I wanted to share with you all some of the interesting "inventions" I have either used or seen over the years. Perhaps some of you will chime in with others that you have seen as well?
Many years ago a good friend of mine who arm wrestled professionally showed me one of his routines. He would load up a barbell in a rack about waist high and twist the bar against the friction in either direction for his forearms. I used this for a while but the diamond cut bars I use started to errode the rack finish a bit. So I came up with using a one inch dowl rod about two feet long with a hole drilled through the middle with a cord ran through it. I would suspend weights from the cord and twist the rod either direction to work the forearms. This really burns nicely.
We used to do a lift called Thors Hammer for our forearms. We would take an adjustable dumbell and only put weights on one end. Hold the dumbell on the unweighted end and rotate the bar about like stiring a cake. Very nice forearm work out of this one and I still add them in today.
In the old gym I used to workout at I brought in a chain hoist and tow bar. We attached this to the power rack and chained the tow bar to a barbell so that we could use it for squat negatives. Who wants some other smelly guys grabbing him from behind to get you back up to the starting position.
This one comes with a brief story... I believe this is a true story though I do not recall the name of the powerlifter. A powerlifter wanting to prepare for a big meet some time out. He is wanting to greatly increase his deadlift weight and comes up with the idea to dig a hole in his yard just deep enough for him to stand in the hole and deadlift a barbell spanning the hole a few short inches. He would load the barbell with his target weight for the meet which is more than his current PR. Each day he lifted he would shovel back an inch or two of the dirt so that he was lifting the bar farther each time until finally he was able to lift the weight in a full deadlift.
I dont know if this was the inspiration for rack pulls or not but that is what we would do instead of digging holes. Simply load the bar with the target weight in the rack so that we only pulled a short distance and slowly over time lower the pegs on the rack down to increase the range. At our gym somebody had lag bolted together some 6x6 beams to use as a lifting platform once you reached the lowest peg on the rack. You would use these 6x6 platforms stacked up and remove a set as you progressed further until you were on the floor with it. This really worked nicely at the end of working your singles PR to work yourself up to a new PR. You could even do this to focus on a portion of the lift that you might be lagging on. Good stuff.
As far as homemade equipment goes, I couldnt help but
mention that crazy football helmet with the dumbell bar sticking out the top of it in the movie Fast Times at Ridgemont High. No, I never built one but I sure thought hard about it a few times after nearly wearing my ears off using a neck chain harness.
Combos anyone?
Ever been short on time but still wanted to get in a workout? Well I have too and here are a few of the ideas I came up with to trim some time from my workout.
Barbell Row / Straight Leg Deadlift. Just row the weight up as usual and hold it statically against your abs. Then stand up like doing a deadlift. Reverse the movements and bam, two birds with one stone. It is a long static hold and standing up shifts the load from the lats to the traps.
Dumbell Curl / Arnold Press / Dumbell Tricep extension. Just curl that puppy up, Arnold press it over head, give the wrist a twist and go right into a tricep extension. A three way. Sweet!
Barbell Shrug / Barbell Calf Raise. Shrug that baby up and hold it while standing on your toe board. Now do a calf raise while holding the shrug in a static. Oh man your traps will be fried!
Many years ago a good friend of mine who arm wrestled professionally showed me one of his routines. He would load up a barbell in a rack about waist high and twist the bar against the friction in either direction for his forearms. I used this for a while but the diamond cut bars I use started to errode the rack finish a bit. So I came up with using a one inch dowl rod about two feet long with a hole drilled through the middle with a cord ran through it. I would suspend weights from the cord and twist the rod either direction to work the forearms. This really burns nicely.
We used to do a lift called Thors Hammer for our forearms. We would take an adjustable dumbell and only put weights on one end. Hold the dumbell on the unweighted end and rotate the bar about like stiring a cake. Very nice forearm work out of this one and I still add them in today.
In the old gym I used to workout at I brought in a chain hoist and tow bar. We attached this to the power rack and chained the tow bar to a barbell so that we could use it for squat negatives. Who wants some other smelly guys grabbing him from behind to get you back up to the starting position.
This one comes with a brief story... I believe this is a true story though I do not recall the name of the powerlifter. A powerlifter wanting to prepare for a big meet some time out. He is wanting to greatly increase his deadlift weight and comes up with the idea to dig a hole in his yard just deep enough for him to stand in the hole and deadlift a barbell spanning the hole a few short inches. He would load the barbell with his target weight for the meet which is more than his current PR. Each day he lifted he would shovel back an inch or two of the dirt so that he was lifting the bar farther each time until finally he was able to lift the weight in a full deadlift.
I dont know if this was the inspiration for rack pulls or not but that is what we would do instead of digging holes. Simply load the bar with the target weight in the rack so that we only pulled a short distance and slowly over time lower the pegs on the rack down to increase the range. At our gym somebody had lag bolted together some 6x6 beams to use as a lifting platform once you reached the lowest peg on the rack. You would use these 6x6 platforms stacked up and remove a set as you progressed further until you were on the floor with it. This really worked nicely at the end of working your singles PR to work yourself up to a new PR. You could even do this to focus on a portion of the lift that you might be lagging on. Good stuff.
As far as homemade equipment goes, I couldnt help but
mention that crazy football helmet with the dumbell bar sticking out the top of it in the movie Fast Times at Ridgemont High. No, I never built one but I sure thought hard about it a few times after nearly wearing my ears off using a neck chain harness.
Combos anyone?
Ever been short on time but still wanted to get in a workout? Well I have too and here are a few of the ideas I came up with to trim some time from my workout.
Barbell Row / Straight Leg Deadlift. Just row the weight up as usual and hold it statically against your abs. Then stand up like doing a deadlift. Reverse the movements and bam, two birds with one stone. It is a long static hold and standing up shifts the load from the lats to the traps.
Dumbell Curl / Arnold Press / Dumbell Tricep extension. Just curl that puppy up, Arnold press it over head, give the wrist a twist and go right into a tricep extension. A three way. Sweet!
Barbell Shrug / Barbell Calf Raise. Shrug that baby up and hold it while standing on your toe board. Now do a calf raise while holding the shrug in a static. Oh man your traps will be fried!