Modding the Crazy Plate Bench Press for Low Budget Lifting

Below is a Youtube video showing a guy doing a crazy plate bench press. Now I'm sure that guy or whoever owns the gym he's at paid a nice hefty price for that bamboo lifting bar, but I think this concept can be used to get a great low-budget-warrior type of workout as well. First, watch the video:






Notice that the free-hanging barbell plates make the lift more difficult, that's the only reason for doing this lift in a gym with nice equipment and lots of barbell plates. Your muscles will be screaming when you're done.



Now, how does this translate to low-budget lifting? As I've noted before, when I started lifting I was supporting a family of four on a budget of less than $16,000 a year. I had NO money to buy equipment with. Anyone that doesn't have $150 to buy a set of weights can easily lift heavy by modifying the crazy plate concept. For the bar, use an old metal fence post or a long section of pipe (at least 1" in diameter) or anything similar. For weights, hang a 5-gallon bucket or half of a 50-gallon drum from each end (make sure you use rope to tie them in place, the bucket's handles may not be strong enough). Fill the bucket/barrell with anything heavy, from sand and brick to old car parts and farm equipment, getting the weight as balanced as you can. Find the balanced center of the bar and start lifting. You could also use a rope or chain to tie on concrete blocks or homemade concrete plates like I used to use.



Here's an article from http://www.low-budget-warrior.com/ that talks more about homemade weights:

http://www.low-budget-warrior.com/Articles/StoneAgeWeights.doc



By the way, big thanks to www.straighttothebar.com/ for pointing out the crazy plate video.



God bless, stay strong, stay fit



--John

Thank You Punching Bag Ebook Readers

Thank you to all who have downloaded my ebook How to Build Your Own 150-Pound Heavy Punching Bag.

I've got some more ebooks coming, including some on stonebells and kettlebells. I just have to find the time to finishe writing them.

If you want a copy of the punching bag ebook, you can sign up to get it at www.low-budget-warrior.com. If you want to see what it looks like, there's a video on my previous post: http://jawbonejournal.blogspot.com/2007/05/homemade-heavy-bag-is-like-hitting-real.html

Thanks again to all my fellow warriors who took an interest

Stay strong, stay fit.

John Fike

150-Pound Punching Bag DIY Instructions Now Available

I'm a little slow getting these around, but the instructions for building your own

150-pound heavy punching bag are now available.

I've written them up with a lot of detail and put them in an ebook that includes photos,

diagrams and even a short video to help you with one part that's particularly

complicated.

The ebook and video are absolutely free, but the files are really huge so I didn't want

to put them right in the blog -- OK, I also wanted a way to know who all is really

reading this blog. Just put your name--I don't care whether it's real or made up--and

your email address in the form below and hit "send".

Although the confirmation message will indicate you're subscribing to something, you

really aren't--I just need a place to send your ebook.

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Your Name:
Your E-Mail:

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Homemade Heavy Bag is Like Hitting a Real Opponent

In my basement I have a 70-pound Everlast heavy punching bag. The only problem with it is that when I hit it, it doesn't feel all that heavy. It swings all over the place--especially when I kick it. Now that's not so bad for practicing timing and mobility, but it doesn't condition me for hitting a live human being. Let's face it, the point of self-defense and martial arts is to be able to defend against another person, so you have to train to do that and most adults weight a lot more than 70 pounds.

For a couple years now I've had some ideas about how to build a heavier punching bag. A couple weeks ago, I finally put those plans into action. The end result is a 150-pound heavy bag that does a wonderful job of conditioning joints, bones and muscle to endure the impact of hitting a real person. As you can see from the vido below, the bag barely moves when I hit it! It's also tall enough that I can practice hitting any location on an opponent from knees to head--my 70-pound bag barely lets me get a groin shot in if I hang it high enough for head strikes.

Check it out:



If you want to try building one of thse for yourself, I basically took two bags of tube sand and wrapped them in carpet and carpet padding. Then covered it in 3 mil plastic to resis moisture and finished it off with a layer of duct tape. The carpet is in two layers; the first layer has the soft pile facing the sand bags to minimize abrasion that might tear the bags, the second layer faces outward to give more cushioning to the hands when striking the bag. Between the two layers of carpet is where I wrapped the rope for hanging the bag. The rope is covered with duct tape to keep the carpet backing from fraying it. Tube sand was out of season at local stores when I finally got around to building this, so I made my own from heavy-duty 3 mil plastic garbage bags (box of 12 for about $8) and duct tape. In all, I used 120 yards of duct tape.

