Pull up frame

Showing the height of the bar

This was my first big fitness related build when I moved into my house and it’s the one which gets the most use. The total cost was about $100 which I’m pretty happy with. Before I had this built I had to do my pull ups on the washing line, or go across town to a park to do my pull ups, which weren’t really the best options. This allows me to knock out my pull ups (or hangs) while I get dinner ready, or work on homework etc. The original plan was to build it out of scaffolding pipe like the Kavadlo brothers so I would be able to move the bar up and down as well as work on flags; however I priced up the pipe at over $200 which was just too much for me at the time.

The specs:

I used 100x100mm H4 treated wooden posts for the whole thing; they stand 3 meters out of the ground with 1.1 meters underground. This was the maximum depth I could dig with the post-hole borer I was using. The posts were concreted in with 2 bags of cement per post ($40 total cost). The cement I used was a simple, pour in and water type, no mixing required. The frame is 1.8m wide to the outside as 1.8m is a standardised size for the posts. This makes the whole frame 3.1m high. The total cost for the wood was $60.

The set up for the bar was sized at three heights, the top is set so that I have a small jump to reach the bar so that I can do pull ups with a full hang. The next rung down was sized to give my head just enough clearance when doing muscle ups. The bottom rung is set up so that I can do Australian pull ups.

The rungs were made with old wood I had in the garage, but ideally they could be made with steel (salmon ladder anyone?). These are just screwed on and have held up very well. The ring bolts at the top are for attaching my gymnastic rings and rope ladder.

Pull up, Muscle up and Australian pull up height.

Notes and suggestions:

To get the frame level and square, set the top beam up first and square up the posts before adding the concrete. I was lucky that I could tie off to the fence behind the frame to hold it square while the concrete set.

Ideally I would have made the frame wider (approximately 2m to the inside) to allow for an iron cross to be performed, but realistically I would require training at a proper facility to work towards this skill. And since 1.8m is a standard size for the post that is the width I went with.

I would also have liked to build the frame 3.3m high so that I had room to jump to the pull up bar, muscle up, and still clear my head from the top beam. However the frame is way too big as it is, given the proximity of the neighbours house so I had to reign myself in a bit. I’m lucky the neighbour is a good guy and didn’t complain. 

Given the height, the frame does swing a bit, not enough to make it fall over but it did help to brace one side against the fence. I still need to brace the other side too which I haven’t done. If you are making one and don’t have a fence to brace off, you could set two extra posts a meter or so behind the frame and brace off that. You could even set it up to be parallel bars behind it.

One issue I have had with the way the bar is set up is that it can twist since it is not locked in. I think this may be why I can’t get a clean muscle up as the twisting means I cannot maintain a false grip. This would be solved with drilling the frame and bar for a pin (large nail) which was removable but prevented the bar from rolling.

All finished I am very happy with the frame I built. It’s extremely versatile and sturdy.

I've since made some improvements - see here

Rope ladder and Gymnastic rings

 

Homemade weight belt (dip belt)

Here is an easy one that I made about two years ago but never got around to posting. I got the idea from Ross Training. It’s super simple, and very cheap. Just need a pool noodle ($5), 1-1.5 meters of chain ($15) and a latch of some kind, I used a basic u-shackle which only cost a few dollars. Run your chain through the noodle (or cut down the length of the noodle to get the chain in), duct tape the hell out of it, throw on some weight and you’re ready for weighted pull up and dips.

I’ve been using kettlebells since that’s what I’ve got, but plates work just as well, if not better. Ross has had 100kg on his and it works just fine, I’ve loaded 48kg onto mine and it worked well.

Just a few notes and suggestions:

• Get large gauge chain and make sure your shackle will fit, don’t muck around with one that doesn’t fit.
• Use lots of duct tape as the chain will start to pull through the foam. Use even more than I have. I’ve run out of duct tape and need to get some more.
• Once the weights get heavier, set them up on a seat or in such a way they you can squat the weight up in a good position.

Chin up with 32kg kettlebell

Back after over a year.

I’m back into posting after over a year without a post. I’ve got lots in store and hope to keep the posts coming over the next couple of weeks. The last time I was posting I mentioned that I had just finished my Masters and hoped to post more and that clearly didn’t happen, I had lots on at the time (still do) but I now have so much to share its time to get back into it.

In the last year or so I had a job demonstrating in under graduate labs at the University of Auckland which I enjoyed a lot, then I got a basic labour job so I had ongoing work. I got into a graduate diploma of secondary teaching this year and that’s moving along well. I hope to get a teaching job next year with that. I also moved into my own place last year so expect to see some bigger projects in the next few posts.

So in the past year I’ve still been training hard and building more homemade gear which I intend to share. When I look back at my workout logs from when I was lasting posting I was working on 3, 4 or 5 pull ups with 16kg once a week in my workout. In the last couple of weeks I hit 3x10 pull ups with 16kg and 10x1 pull ups with 40kg working towards my goal of a one arm chin up early 2014. Also when I was last posting I was working on close grip push ups and I’m currently on 5x5 one arm push ups (with my feet 1.5x shoulder width apart). So my progress has been steady and heading upwards.

