About Dan
📍 Portland, Oregon
Dan Kowalski writes the guides at Strength Mill, covering home gym equipment. Recommendations are compiled from manufacturer specifications and current product listings, and this site does not test products.
Dan Kowalski spent years commuting to a commercial gym before a pandemic-era closure
forced him to figure out training at home. What started as a folding bench and a pair
of adjustable dumbbells became a 450-square-foot garage gym he's genuinely proud of.
He's a software engineer by day, which means he treats equipment research like an engineering problem: read the spec sheet, find the failure modes, understand the tradeoffs. He's bought things he regrets and things he'd buy again without hesitation, and he writes Strength Mill to share the difference.
The site is for people who want to train at home seriously — not dabble — but who also have to think about space, noise, budget, and the fact that the garage gets to minus five in January.