First time I used this heavy bag I didn't wear wrist wraps and it didn't take long before I had to switch to kicks to give my wrists a break. I won't make that mistake again in the near future. You can make your bag more wrist friendly by using more carpet padding than I did. It might also work to include a couple layers of bubble wrap between the carpet and carpet padding.

Good luck with yours, more detailed instructions will be available soon.

Stay strong, stay fit.

John

Debut of the Stonebell

It's done and it works great!

My experiment in creating the perfect Stonebell was a success. It's got the shape of a regular iron kettlebell (for the most part anyway), but you can make it at home with some concrete and a few other materials. Here's a couple of photos:



Here's the short version of how I made it:

1. Cover a children's play ball with plaster of paris, leaving holes to insert ends of the handle into and a way to divide the plaster shell to get the handle in.


2. Once plaster is dry, deflate the ball and remove it.


3. Make the handle out of stiff 1-inch diameter rubber tubing over a 24" piece of re-bar.


4. Place the handle between the two halves of the mold and tape the mold together.


5. Mix up and pour concrete into mold.


6. Let stand until concrete is hardened; remove mold and allow to cure for about a week.


7. To make it adjustable with barbell plates, before pouring concrete screw a 1/2-inch diameter bolt about 3/8 of an inch into a threaded-bar coupler and suspend the bolt end of it in the center of the mold. The open end of the coupler should be flush with the top of the mold so that, in the end, it looks like this:

Use another bolt and a washer to bolt barbell plates onto the bottom. I use a 25-pound plate in the photo above, but 10 and 5-pound plates work just as well.

I haven't had a chance to write up the detailed instructions, but will do so before too long and make them available to you all. For now, take a look at my video using the Stonebell.

New DIY gym equipment on its way!!

Busy, busy busy.

Man, it's been difficult getting enough time to post all the stuff I want to post. If you've been looking forward to the second installment of my article on endurance training, I apologize. Hopefully it will be up in the next couple of days.

One of the things that's been keeping me busy is the planning and building of several new pieces of home-made gym equipment. This weekend I completed a 100-pound sand bag and a 150-pound heavy punching bag.

I also am only one step away from completing what I'm calling The Perfect Stonebell. What is a stonebell you ask? Well, it's a kettlebell made out of stone--concrete actually. I call this the Perfect stonebell because it's relatively easy to build, uses inexpensive materials and IT'S ADJUSTABLE! Yep, it's made of concrete AND you can adjust the weight. If you're interested in working out with kettlebells but don't want to fork out over $100 for one of Pavel's, this project ought to really interest you.

The concrete is poured and as soon as its cured, I'll remove it from the mold and give it a test run. Then I'll be putting together detailed instructions on how to build one. I'll be putting together detailed instructions for the 150-pound heavy bag and sand bag as well. In the meantime here are a couple of photos to whet your appetite:

Making the stonebell mold:

Getting Ready to Cast:

My son posing wtih the nearly-finished 150-pound punching bag:

Low Budget Warrior: DIY gym equipment

Yo, warriors:

Straight to the Bar located some awesome resources on building your own gym equipment. Check it out: DIY: Home-made gym equipment

Low Budget Warrior Tip No. 103: No Bench Required (Part 2)

Last week I went over several exercises based on the basic pushup. This week I want to cover some barbell, kettlebell and dumbbell exercise that train the chest without using a bench. The first three of these I have to thank Pavel Tsatsouline for bringing to my attention several years ago through his books “Power to the People!” and “The Russian Kettlebell Challenge”. Since then I’ve found several other references to these exercises, which have been around since the old-time strong men like Arthur Saxon and Eugene Sandow.

Without further ado, here are six exercises for strengthening the chest without a bench:

1. Side Press—Stand with your feet slightly wider than shoulder-width apart. Grab your dumbbell, kettlebell or barbell in one hand and clean it to your shoulder. If you’re using a barbell, make sure you grab the bar at the center of balance before attempting to lift it off the ground. Now, shift your center of gravity over the leg opposite of your lifting arm and lean to the side away from the bell. As you shift your weight, rotate your hand so that the back of your hand is facing behind you and your thumb and fingers are facing forward. Ideally, your elbow should be a little bit behind you so that your triceps will be resting on your lats—not directly on your ribs. Turn your head so that you are facing the bell and tense up the entire body, especially the core muscles. Keeping eye contact with the bell, engage the lat and press the bell upward until you can lock your arm out. Maintain tension as you return the bell to the lowered position.
   