That’s all I’ve got for now, once this is posted I’m going to start work on the next few articles so stay tuned.

Bruteforce Sandbag Review

Right off the bat I’ve got to say I’m extremely happy with my bruteforce sandbag and that I think everyone and every gym should get one. I bought the black strongman shell, I really wanted the digicamo but at the time they only offered the shells in black (I would have needed to buy a kit with inner bags to get the digicamo). Since buying mine they now sell shells in any colour.  At the time I didn’t have the cash to get the inner bags, so I decided just to use my own inner bags (seen here) but these eventually started to leak sand, no big deal but the bruteforce inner bags would have been better.

The product information that came with the bag only warned that hitting it with a sledgehammer wouldn’t be good for it and not to set it on fire, all else is fair game. Sounds pretty tough to me. I’ve been dropping it from overhead and shoulder height for months now and never seen any sand left on the concrete, and no damage to the bag, so I’m happy.

The weight limit on the bag is just under 55 kg which is plenty of weight for most movements, but quite light for dead lifts. However Mark De Grasse from My Mad Methods loaded his up with kettlebells to 300 pounds for dead lifts with no issues from the bag or handles. And on the bruteforce facebook page there’s a photo of a bruteforce bag with 900 pounds hanging from a handle, so it would seem the weight limit is really just a limit on how much sand the bag can hold. Meaning you could probably build up to quite a bit of weight for dead lifts if you have the plates or kettlebells for weighting the bag, no barbell necessary.

The bag is great in terms of usability, leagues ahead of any homemade bag. The 8 handles are all useful for simulating most movements you can think of and the material itself is easy to grab a handful of. The material isn’t abrasive, so it’s not going to take your skin off if you want to do some shirtless shoulder get ups etc. The bag packs down to smaller than a sleeping bag, so it travels well, and looks like it could be hosed out easily, though I haven’t tried.

 

All in all, I think a bruteforce sandbag is an excellent addition to any backyard, garage or commercial gym and is well worth the money. Next up I’d like to get one of the barebones kits to really test my grip strength.

For Matt Palfrey's guest post on the benefits of sandbag training click here, or you can go directly to the source for workouts and other articles - Sandbag fitness. Matt has also produced an ebook on sandbag training with 30 weeks worth of programs, stay tuned for a review of that too. And if this post convinces you to buy a bruteforce sandbag, please head over for sandbag fitness and follow the links for there.

Updates and revisions

It has been a long time since I’ve posted anything here, not that I haven’t been busy with training etc, but I was finishing my Masters of Science thesis. It’s done now so I can get back to writing articles for back-to-primal. I was still training and building over my absence from here, so I have quite a few articles in mind so stay tuned.

Now for some revisions:

Some of the gear I build broke down, gave out, or has been modified since I posted it here. So I’ll go over some of the change I’ve made.

First up my gymnastic rings set up. I used quite cheap and thin straps; they were rated to hold my weight, but should not have been left out in the weather. Added to this, the straps spent their whole life rubbing against the edge of the beam I hung them on. So one day when I went out to do some ring assisted pistols and the strap just gave way and I fell flat on my ass. Switch to the other strap and that too gave way. I’m really lucky not to have the straps give way while skinning the cat, or attempting a back lever.

So this is my 2.0 set up. I went out and bought a second set of straps and a pair of bolts which I set into the wooden beam. I can now hook my straps into the bolt, the way the straps were designed. I can also take my straps down easily, so they don’t perish in the sun again. Moral of the story – don’t leave your straps out in the weather.

The second change I made to my rings was to cut the rope out and replace it with heavier straps. The rope was looking a bit perished from the sun and I didn’t want to risk them giving out too. The new straps (plus the hook I added) give me more options when setting up my rings, and are much safer than the rope set up I had.

Me using the version 2.0 rings with my homemade weight belt.

As for the sand bags, the larger 30 kg bag I built got very little use. The ropes I used were to thin, and difficult to use. Maybe some larger webbing would have worked better. But in the end, the outer bag wasn’t UV treated and just fell apart after summer. Luckily the inner bags stayed together.

Anyway, I bought myself a brute force sandbag (see my review) and used the inner bags for that. The only issue I’ve had with my inner bags is that I used very fine sand for filler which has worked its way out of the bags slowly. I’ve since put two of the inner bags into thick plastic bags to contain the sand. I may yet do this for all of my inner bags.

Finally my medicine ball has been padded and wrapped in a cheap camping mat ($10 NZ) to use as a slam ball. Its working really well, the duct tape is a little slippery, but that adds to the fun. I could tape it up with paper tape or something similar to add grip, but I’m happy with it for now.

That’s all my revisions for now. Stay tuned for more articles to come.