MYOG (Make Your Own Gear)

[Bacon]

So I posted pics of the PVC Grip toy. See here: https://sites.google.com/site/serenityami/home/myog

Drat, now I have to go to Lowe's on the way home...

I've made climbing ropes that are currently in use at my CrossFit gym. 1.5" manilla rope and some good old eye splices.

Rope

Eye Splice

[Flip Nunez]

I have a big wooden sign in my house thats from a store my familly used to have, its not super heavy but has made an intresteing work out prop. its more then four feet high, about a foot wide and two inches thick, solid chunk of wood, I wear weighted gloves and fling the thing around, use it for a tiny bit of added weight to my body weight squats, go through a great different range of upper body movements with it. you always have to have a really solid grip to not drop it (or accidently swing it and break something) so you get alot of grip strength from it, as well as a minor targeting of the core because of its size and weight, trying to keep it and urself balanced. my newest favorite thing is sort of mocking a stroke, like if i was canoeing because it really works my grip, arms and back. bump it up a notch and stroke while balancing on one foot/doing one legged squats.

[Amazon Grimm]

I added posts to hang weights on between warmup sets on my squat rack,

I raised mi bench 1.5 inches and put wheels on the head so I can stand it up and move is.

[Thrillho]

I made my own plyoboxes for 20" box jumps, and made a 20 pound medicine ball by cutting a slit in a basketball and filling it with sand, then wrapping it with duct tape. I made pull-up and dip bars with galvanized pipes and pressure treated 4x4s, anchored into the ground with 6 bags of concrete. You can see some of it on the right:

If my wife let me trash a portion of the yard to that degree, I WOULD SO BE THERE.

Complete with tiki torches. Truck yeah.

The only thing I've made is my weight bench and a punching bag hanging off the shed. I want to add a pull-up bar to the shed soon.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qXX2SgLZEa4

(Yes, I have fixed my form. A lot.)

[dajve]

I jury rig a weights bench / stability ball style effort out of the mass of pillows we seem to have in our room, if that counts? Only use it for dumbbell bench presses / chest flyes but it seems to do the job (and adds an increased workout for the core muscles at the same time, which is a good thing).

[WordSmith]

Gallon Ziplock bags filled with 5lbs of sand and duck taped + duffle bag from army surplus store = adjustable weight sandbag.

[Michael_Blacksmith]

For working the wrists and grip and forearm:

 

A bar of steel, or wood, about 1 foot long, whatever diameter fits comfortably in your hands. 

 

A piece of thin rope that is about as long as the distance from your elbows to the ground.

 

Drill a hole in the middle of the bar that fits the rope, and lace the rope through said hole and tie a knot at the end.

 

Attach some weight to the end of the rope, hold your arms out and roll the weight up, then back down. Repeat as desired

[SuperToga]

We are a thrifty bunch around here. Buying fancy gym clothes is pretty low on our budget list. My room mate and I sew some of our own gym clothes. A fabric store near our house sells fabric by the pound in their scrap bins. My room mate snagged some Jersey and made 4 pairs of pants/shorts for around $5. Custom fitting no less!

 

This is basically the pattern we use for pants. 

We did the same for tank tops. Trace an old shirt, cut, sew. 

 

Next on the list is swim suits. I've hunted. And hunted. And no swim suit on the planet both fits properly, and works for actual swimming. Also, is it too much to ask for something that doesn't look like I'm 50 and supervising catholic children? Oh, and can all of those cute suits cost less than $100? For reals, big box stores. Swim suits take like half a yard of fabric and some expertise with bra cups. Surely I can figure this out and do it myself. Paper pattern acquired. Just waiting for the fabric to go on sale. 

 

Does anyone have tips to unstink cotton? I should note that we make our own laundry soap because I'm allergic to basically everything. It does a FANTASTIC job, but even with oxyclean, our cotton gym clothes are... fragrant. Depressingly fragrant. What do you guys do to your clothes to destink them after months of sweat???

 

If you've never sewn before, gym clothes are a good place to start because you can get inexpensive fabric. Best of all, if you screw up, it doesn't matter because looking glamorous while sweating like jocks in a sauna kind of cancels out your glitz anyway.

