Home equipment designs

[John Sapinoso]

I just found out that there is a welding shop nearby my house that can custom make some gym equipment. I'm going to keep this thread as a log for design ideas and hopefully get some equipment made.

So far here is a list of things I need out of it with ample room for exercises:

-place for rings and pulleys

-stahl bars

-GHR station (a bench with the stahl bars should suffice)

-german station (a bench should suffice)

I also would like for it to be:

-stable and in one piece if possible

-as small a footprint as possible

-as portable as possible with the given attributes

other misc things I want to make:

-fractional plates (ankle weights may suffice)

-hand balancing stand

A power rack with a few modifications is what I have in mind. Anyways, I welcome any suggestions on this project.

[Joshua Naterman]

I'd go with the modified power rack, personally. That'll give you the most bang for your buck and the most compressed workout area. I'd have 1 foot removable extensions made for whatever side you plan on using as your stall rack for the cantilever effect. I would have holes drilled every 6 inches through the uprights so that you can insert 1/2" RMC as the poles. They'll be 1 inch thick. You could use 3/4 inch if the uprights on your rack are big enough to handle a 1.25 inch hole. I'd ask the welders to measure the actual RMC and the uprights and tell you if they think that's safe.

Anyhow, once you have that done it should be no problem to make a simple 2x10 bench that can be anchored across the safety bars. With those 1 foot extensions in place you'll have your center of gravity well within the base of the rack, which means you can do ghr, nlc, HLL, whatever you want, really. FOr NLC I'd just put a piece of 1 inch plywood over the bottom of the base, and then you can just use knee pads and hook your feet under the safety bars for the NLC! You may need padding for the safety bar, but still! I wish I was able to do such a thing, I can't quite afford it yet.