Starting a sporting goods manufacturer has not been easy, but the passion for sports training has been there since day one. Back in the late 70s our brand founder Cristobal Castillo competed at quad skating racing , running marathons in South America and Europe. To compete at the high level, Cristobal was exposed to Weightlifting as the best training method to develop strength, speed, and explosiveness.
Once he saw the results from practicing the Olympic sport, he became truly interested in designing and manufacturing rubber coated weights in his hometown, Cali, Colombia. Importing Olympic certified equipment to Colombia in the mid 80s was expensive, then along with a small crew of teammates and coaches, they started testing prototypes that were being built at a small rubber workshop while using small rubber batches from local farms and some iron cast hubs as the inner soul of the weights.
By the early 90s, our brand went from outsourcing manufacturing processes to renting a small workshop and building its own production line which included in-house built hydraulic presses. BULLDOG was created to manufacture its own bumper plates and barbells.
Engineered for everyday use, an own type of bumper plate was created to last.
Grassroots programs, athletes and coaches in the Pan-American region have trained hundreds of thousands of hours with our bumpers plates since they have been designed for high performance and heavy-duty training.
From small rural areas in the Andes of South America, going through the famous 90s Bulgarian Weightlifting school, to Olympic Champions; our bumper plates have been thought as the element alongside the athlete that allows the human body to work hard enough to achieve the unthinkable.
Our Brand focuses on the weightlifter, the person behind the singlet and boots, who is constantly setting new PRs at the gym, coming out of nowhere; but willing to go up on the main stage and break world records and achieve personal goals.
Our bumper plates and barbells are accompanying dozens of athletes willing to be taken to the limit while cheering for them.