It all started with a simple insight—traditional dumbbells were cluttering gym floors and taking up too much space at home. PowerBlock founder Carl Towley knew there had to be a better way.

Inspired by bodybuilding legends of the 1970s, Carl built his first homemade weights with coffee cans and a broomstick. His passion for strength training grew, eventually leading him to work on gym equipment in Santa Cruz. One night, he woke up from a dream with the idea that would change home fitness forever: a compact, adjustable dumbbell that could replace an entire rack.

From that moment, PowerBlock was born—engineered to deliver pro-level performance in a space-saving design. Today, we continue to innovate so you can train smarter, lift heavier, and build stronger—without compromising your space.

Years went by and he started to notice there were improvements to be made with most gym equipment, so he did what felt natural and started a small fitness company. This required him to visit numerous gyms throughout the country. But like many first time entrepreneurs he failed, however his passion never wavered. So he got a different job, but the story was still the same everywhere he went, mainly, dumbbells chaotically gobbling up precious floor space. There had to be a better way.

The final PowerBlock design was elusive, he began creating a ton (literally) of prototypes while researching previous attempts to build a superior adjustable dumbbell. Many people had attempted to build a better dumbbell but their solutions were always too complicated, fragile or impractical. It wasn’t until that dream on a beautiful Santa Cruz night that Carl put together the concepts of a nested weight stack with a handle secured by a U-shaped pin, the ‘ahh ha’ moment! Within 24 hours of that, the prototype that is the foundation of all PowerBlock dumbbells was born.