2. Bent Press—This is similar to the side press, but I like it better because I think it works the pecs even more than the side press. Start in the same stance as for the side press and hold the bell in the same position. But, instead of pressing the bell up, bend at the waist to lower your torso to the side and slightly to the front and press with your pecs and lats so that the bell rises almost naturally as you press your body away from it. Once your arm is locked out, keep it straight overhead as you raise your torso back to a standing position. At the end of the motion, you are standing straight up with your arm locked straight up, supporting the bell. Slowly lower your arm back to the starting position for the next rep.
3. Floor Press—This is essentially a bench press, but you are lying on the floor instead of a bench. Because your elbows cannot drop lower than your back, you won’t get the bar or bells to your chest, but you will get sufficient range of motion. There are two ways to get into position. You can either lie down and have someone hand you the weights, or you can maneuver the weights into position as you lie down. Some of the old-time strongmen would roll a barbell up their body as they laid back, but this takes a lot of muscling around. For floor press, I prefer to use dumbbells or kettlebells, because you can hold them to your chest while sitting up, then lay back and they almost automatically fall into position.



4. Neck Bridge Press—This is a floor press except that before pressing the weights up, you arch your belly toward the ceiling so that only your head and heels are on the floor. This lets you get a more complete range of motion, but you have to start with very light weights until your neck and spine become accustomed to the exercise. Be EXTREMELY careful performing this exercise and don’t use any more weight than you are confident with. Only do this with a spotter around who can take the weights if anything goes wrong. This is a very effective exercise, but stupidity will get you injured quickly.



5. Floor Fly—Lay on your back with a dumbbell/kettlebell in each hand. Stretch your arms straight out to the sides. Keep your arms straight as you use your pecs to pull them up and inward. At the top of the fly, your arms are locked straight toward the ceiling. Slowly lower your arms back to the floor. If this exercise is new to you, start with very light weights.
   



6. Isometric Press/Punch—From a standing or lying position with clenched fists held to the sides of your chest, slowly punch or press one fist out. Resist the punching motion with your biceps and back muscles. It should look and feel like you are moving your arm through wet concrete and you should feel the burn of effort in your chest, back, triceps and biceps.
   
   Well, that should keep you busy for a week.
   
   Stay strong, live well.
   
   John Fike

Low Budget Warrior Tip No. 102: No Bench Required

When the subject of lifting weights for exercise comes up, one of the first exercises people think of is the bench press. The bench press is one of the signature exercises of the modern bodybuilding culture. To be fair, the bench press is an efficient way to build strength and size in the pectoralis muscles of the chest. However, it is not the only way to do so and other exercises build functional chest strength better. After all, how often do you find yourself lying on your back and pressing something off your chest?

The pectoralis muscles are important to functional strength. They play a key role in punching, overhead lifting, holding and carrying large objects and similar motions. They also assist in maintaining structure and alignment of the shoulders, providing counter force to the trapezius and other muscles of the upper back. Because of the importance of the pectoralis muscles, we want to be sure to include them in our strength training program. But if you don’t want to spend money on a bench or don’t want to clutter your home with exercise equipment, we need to have ways to train those muscles without a weightlifting bench.

Obviously, pushups are the simplest substitute for the bench press, but it won’t be long before you have stopped gaining strength and are just increasing muscular endurance by doing more and more repetitions. Some solutions to this are to increase resistance by doing one of the following:

1. Incline pushups—elevate your feet. The higher your feet, the more difficult the pushup becomes.
   Drawback: eventually you’ll get your feet high enough that you are working the anterior deltoid (shoulder muscle) more than the pectoralis muscles.
   
2. One-arm pushups—Not only are you lifting the same weight with one hand that you previously did with two, but the leverage of the exercise effectively multiplies the weight. It is unlikely that you will be able to do one-arm pushups from the floor correctly the first time you attempt them. Start by placing your hand on an elevated surface with your feet on the floor. This shifts your center of gravity toward your feet and effectively reduces the weight you are pushing up. Work your way toward the floor over weeks and months until you can pushup off the floor.
   Drawbacks: Requires tremendous muscular control and balance to execute and thoroughly exhausts the Central Nervous System.
   Resource: Best instruction I’ve ever seen on performing a one-arm pushup is in Pavel Tsatsouline's book The Naked Warrior. Check it out.
   
