Honey, I’m home. Now I’m going to the gym.

As a Secret Service Agent for 23 years, I know the importance of staying fit. However, the travel was extensive and gym time was always hard to find. While traveling to interesting locations, the last thing I wanted to do was sit in a hotel gym. And upon returning home, the last thing I wanted to do was leave my wife and kids to go to the gym. That’s when I started using a cinder block to work out.

On the road I would find a cinder block around the hotel and work out in a nearby field. At home, I would also work out with a cinder block, allowing me to watch the kids playing in the yard while exercising. If the weather didn’t cooperate, I could continue my cinder block workouts inside – hotel gym or home.

It wasn’t long before I began to develop specific cinder block workouts. My favorite workout was utilizing a deck of cards to dictate my reps. I designated an exercise to each suit of the deck – hearts for pushups (hands on top of the cinder block), diamonds for sit-ups (cinder block on my chest), spades for military press with the cinder block, and two-handed cinder block swings for clubs. Occasionally, I added sprints for one of the colors – a 50 yard sprint for any black suit, then continue with the reps. Jokers were 20 reps of each of the four exercises, Jack is 11 reps, Queen 12 reps, King 13 reps, and Aces are 15 reps.

I changed the workouts to encompass various muscle groups – weighted squats, bench press, one-arm rows, cinder block carries, box step-ups, etc. Over the years, this became a total body work out program. There was only one problem – the cinder block weighed 40 lbs.

At the beginning, the weight was heavy enough with multiple reps. Forty pounds lifted a hundred times is a good workout. However, over time, the forty pounds became too light. I needed to find a heavier cinder block. That’s where my neighbor comes in.

Joe is an engineer. We started discussing ways to improve the cinder block. I wanted a way to change the weight, heavier or lighter, depending on the workouts. I also wanted handles on the cinder block so I could hold it in various positions – maybe a bit softer to avoid calluses.

Joe got busy. Quarter inch steel, bolts, rubber hoses – the prototype was born. Joe was able to construct a 40 lb cinder block out of steel. He cut hand holds on each end, and added long bolts to the center to hold steel plates of various weights. I glued rubber hoses to the hand holds and the first EmberBox was invented. Very crude, but it got the job done. I added 10 lbs to this block and began working out with the 50 lb box - Big difference!!

Over time, friends saw me working out with this steel cinder block and were interested in a block of their own. I couldn’t give friends raw steel and rubber hoses, so Joe and I discussed ways to “polish” the block and make it look nicer. Joe got busy again. After several iterations, we have a beautifully painted, logoed, rubber-handled exercise block with the ability to add/remove weight, fit for any workout. Friends loved the option of a full workout without having to go to the gym – most were from work with the same travel vs family dilemma.