Just curious, what is the most bootleg/ghetto addition to your home gym? The equipment you use to make due that isn’t pretty or even its intended purpose.
Myself: Squat stand are posts welded to car rims, courtesy of my father. I use Snap-on jack stands to do floor presses, and my pull down accessories are all from Home Depot.
Anyone else have interesting equipment?
Most of basement gym is homemade; power rack to pulldown…just made a McDonald Bar and made a simple Squat safety bar by welding two 18 inches 1" steel rounds to the slightly bent Barbell, do you want to see images?
[quote]Eugenius67 wrote:
Most of basement gym is homemade; power rack to pulldown…just made a McDonald Bar and made a simple Squat safety bar by welding two 18 inches 1" steel rounds to the slightly bent Barbell, do you want to see images?[/quote]
Sure if you have them. I’ll have to take pics of mine.
Side note, my father also made “perfect pushups” by welding handles to throw out bearings, which in turn are welded to steel plates.
I made a “ghetto-bell” (as opposed to a kettlebell). I used pieces of threaded pipe to make a “T” and a fitting that screws on and off the bottom on which I can load plates with a 1" hole that used to go to plate-loaded dumbbells. I have enough plates and enough room on the T to get up to 70 or 80 pounds.
I had a wooden squat rack with safety catches and everthing, multi grip pullup station, chest supported row, benches, farmers handles, a log to press. Everything was wooden and held up great.
I’ve used two stacks of 5 gallon paint buckets as “blocks” for high pulls. I’ve used jack stands for floor presses, and currently am using them for z presses (my rack hasn’t been reassembled). I made a basic pulley system using parts from Home Depot and Lowes: the loading pin is made of pipe and is plate loaded, this is clipped to some paracord that runs through a pulley that’s hooked to the top of my rack. I have a fat-bar/axle that’s just a piece of Schedule 40 pipe. I’ve used two barbells with pipe insulation as handles for parallel dips.
There was a badly failed attempt making a swiss bar using dumbbell handles, conduit and some fittings. I also had a more complicated pulley system that didn’t hold up.
There’s probably a few other things that I can’t think of right now.
I’ve jury rigged stuff over the years and have replaced all of that stuff with the exception of my truck tire dragging sled and my home made “bandbell” bar that I made out of a 7’ length of fiberglass round stock.
Here’s my hyper
Bench
Pullups
cant currently get picture but squat rack is in part of basement with 7 foot ceilings…there fore the shoulder press rack is a bench turned around ontop of 3 cinder blocks outside
also have homemade leg press made of old semi parts
also have a resistance band walking thing(old westside videos) made out of an old treadmill