3. Add resistance with bands—stretch them across your shoulders and upper back and pin the ends to the floor with your hands.
   Drawback: resistance increases as the bands are stretched and decreases as the bands contract. To apply more resistance on the bottom of the pushup, shorten the bands and do half pushups.
   
4. Add resistance with weights—put weights (either barbell plates, sand bags or other heavy objects) in a backpack and put the backpack on. Do pushups as usual.
   Drawbacks: You can only get so much weight in a back pack and it can be awkward to get on and off when its heavy.
   
5. Have a partner add resistance—partner stands either in front of you or straddles your waist and places hands on the trapezius between the shoulder blades. Partner applies just enough resistance to make the pushups challenging. Drawbacks: Requires a partner, so you can’t do it alone, and the partner must be attuned to your needs so that the resistance applied is neither too great nor too little.
   
   Next week we’ll discuss several ways to use dumbbells, kettlebells and barbells to exercise the chest without a bench.
   
   Stay strong, live well.
   
   John Fike

Low Budget Warrior Tip #101: Hindu Squat

Hindu squats are a great stationary exercise for cardiovascular training and building endurance. They are a bodyweight exercise, so no equipment is necessary. I first learned about them from Matt Furey at www.combatconditioning.com.

I use Hindu squats mostly to warm up for a workout, because they quickly elevate body temperature and get the blood flowing. They are not so much a strength exercise, as there is no really good way to increase the resistance, but the do increase muscular endurance in the legs, hips and buttocks. At high repetitions (over 300), Hindu squats can also train you to a higher lactate threshold, which means you will be able to exercise longer before your performance begins to suffer due to the high levels of lactic acid in your muscles and blood.

1. Start by standing with your feet shoulder-width apart and your arms arms at your sides.
2. While keeping your back relatively straight back and looking straight ahead, bend at your knees and hips to drop into a squatting position. Let your heels come off the floor and touch your buttocks to your heels or back of your calves, if you can.
3. As you descend, your arms hang straight and slightly behind you. As you reach the bottom of your squat, begin swinging them out in front of you.
4. Press through your toes and stand up again.
5. As you stand, continue swinging your arms up in front of you until they are parallel to the floor.
6. When you are standing again, let your heels return to the floor and pull your hands into your armpits with a forceful motion.
   The arm motions should be circular and the whole exercise should be performed in a fluid motion. Exhale on the downward motion and inhale during the standing phase.
   

Sandbags: Low Budget Weight Training

Getting strong and fit without spending a lot of money is always a good idea. In fact, it's the whole basis of my Low Budget Warrior web site. Sandbags are by far the easiest and least expensive way to train heavy. What's really awesome about sandbags, besides their low cost, is that they are extremely adjustable--just add or remove sand as needed.

Straight to the Bar recently posted an entry with instructions on how to make a sandbag for less than $10. Though I've not tried his method yet, it looks durable and excellently suited for adjusting the weight. In his method, the sand is divided into smaller bags then put in a larger sack for lifting. With this method, you can add or remove sand easily depending on the exercise and your ability and not make a mess spilling sand all over. The smaller bags will also keep the sand from shifting quite as much I imagine, which may be good or bad depending on what you're looking from a sandbag .

http://www.straighttothebar.com/2006/11/how_to_make_a_sandbag_for_10.html#c15612

Once you've made your sandbag, here are 10 things you can do with it to build strength, endurance and power:

1. Bearhug the sandbag and carry it as far as you can. You may need more than the 45 pounds of sand called for in the Straight to the Bar version to make this challenging.


2. Deadlift it from the floor with two hands--again, you may need more than 45 pounds.


3. Put it on one or both shoulders and squat with it.


4. Press it from chest to overhead with two hands.


5. Press it overhead with one hand using military press, side press or bent press. (Pavel's Power to the People and Enter the Kettlebell books have excellent instructions for these exercises)


6. From the floor between your feet, use two hands to sling it up onto your shoulder. Return to floor, then sling it to the other shoulder. Make sure you use your legs and hips to power the sling and keep your back straight and firm.


7. Use a kettlebell-style clean to clean it from floor to chest.


8. Combine the clean with an overhead press and squat for power and cardio development.



9. Lay on your back and chest press the sandbag .


10. Set it on the floor next to you and, from a standing position, bend at the hips and grab it with two hands. Then lift it up to your chest, followed by bending at your hips to set on the floor on the opposite side that you started from. Repeat going the reverse direction. This is a good exercise for obliques and lower back, which are essential core muscles.