun. But shin splints aside, even just the tibialis anterior itself has a really important role in protecting the knees. Strong tibialis anterior muscles can really help to absorb the forces of deceleration, of landing from a jump, of switching directions and pivoting in sports and that sort of thing. And it can help to absorb the force that would travel up naturally into the knee joint. So when you have a strong tibialis anterior muscle, that's going to absorb some of that impact and take away the force away from the knee, which is going to naturally help to preserve your knees and keep them healthier in the long run. Now, if you're familiar with any of my other videos, you know I've been doing the ATG program for some time now. I'm currently in the ATG Women's Standard program. and I've been doing tibialis raises as part of that program. It's pretty embedded in most of Ben Patrick's programming, and there are many ways you can do it. And one of the ways you can do it is using the double leg tib bar like this from Freak Athlete Essentials. But not all double leg tib bars are made alike. There are some key differences and some things I really want to highlight about this one in particular that I have come to really appreciate and love that I think are unique. In comparison to other ones that are on the market. So first thing I want to mention is the glorious, amazing amount of squishy padding on the top of this tip bar. With tip bars, how this typically works is you insert your foot into the tip bar and the top of your foot is pressing on this larger piece of padding. Not a lot of tip bars have this amount of padding on it. So when I load the bar with weight at the front, it's going to increase the amount of pressure put on this part of the padding on the top of my foot. And if you don't have enough padding on that top bar where your foot's pressed against, it is really, really uncomfortable on the bones of your feet, like the, the tops of your feet where your kind of knuckles are— your toe knuckles, I guess. Your metatarsals is the actual word. So basically, the more padding the better, and they did a really good job just really putting this nice cushy padding there where you're not going to feel that kind of pressure from the bar on the top of your foot, which is great. The other thing that Freak Athlete Essentials did really well with their Iron TIB Bar 3.0 is that they have padding on this bottom bar too. So super comfortable to even do if you wanted to do, you know, with barefoot shoes. I use barefoot shoes where you could kind of feel everything. So that way I'm not putting my heel straight on top of like a metal bar, an iron bar. It's really nice and cushy for the bottom of my foot too. So again, that's pretty unique in comparison to other TIB bars on the market. You don't see double-leg tip bars on the market with this much padding and consideration for the comfort of the foot. The second thing I love is that this thing comes apart. So it is pretty light to begin with. It's about 4 pounds. So it's super portable if I were to just leave this bar on there. But the loading bar, I can just really easily take off. That's what I really love too about this, is that you can easily stash this in your gym bag. Like, you know, it's still— I wouldn't say compact just because of the shape, but this is going to be any tip bar that you get. Double leg tip bar is going to be like this, so it's going to take up space no matter. But this takes up less space when you can take it apart, so that's a plus. Now as far as the durability of the product itself, it is made out of iron, so it is very sturdy. Like, it's— you're not going to have any issues with it. This loading bar can load up to 150 pounds of plates, and that's a lot. Like, you're not gonna need that much, but if you do, again, kudos to you if you are somebody who can do tip raises with that much weight on, like, amazing. Um, but for the women's standard program that I'm currently in doing the ATG program, um, it's 20% of my body weight. So that's usually what I'm at when I'm doing this, which is great. The other thing is that it comes with the clamp, which is nice and sturdy. So when you order the TIB bar, the clamp is included. That secures on there really nice, very nice and sturdy, really well-made clamp. And you can tell it's like you got to put some oomph in there to close it and open it back up, which feels very secure. The other thing I want to mention is if you do not have plates to put on your tip bar, do not fret, because you can actually order this in a bundle with some of Freak Athlete Essentials Olympic plates, and they are really nice. So this is one of their 5-pound plates. You get 2 5-pound plates, uh, 2 2.5-pound plates, and 2 1.5-pound plates. So that's 17.5 pounds total, They're really awesome. They're custom branded for Freak Athlete Essentials. They look really nice and clean, really well made again. So that's nice that you can order that in a bundle itself and have it come with your tip bar. So you might be asking why you might want to use a double leg tip bar versus a solo tip bar or something like the TriFlexor where it can be modulated into a solo tip bar along with many other things, which again, if you want to learn more about the TriFlexor, I did a review on that as well. I'll put the link down in the description below. But why would I use this versus something like the TriFlexor that can be made into a SoloTip bar? Well, time. I mean, just pure efficiency, really. Basically, it's the difference between doing 3 sets of 20 versus 3 sets of 20 on each leg, which takes double the time. So this is really nice to cut time if you're somebody that just wants to be efficient with their workouts. The TriFlexor, again, is a great option if you want to do something that has multi-use, has many different uses to it, or if you're somebody who wants to have more free range of motion with one leg or the other leg and be able to do some ankle rolls and some ankle stuff as well. I mean, there's a lot you can do with the TriFlexor, but in terms of just speaking about tibs and doing tib raises and how to secure it to the foot and that purpose, there is a little bit more free range of motion with the TriFlexor because you can just move your foot a little bit more easily. With the Iron Tib Bar 3.0, it's kind of locked in there. But again, for what I want to use it for, for the efficiency of it, it's been really nice to be able to just knock out my tib raises you know, both feet at the same time. Honestly, you virtually can't go wrong with giving this a try. They have a 90-day money-back guarantee if for whatever reason it doesn't work out for you, you don't like it. Freak Athlete Essentials is really great about making sure that their customers are happy, so you really can't go wrong with it. And on top of that, Freak Athlete Essentials gave me a discount code to give to you guys, my viewers, to save 10% on your purchase. It's Victoria S. Dorsano 10 at checkout for purchasing anything off of Freak Athlete Essentials website. So definitely check it out. I'll put the link down in the description below if you want to to check out this on your own, but definitely use my promo code Victoria S. Dorsano 10 if you want to save 10% off your purchase. And I want to say thank you again to Freak Athlete Essentials. You guys, go ahead and support them if you are doing any type of ATG type of workout or want to support your joints, become a better athlete, get your knees stronger, all that good stuff. They have tons of equipment on their website that really does a great job of hitting all those boxes. And like I said, they just do a great job of listening to their customer feedback and making modifications to their equipment as they go and constantly improving. So again, if you want to go and support Freak Athlete Essentials, make sure to use my discount code Victoria S. Dorsano to get 10% off your purchase. And thank you again, Freak Athlete Essentials, for another amazing piece of equipment. All right guys, that's all I got for you guys in this review. Thanks again for watching, and if you like this video and thought it was helpful, go ahead and give it a thumbs up, subscribe to my channel. I would greatly, greatly appreciate it. Bye!
