Titan Fitness Roller J Hooks / Cups: A great price that seems to be holding up.

I purchased these J cups (Titan Refers to them as J hooks on their site) about a year ago. I really liked the idea of the roller cups for a couple reasons. First those minor adjustments you always make when setting up for a lift would be easier, and second those minor adjustments wouldn't rip the UMHW plastic off my J cups. Being that I lift primarily with a Rogue Ohio Power Bar, the removal of plastic happens pretty fast.

About the J Cups:

Anyone and I mean anyone whose seen the Ghost Strong Roller J Cups has desired to own a pair, but at roughly the cost of my entire rig for a single un customized pair it's not exactly something I am planning on spending that hard earned Facebook marketplace flipping money on. In steps Titan undercutting entire market segments with their take on the roller j cup. Currently at $74.99 (definitely going up currently out of stock 11/22/21 and the smaller versions have already hit $90) for my X3 rig (they make a 1" hole variant for their TITAN rig, and a 2x3 for their t3 rig), it was a no brainer for a second set of cups for my rig.

The weight capacity is listed at 1000 lbs per pair in their specs, but oddly a photo on the page says 2000 lbs, I am not sure which is accurate, but as there is not a change I am putting a thousand pounds on the bar for any reason I think I'm good.

All the contact point have UMHW (Ultra High Molecular Weight Polyethylene) plastic which is great to prevent any wear on the bar and your uprights, which I think is honestly one of the best improvements in jcup design. 

They also have a screw in pin, I have never used it, but I guess someone might.

What I Like:

There is a lot to love about this design. Sincerely. The fact that all contact surfaces are covered in plastic is so nice. My Ohio Power Bar has so much damage to the Knurl from my Rogue Infinity J cups because they lack a piece of plastic on the lip. There is literally bare metal from where the bar has ground the powder coat off and started to eat the metal beneath. Not with these, or their non roller version, all TItans new J cups have some serious design improvements.

One issue that I used to read about with Titan J Cups as well is that they would break off. Now I've owned a lot of their products, and know a lot of people who do as well, and this isn't something I've heard about outside of the internet, but by adding that little triangular piece under the the portion that holds the bar you get a ton of extra strength for anyone still concerned.

Besides the plastic hitting all the bar contacts, they also have plastic on all the rig contacts as well like I mentioned above

I don't care where the rig is from, I've had Rogue and Titan, I've seen almost all the others, you will always take off the powder coat, but this helps cut down on that, and again this is the standard for all their current J cup designs, huge improvement. I've also noticed Rep is doing this as well, and I hope it becomes the standard.... Rogue.....

For the actual Rolling Portion, it works great. I used these as my primary Cups so they are being used at least 6 days a week and for everything from my Bamboo Bar to Benching they move well. I can move them pretty easily with one hand with 235 on the bar.

It's super handy for loading the bamboo bar (Pictured Right Dutch&Co bar) because you can slide it clear over and load one side at a time then just roll it back center.

When you get under to bench or squat it's super easy to get it lined up with minor adjustments without dragging. I think that rolling is actually what has led to it holding up so well. See Below.

That Ohio Power knurl has definitely left it's mark on these, but I haven't dug any large furrows in in yet, and that is not the case with my old Rogue cups. If you look at that top pic the roller hasn't developed a valley after a year with an aggressively knurled bar. They still Roll great, they still have plenty of protection left on the pads, and they are the first ones I go for almost every time.

Oh right also you can screw in a pin so they don't move on you. I guess that's a thing people do.



What I don't like:

This is more of a few design choices that make me a bit nervous. I really think these are fantastic for the money. My main concern before even buying them was how that roller was attached. It used to be a bolt and nut assemble, where the nut protruded from the front.

The reason a bolt concerns me should be obvious if you've ever played around with plastic rollers conveyer belts ect.. (I grew up doing industrial vegetable farming, so I've spent a lot of time with these materials) If for example the threads from that bolt were actually inside the roller, you've got yourself a heck of friction point, that is way, way harder than the plastic that's rolling over it, and that is going to mean it's going to be grinding away at that plastic, and wouldn't you know it.

There are some threads in there. Now I assume this isn't in the whole barrel, but I didn't take it apart to check, but you can see where the thread have already started to flatten from use. You can also see rogues knurling patter in that roller which is fun. Alright, so how bad is this? Probably not that bad really. Realistically it will wear, but unlike industrial applications (where my head was at when I first worried about this) that roller isn't spinning for 8-14 hours a day, so while there is wear, it's not insane, and so far so good.

My second little grip concerns the back.

A little wider pad on the back would like prevent the one point of metal on metal contact, if you look at that side piece you can see where my power bar as taken the powder coat right off from the occasional contact.

My last gripe also concerns that side piece, lets zoom in.

There is probably some good engineering reason why they decided to weld this piece to the main body, rather than bend it out of one piece of metal, but I really wish it was one piece. This is actually some of the best welding I've seen on Titan gear, in fact lately their welds have been really solid, but their other J cups are one piece, so it would be nice to have this one to be a solid piece as well.