Already having established himself as a highly respected world-class athlete and Olympian in 1996 in the sport of Greco-Roman wrestling for his home country of Bulgaria, a decade later in the year 2005, Coach Ivan Ivanov, now training his own Olympians and world-class athletes as a Gold-Level Coach in the United States Olympic Training Centers, introduced the world’s first BULGARIAN BAG! And thus… the Suples Company, world-renowned maker of innovative, world-class training devices, was born! Coach Ivanov created the Bulgarian Bag with one purpose in mind: RESULTS! Based on his own experiences as an elite athlete, Coach Ivanov realized that a truly functional core training tool like the BULGARIAN BAG is a MUST for any wrestling and/or combat sports training room. Coach Ivanov recognized that the metal weight equipment typically used in traditional training centers was neither practical nor functional enough as a complete training tool to build core rotational strength or to safely use inside a wrestling room, and this led to Coach’s first innovation!
 
Original Product Design & Creation The first stage of the BULGARIAN BAG development was to design the appropriate shape, elements, and material of this new training invention. This initial creative process itself did not take much of Coach Ivanov’s time, since he already knew what the Bulgarian Bag should look like…
The “Lamb” Shape and the “Champion’s Swing” During his home country’s traditional Bulgarian Folkstyle Wrestling Festivals, livestock animals were awarded as winner’s prizes. After the final match, the winner is to take his livestock prize (lamb, sheep, ram or even baby calf) and then- as part of this tradition- he must “swing” the animal over his head to get it onto his shoulders and walk proudly through the audience. If the animal is too big or heavy, the winner is assisted by the fans. This first “champion’s swing” to get the lamb up around the winner’s shoulders, is what led to the vision, design, production, and unique training methods of the first BULGARIAN BAG created by Coach Ivan Ivanov!