Building Your Own Equipment

Totentanz

Totentanz

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Staff member
Anyone know any good, free resources about building your own home gym components? I'm toying with building cable equipment right now to help out the people that work out with me. There are some cable exercises I'm interested in doing as well... I've figured out how to fix up a few things but it would be great if there were plans online to help out, or if any of you have experience building this kind of stuff.

What I'd like to make: cable crossover, pulldown and some kind of rowing cable setup, maybe I can use the seat from an old bench or something to do seated rows. I'm sketching out some of my ideas and maybe I'll post them if I can find a scanner.
 
You're hitting the HARD ones man! I'll help where I can. One thing I saw and can't find was these two arms that attach to your machine and come out at a 45 degree angle, and angle upward, with swivel pulleys at the ends, to make your machine into a crossover unit. It may have been on the powertech site or something, but it could be added to anything with an upright post and some room in front of it. I posted pics of my pulldown (or pressdown) unit I made in the home gym thread. I've seen some units where you sat on the FLOOR, or a pad to do the seated rows, so the bench isn't a necessary evil.
 
Yeah! That's it! Cool, huh? It won't work for mine tho...it's a lever machine, so there are no cables to route. Another way to get a crossover is if you make a small room your machine, like the old-time gyms. You put an eye bolt high into the wall stud to hang a pulley off of, which lifts your weight stack off the floor. It wouldn't even matter if the room was 20' wide; you'd just use a longer cable on one side, rolling it up after use. Better though to put a board across 3 studs to get better support.

It reminds me of those weight and pulley stations they used to have on the walls you'd see in the old movies...always a guy facing away from the wall and alternating presses with the handles. I think they even had little ropes instead of cables.
 
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(Totentanz @ Dec. 27 2006,12:08)</div><div id="QUOTEHEAD">QUOTE</div><div id="QUOTE">Anyone know any good, free resources about building your own home gym components?  I'm toying with building cable equipment right now to help out the people that work out with me.  There are some cable exercises I'm interested in doing as well...  I've figured out how to fix up a few things but it would be great if there were plans online to help out, or if any of you have experience building this kind of stuff.

What I'd like to make:  cable crossover, pulldown and some kind of rowing cable setup, maybe I can use the seat from an old bench or something to do seated rows.  I'm sketching out some of my ideas and maybe I'll post them if I can find a scanner.</div>
Tot,

VXB has many linear bearing sets, pillow blocks with hardened rods. THe prices aren't bad and this can help a lot if you are building you're own.

http://www.vxb.com/page/bearings/PROD/25mmLinearMotionSystems/Kit7233

Also check out Fitness Wholsale, they have many of the parts you'll need, selectorized plates, cables and such. Here's the link to their parts catalogue

http://www.fitness-wholesale.com/acatalo....45.html
 
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