Parte Tres: Do-It-Yourself Stuff with PVC, Chains and this Time, Lumber… and Crap

Alright meat-heads.

Following my last post on the subject, this is the third installment of this crap I’ve been doing for the last couple of weeks. The fact of the matter is that my g/f and I have already signed and mailed our cancellation forms to LA Fitness. Screw them. The only thing we’ll miss from it is the squat stations. And since that’s something I’m not comfortable with, we may end up buying one of these puppies from the New York Barbell Company:

New York Barbell Sumo Rack C92565W

In the meantime, my hammer keeps landing and the drills keep drilling. I haven’t built a WhiteShark Push-Up yet, and I don’t think I will for the time being. Too busy. However, I have a particular update from the original creator of this contraption. He found a very effective way to increase the grip workout in this thing… by using pool noodles.

Be advised that this is a beast completely different from the commercial “Perfect Push Up” – you must work your grip with this beast. If you have girly hands, don’t. Work on your wrist strength first, and then plow ahead with this thing.

So… where was I? Oh yes.

Home Made Rings.

I finally got the time to install the rings I made (previously discussed here).

Holy crap. I don’t know what the fuck is in the wood beam (adamantium maybe), but it took forever to screw those things – killer shoulder workout. And this was after drilling a 9/36″ hole for the screws to go in.

Anyway, this contraption seems rock solid. The rings are about waist level. A tad low, but that’s good for my g/f to do assisted pull ups. Doing dips in these things is hard. Last time I did weighted dips on a station, I did like 10 reps with 95lbs on a dip belt. With these rings, it’s a challenge to get 10 reps body weight.

This requires a lot of stabilization, meaning, it == teh cool.

I did several tests last night and this thing is rock solid. I’m happy with it.

Link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LpzFmOTtnic

The Lifting Platform

And while I was working on the rings and other stuff, I was trying to build a lifting platform for quite sometime. The hardest part was to get someone to cut the bloody lumber in Home Depot. If I had a truck, I would have hauled the stuff home and cut it myself. Oh well.

Anyways, I don’t recall exactly where I got the idea for this at this time. If I remember later, I will come back here and give the due credit.

It is not one platform, but pair of stackable lifting platforms made out of a 2″x12″x8′ and a 2″x4″x8′. Each piece is basically a 2-foot long piece of wood, 12″ width with one 1-ft long 2″x4″ at each end. There are four of those.

You can stack them all four and make a deep thing for step ups. It’s not good for jumping but that’s ok. The top 2 have 1×1 pieces on their ends to stop the barbell from rolling.

I wasn’t designing them that way, but they ended up being perfect for me for floor push ups and rack pulls 2/3 up of my shins. Taylor made by accident. I drop stuff on them and so far seem capable of taking a beating.

Link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GLlwMLBymaM

I’m going to build four more and figure out how to slide a “core”, a pipe or something through them to stabilize them further. You can put them in, take them out, and stack them in a small corner without taking a lot of space.

The only caveat for anyone who wants to build them. Make sure you use a drill bit thick enough to go through them and use a clamp to inmobilize the thing. I couldn’t find my clamp, so I used my feet to hold them. Lo and behold, I moved a bit thus breaking one of my bits (crap!)

One more note. 2×12’s are usually curved through their lenght, just a bit, but never perfectly flat. Use that to your advantage by placing the concave facing up. This acts as a cup to hold the blates IN the platform.

The only question I still have about this thing is whether to use an additional rubber mat under them to protect the floor during deadlifts.