Welcome to our review comparing the popular wooden slant boards or incline calf stretchers by StrongTek and BAM Athletica Karma.
Both brands are popular calf stretcher physical therapy equipment that offer numerous benefits as improving balance, mobility, strength and flexibility.
Both StrongTek slant board and BAM’s incline slant board are known for their physical therapy and fitness effectiveness.
The versatility of products is used for different consumers seeking similar but different benefits that the slant board offers.
For example, consumers will use the the slant board for physical therapy for treatment or recovery of knee injuries, ankle mobility, achilles tendonitis or plantar fasciitis.
Athletes including runners or joggers will use the slant board for calf stretching and build stronger calf muscle, including improving ankle flexibility to prevent injuries.
Whereas yogi’s use the slant board for a variety of yoga postures to accelerate and enhance balance, improving flexibility, deepening stretches, improving flexibility.
Overall, the inclined surface enhances exercise routines, leading to improved performance and reduced injury risk and overall improvement of living a healthy life.
Let’s get into the comparison of both slant boards from Strongtek and BAM.
Strongtek Slant Board
The StrongTek slant board (shop and compare on Amazon) is known for its durable and adjustable design, crafted with Lauan hardwood material. Providing a stable and secure platform, this physical therapy incline board ensures safe and effective rehabilitation and workouts. With five adjustable slants, Strongtek wooden slant board accommodates varying fitness levels and preferences.
One of the most common uses of the StrongTek slant board is for calf stretching, but it is also versatile to use for squats, hamstring stretching, foot stretching, and calf raise exercises.
Strongtek is also a therapeutic slant board or calf stretcher, specifically designed for targeted stretching and strengthening of the feet, ankles, and calves. This comprehensive solution promotes better flexibility and mobility in the lower limbs, making it an excellent addition for improving overall health and well-being.
Rating: 4 of 5 stars
StrongTek’s slant board garners a high rating for its durable and adjustable design. With five adjustable slants, it caters to various fitness levels and preferences, making it versatile. While praised for its sturdy construction and effectiveness, upon review of over 200 reviews for Strongtek’s slant board, some customers mentioned the received the product damaged or noticed rough edges that cause splinters. Others found the surface too narrow and preferred a wider surface, while others found the starting angle too steep for their liking, and found this calf stretcher too squeaky when used.
Nonetheless, StrongTek’s positive feedback outweighs these drawback, establishing it as a top-rated choice for calf stretching and therapeutic exercises alongside BAM Athletica Karma’s wooden slant board.
Price: +/- $70.00 USD
Pricing research found the StrongTek wooden slant board to range in price from different stores including StrongTek’s their online store.
StrongTek wooden slant board for calf stretching.
StrongTek wooden slant board surface, measuring 12.5 inches wide, 16 inches in height.
Pros:
Durability: Crafted with high quality plywood material, StrongTek slant board is built to withstand rigorous use, ensuring long-lasting durability.
Adjustable Design: With 5 adjustable slants, users can easily customize the angle to suit their specific fitness levels, accommodating various workout routines.
Stability: The slant board provides a stable and secure platform, enhancing safety during rehabilitation exercises and intense workouts.
Versatility: The StrongTek slant board serves multiple purposes, making it ideal for calf stretching, squats, hamstring stretching, foot stretching, and calf raise exercises.
Therapeutic Benefits: Designed to target stretching and strengthening of the feet, ankles, and calves, the StrongTek slant board offers therapeutic benefits, promoting better flexibility and mobility in the lower limbs.
Cons:
- Price vs Value: StrongTek slant board relatively expensive compared to other similar products in the market and a drawback for budget-conscious consumer. Additionally other brands offer greater value by including complementary and supporting fitness tools as a resistance band, massage ball, portable wedges and extra grip tape and extra anti-scratch floor pads to replace any wear-n-tear.
- Design: While engineered for function and performance, the aesthetic design could be improved to offer a more modern style that looks more visually appealing to blend into a homes decor and interior design vs. a plain light wood or ‘pine-like’ wood look and feel.
