Competition : Home-made gym equipment
share it: digg | stumbleupon | health ranker
I’ve come across some great home-made gym gear over the past few years (check out DIY : Home-made gym equipment I and II), as well as having a go at creating my own. However, I’m always on the lookout for more; and this is where you come in.
Competition
Construct something for use in your workouts. It doesn’t matter whether it’s a sandbag, a squat rack or a full-blown all-in-one machine. The only constraint is that is has to be constructed between now and May 30 2007. No old stuff, please.
To submit it, either :
- post a photo of it (preferably in use) on your blog and leave a comment here to point to it.
or
- send me (scott AT straighttothebar DOT com) a photo and a couple of paragraphs explaining what it is. I’ll post it up here.
Prizes
The prize list includes some great stuff from the guys over at the Diesel Crew (including a t-shirt and their superb ebooks); as well as a couple of mystery items from Straight to the Bar. More details over the next few weeks.
Judging
The judging will be done by you, the reader (via a poll). In the case of a tie, I’ll cast the deciding vote.
Finally
The most important part of this exercise is to enjoy the equipment you’ve just built. Have fun.

Ready to bend some steel? Grab a copy of the Diesel Crew's Bending eBook. Superb.
Comments




Here’s a farmer’s walk bar:
http://www.discussfitness.com/forums/attachments/f9/2688d1176260143-tims-2007-omnipotent-man-dude-training-log-farmers-walk-bar.jpg
As far as construction tips, I think it’s kind of apparent if you can see the picture…galvanized pieces, screwed together. I got the hardware store to cut the pipe to the sizes I wanted, and all the attachment pieces just came out of the bins they keep this stuff in. The handle is 1”, and the plate loading part is 1.5”. You need pipe wrenches to get it all together.
The center sections are 18” long, but it would probably have been easier to make the handle 18.5” or maybe even 19” - the connectors for the 1.5” stuff are meatier, so I had to screw that stuff in quite tightly or else the handle wouldn’t reach.
The pair of bars cost $98.
Posted by: Tim | April 13, 2007 7:55 AM
Looking for a good homemade weight sled. I saw a post on another site where a guy bought an aluminum snow disk (yes, the sliding down the hill kind), put a weight pin in it and used that. Said he had good results. Anyone ever try this? Have something better? I’m not a welder so simple is better. Thanks.
Posted by: Casey | June 14, 2007 3:19 AM
Casey,
it depends on how you’re going to use it. The closest I’ve seen to the type you mentioned is this DIY Tyre Sled over on the Ross Training forums; personal favourite is the one in the large photo on this page.
Do you want something you can add a lot of weight to, or something that will just give you a bit of a challenge when doing conditioning work?
Posted by: Scott | June 14, 2007 8:40 AM