ABOUT
US
Stray Dog Strength was the original Pioneer of the modern day rack system, introducing our first rack to the market in 1999. Today, Stray Dog Strength continues our legacy of innovation, modular design, and custom-built solutions that are a breed apart.
HISTORY
TIMELINE
1990
After finishing his college football career at Ashland University Matt Purdy, the founder of Stray Dog Strength started working in the industry. His first job was delivering equipment for Barrys Barbell a retailer in Columbus Ohio.
1996
Matt decides to leave Barry's Barbell to start his own company called The Equipment Guys. This company was a manufacturer rep and served the strength and conditioning market.
1998
For efficiency, Matt had the idea of a singular rack that you could both squat and bench out of at the same. Since a rack of this style was not readily available on the market he decides to start building his own and creates Stray Dog Strength.
2000
Worthington Killborn high school purchased four rack bench systems, our first installation for a school.
2001
Rented our first space to build Stray Dog Strength products, a 900 square foot garage with no running water and dirt floors.
2003
Nick Giglia joins our team as national sales manager. Nick and Matt were college roommates and teammates at Ashland University
2003
First Stray Dog Strength installation on the west coast for Eastern Washington and California Riverside.
2005
Added Stray Dog Strength plate loaded and selectorized machine line to meet customer demand.
2009
To bring an increased quality to Stray Dog products we partnered with a manufacturing company with over 100 years of experience. This allowed Stray Dog products to be manufactured with best technology available including CNC lasers, CAM software and more.
2009
Partnered with Ecore to bring high quality flooring to our customers.
2010
Started implementing custom banner braces on our racks to help coaches develop their culture and school pride. Making Stray Dog Strength on of the first companies to bring personalization to racks.
2012
Installed our first "fire out" unit this was a wall mounted rack that was the predecessor to our compact ATR.
2017
To combat the inefficiency of single use machines we introduced our first ATR rack to allow the machines to have more than just one use.
2019
Zach Purdy joined the team full time moving us into the second generation as a family owned company.
2020
Hired Jake Purdy as our brand manager to do Marketing, Manage social media accounts,create content, assist with product design and develop Stray Dog into a National brand.
2021
We switched from ¾” holes in 3x3 tubing to 1” holes to be more compatible with the rest of the industry and bring our unique attachments to the 1” hole ecosystem. Our bolt together Rack system is the most modular on the market as you can purchase each part a la carte, and create whatever you want.
2022
Turned Straydogstrength.com into an Ecommerce store on after switching the website from Equipmentguys.com to Straydogstrength.com in 2021. Customers now have the option to place orders without speaking to a sales rep and see MSRP pricing whenever they want.
2024
Partnered with Cal Dietz to create our first collaborative sports performance product, the Spring Ankle