- Bulkiness: Due to its sturdy construction, the slant board may be heavier and less portable than other lightweight alternatives.
- Quality: While the incline board is built for durability, some users reported splinter edges and squeaky noises when using the slant board.
- Limited Upper Body Use: While the StrongTek slant board is great for lower limb exercises, it does not offer the same level of versatility for upper body workouts that other slant board solutions might offer. For example, softer or padded surface for incline push-ups or an additional resistance band to integrate into an upper body work.
BAM Athletica Karma Slant Board
The BAM Athletica Karma slant board, or BAM slant board, is a popular choice among athletes, runners, yoga enthusiasts, and those seeking therapeutic benefits in physiotherapy clinics.
Engineered for durability, performance, and style, this incline slant board is built with high-quality commercial plywood, capable of holding up to 400 lbs of weight, making it suitable for users of all ages.
With its modern design, the BAM slant board complements contemporary home decor, embracing simplicity, functionality, and minimalism.
The high-quality natural plywood materials and industrial strength grip ensure secure footing, while the bottom anti-scratch cushion pads protect the floor surface.
BAM’s slant board is a versatile fitness and therapeutic tool, catering to athletics, injury recovery, yoga, and physical therapy. It is commonly used for treating conditions like achilles tendonitis, plantar fasciitis, and heel spurs, both in physiotherapy clinics and at home.
For athletes and fitness enthusiasts, the slant board is an essential addition to their routine, facilitating calf stretching, squats, hamstring stretches, calf raises, and ankle strengthening exercises. It is widely utilized by competitive athletes in various sports, where running, flexibility, and balance are crucial.
Moreover, yoga practitioners find the BAM slant board to be a valuable prop for enhancing common yoga postures like Downward Facing Dog, Forward Fold, and Half moon pose. Its incorporation into these poses improves balance, mobility, and provides a deep stretch for a more fulfilling practice.
Bonus: BAM’s slant board for calf stretching comes with a few extra’s offering tremendous value to the consumer. BAM’s 5-in-1 slant board solution comes with extra 3-in-1portable hard foam calf wedge to take with you to the gym, office or another room in the home. It also comes with a 30 lbs resistance band to integrate upper body workouts, massage ball and extra surface grip tape and anti-scratch foam pads.
Rating: 4.5 of 5 stars
The wooden slant board for calf stretching by BAM Athletica receives 4.5 out of 5 due to an equivalent rating of durability, quality and performance as StrongTek. The big differences between StrongTek and BAM, is both price and value, and a much sleeker design or ‘look-and-feel’ to accommodate the aesthetics of a users home.
Price: $50 to $70
Pricing research found BAM’s slant board cost less than StrongTek (depending on the store), and price ranges average a range of <$50 to $70 USD.
5-in-1 Slant Board Solution
BAM’s slant board solution is a 5-in-1 solution to maximize benefits of slant board exercises. BAM’s slant board for calf stretching includes the 5 adjustable angle wooden slant board, a 3-piece hard foam calf wedge, 30 lbs resistance exercise band, massage ball and extra surface grip tape and anti-scratch bottom rubber pads.
5 Easily Adjustable Slants / Inclines
5 easily adjustable angles to accommodate the your difficulty preference . Adjusting the slants will target different areas and performance for pain relief, flexibility, balance, power and joint health as the knees and ankles.
Pros:
Design & Durability: Engineered for multi-use exercises with a secure anti-slip surface to prevent foot slippage during use, offers a sturdy platform, high-quality construction and top-of-the line plywood material and a modern deep stain decor finish. BAM’s slant board is engineered to withstand up to 400-450 lbs of weight, ensuring long-lasting durability, while a modern design that can be a fixture of a homes living room, bedroom or office decor.
5 Adjustable Angles or Slants: The slant board offers a simple approach to adjust the slants or angles up to 5 different angles, which is helpful for different stretching and exercise routines and accommodate users different needs. The 5 slants or angles cover 15 degrees up to 35 degrees. And adjusting the board is simple while engineered to support weight easily at each angle.
