Sunday, 1 September 2013

Jump box, climbing rope and fat bars


Today I’ve got three items which are kind of homemade, in that I repurposed them to work as fitness gear, but they are not really ‘homemade’ in that I didn’t build them myself.  

Jump box


First up is my jump box, it stands 640mm high (25 inches) and is simply a reinforced cable bundle. I got the idea from a video of Matt Wichlinski and thought it would be a good addition. Companies buy or use cable wrapped up on bundles like these of various sizes and I managed to pick one up easily. It needed to be reinforced to take the weight of me jumping on it so I used off cuts from various projects. If you make one yourself, your reinforcements won’t need to be that strong. I need to set up something so that I can make the jump higher so for now I just hold a 20kg sandbag while I jump.


Climbing rope

The climbing rope is about 4.5 meters and 1 inch thick which is about $100 worth of rope. I managed to score this one for free as an off cut from a rope manufacturer so look around and see what you can beg, borrow or find. All I needed to do was splice an eye into it. I searched around on youtube and followed the easiest video I could find. The method itself is easy, but difficult on this thickness of rope.  I’ve set it up to hang from my pull up frame, all I need it a new carabiner which will fit.

The eye I spliced in, before and after tape to finish it
First rope climb
Fat bars

Dumbbells
This is another one I saw on Matt Wichlinski’s channel, I got the pipe for $40 and gave my brother a box of beer to weld it up for me. The pipe is 50mm thick, standard size for Olympic plates. The bar is 2100mm long (7 foot) and the dumbbells 470mm long (about 1.5 foot). Super simple all I needed to do was sand and spray the bars to hold off the rust. These work great, I’ll try to get a picture I me lifting with them to post. These currently live at a friend’s house since he has plates, but maybe in the future I’ll buy some plates and this will be the bar I use at home.

Dumbbells and barbell





2 comments:

  1. Hey man,

    I met you at the Mov Nat workshop last weekend (I was the big guy that had to bail early to watch my friends fight).

    Saw the email from Max and then found your blog linked. Some really cool stuff in here! I am really impressed. I was especially impressed by all the awesome strength stuff you have made.

    The photo of you in the power rack deadlifting cracked me up - I have the same rack and weights in my garage - looked very familiar.

    I was also impressed with your tyre sled - I actually grabbed a tyre the other day with the plan to do the same thing but yours looks really good. Some great ideas there with the u bolt and pool noodle etc.

    Would be up for doing some more strength based training with you in the future. Let me know if you would be interested.

    Cheers

    Gareth

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    Replies
    1. Hey Gareth

      Glad to see people like the gear, its all held up pretty well and awesome to use. Got some cool stuff planned for the future.

      The rack and weights are wicked, not mine though.

      To be honest I don't get outside for my backyard much for training as I'm really busy with Uni right now and its all coming to a head I finish up and move towards graduating. If anything I might look at doing some strength workouts at the beach over summer, will post them on the facebook page if I do.

      Cheers
      Blair

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