 

Happy trails!

[BKeola]

last winter, I made an inverted row station with a ladder and a bo staff. I also used that same bow staff and a resistance band attached to a door to make a lat pull-down station.

 

This is a really great idea. You can do a wide variety of great exercises using nothing but a Bo staff and some trees.

[eshriner]

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Squat stands and most of a bench from Homemade Strength.

 

That's a pretty sweet setup.

[Guest Dirty Deads]

Ah HERE is the thread I was looking for. I had posted about this on my own not finding this one. I am making a gada, a tornado ball, kettle bells and a 200 lbs bag for varied purposes.

 

www.straightothebar.com/articles/diy/   I use this site. It has a LOT of diy videos. I would love to make a salmon ladder and the back pressure device for armwrestling.

[UH60guy]

Awesome idea with the grip toy! For something for your mom though, have you considered adding some sort of rod on the rotating part? A long bar of some sort may give you the mechanical advantage to open those really tough jars. Something like one of those plumbers wrenches with a rubber strap for traction on the lids, but with a longer grip for her ease of use.

[Spark]

I love making my own equipment. Thus far I have an iron mace/gada and a pair of clubbells that I made myself.

 

The gada was made using a sledgehammer handle from a local hardware store (20 bucks) and perhaps 2 dollars in Quik-Crete. I took an old soccer ball that no one used any more, cut a hole about five inches in diameter, and filled the sucker with the 'Crete. Then I stood the handle up in it and let it sit on a concrete floor for two days. The best part is that this gave the mace a natural flat spot on top that allows me to stand it handle-up on the ground if I want to. It ended up being about 15 pounds after fully curing.

 

I use it mostly to beat on an old tractor tire that I got for free from a local farm. I wale on it as hard as I can for a minute, rest for a minute, and repeat until I can't.

 

Clubbells were made in much the same way, using the same bag of 'Crete. I got a couple of those plastic fat-bats and cut the handles off, leaving the fat parts of the barrel intact. I filled those with the 'Crete and stood a couple of dowels (that I made from a broken shovel handle) up in them. They're heavy and unwieldy and totally wonderful.

 

Now I have to call the local fire department to see if they're getting rid of any hoses...

[Spacedonut]

I'm going to attempt building a salmon ladder sometime inside the next month. When I get going on it I'll post some pictures.

[Gainsdalf the Whey]

Click on Thlim Gothodrum in my sig.

[Spacedonut]

Click on Thlim Gothodrum in my sig.

I'm loving that it's a squat rack too! That is definitely some inspiration! Thank you.

Do you have any problem with it holding your weight? I'm about 300 and want to do incline/decline and bodyweight rows. I don't want to risk giving myself a new piercing with it lol.

[Gainsdalf the Whey]

I'm loving that it's a squat rack too! That is definitely some inspiration! Thank you.

Do you have any problem with it holding your weight? I'm about 300 and want to do incline/decline and bodyweight rows. I don't want to risk giving myself a new piercing with it lol.

 

I have failed a 495 lb squat in it, pins are no worse for wear. It's bolted into the floor for when I slam weights home. The pull up bar supports my weights fine as well. I have recently added rings to it to do rows and pull ups and it works great.

 

It only cost me $150 or so to build the rack. All the bars/fittings are made from plumbing fixtures and pipe. The deadlift platform was actually more expensive as the 3/4" plywood was like $35-$40 a sheet and the rubber mats were around there as well. The whole platform/rack set-up cost me around $400, then the weights I got on craigslist for around $0.60 per lb I believe.

[theDonnybrook]

My big DIY build is a lateral slide trainer, aka a slide board.  I use it mostly for speed skating specific technique work, but there are tons of ways to use this kind of equipment.  The professional models retail for around $400.  I built mine for about $50 in parts.

 

https://inlinepaceline.wordpress.com/2013/12/09/how-to-diy-slide-board/

 

I have also done the Homemade Strength squat stands and a 36"x24"x20" plyo box.