Pain Relief: Plantar Fasciitis & Achilles Tendonitis: BAM’s slant board is very effective in alleviating pain relief for a number of injury related mishaps; plantar fasciitis, heel spurs, achilles tendonitis, calf pain, while also delivering a deep stretch to that improves flexibility, balance and mobility.
Physical Therapy Benefits: BAM’s slant board for calf stretching is designed to target multiple rehab areas on the body, targeting feet, ankles, calves and knees (8 good exercises for knee pain and ache relief) that require a good stretch and strengthening. The slant board is popular among physical therapy practitioners to help clients with rehabilitation exercises, as well as for fitness and wellness users for pre and post workout stretches.
Price: The price-to-value is considered very reasonable and provides good value for the quality of the product, the benefits realized from its use and the extra’s as bonus surface grip tape, bonus bottom anti-scratch pads and additional fitness equipment as the foam calf wedge, resistance band and massage ball.
Extra Calf Wedge: BAM’s slant board solution is the only brand that includes a 3-piece hard foam calf wedge. This is ideal for consumers seeking portability to take the calf wedges on-the-go…to the gym, another room, or the fitness studio. The calf wedge can be combined together to create one solid foam block, which is a popular yoga block. It can be easily separated too create two different degrees of wedges for a deep or light stretch. Consumer mentioned use of the hard foam wedge block as a calf stretcher, squat wedge, foot stretcher, calf raise block and heel stretcher. (kneed
Cons:
- Size: Due to its sturdy construction, some consumers found the slant board may be less portable than other lightweight alternatives. However, this was minor feedback from reviews found online, and lighter alternatives tend to built from plastic, which is tradeoff from the durability and quality the wooden slant board offers. There is also a tradeoff between the size and weight of the slant board (~10 lbs) with users who prefer a larger sized board, and other users who prefer a smaller size.
- Wear-n-Tear: Unlike any wooden slant board, there will be wear-n-tear from its use, mostly found in the top surface grip and bottom pads. While wear-n-tear is expected with any slant board or fitness equipment, BAM’s slant board package offers preventative maintenance value by including extra surface grip tape to replace any wear-n-tear, and extra bottom anti-scratch floor pads that peel and stick onto the bottom of the slant board.
- Double Feet Exercises: Some users mentioned the product might not be suitable for certain exercises that require both feet on the board. In our testing with a few users, we did not find that to be the case, however there may specific exercises requiring a wider stance where users found the board was limiting.
Recommendation
In the comparison between the StrongTek slant board and BAM Athletica Karma’s wooden slant board, both products excel in their physical therapy and fitness effectiveness, offering numerous benefits such as improved balance, mobility, strength, and flexibility. Both slant boards have been rated highly, with StrongTek receiving 4 out of 5 stars and BAM Athletica Karma receiving 4.5 out of 5 stars.
The StrongTek slant board impresses with its durable and adjustable design, providing a stable platform for various exercises and stretches. However, some customers have reported issues with product damage, rough edges, and squeaky noises, which could impact its overall appeal.
On the other hand, the BAM Athletica Karma slant board stands out with all the same features and benefits as StrongTeks, but with the added value of its sleek and modern design, lessor price tag and far more ‘bang for the buck’.
BAM value extends to offer a 5-in-1 solution, unlike StrongTek’s single incline board. BAM includes a 3-piece hard foam calf wedge, a resistance band to work in upper-body fitness routines, a massage ball, and extra surface grip tape and anti-scratch bottom rubber pads, providing exceptional value for users. Moreover, customers praise its effectiveness in pain relief for conditions like plantar fasciitis and achilles tendonitis.
Considering the pros and cons of both slant boards, we recommend the BAM Athletica Karma slant board as the superior choice. Its innovative 5-in-1 solution, modern design, and added value through complementary fitness tools set it apart.
Additionally, it excels in pain relief, making it highly suitable for both physical therapy and fitness enthusiasts. With its reasonable price-to-value ratio, the BAM Athletica Karma slant board offers a comprehensive and practical solution for a wide range of users seeking a versatile and effective slant board for their exercise and rehabilitation needs.
