Tons of Homemade Workout Equipment

Homemade and custom equipment is a cost effective and sometimes even a better way to train.  I would HIGHLY recommend buying equipment that would create a safety issue if made at home:  typically power racks, bars, and weights.

After that, nearly everything is fair game!

If you are building the equipment for yourself to train with at home, then you know how its been used, maintenance, safety, etc.  Here’s our latest creation, dreamed up, researched, and created by Synergy trainer Aaron Z. – the peg board.

Homemade Peg Board Training

Here’s why this project is different than most DIY equipment – you have to make it based on the space available.  I think it would be a waste of time if I sent over the EXACT dimensions of the board Aaron created, since your wall space and beams will be different.

BUT of course I will not leave you hanging like that, and if you want to google homemade peg boards there are some dimension by dimension designs.

Simple instructions:  Measure space available, cut wood to fit it and make sure it’s thick enough to get a peg in, drill peg holes, cut pegs, hang the board, climb.

Here are more specifics rules of making your peg board:

• Don’t make the holes too shallow.  Aaron stacked, glued, and fastened 3 sheets of 3/4 inch plywood.
• Don’t make the holes too small.  A hardwood dowel was order from online, 1 3/4 inches, then cut down to have to sets of pegs.
• Drill straight.  If you drill at an angle, the pegs may slide out.  Tape out the table, measure exactly where you want the holes, hold that drill level!
• Fasten securely to a wall.  This is entirely dependent on where you are hanging it.  I’ve seen ones that come down from an I beam, or others than go beam to beam in garages.  Ours uses L brackets and concrete bolts to make sure its on there good.

Homemade Mini Rock Wall

If you like the peg board, but want a simpler project?  Here’s an easy one.

Rock hand grips are easy to purchase online.  Here’s what I bought:

Rocky Mountain Climbing Holds - $32 for 10, good hardware, tougher to mount

and the cheaper

Small Textured Rock Holds Set of 8, Blue - $17, cheaper bolts but still good for 8.

Double up your plywood, glue and screw it together, and then screw on your new rock holds in any pattern you want.  You can mold the actual grips yourself, but its just as expensive as ordering them.

The blue grips (cheaper ones) are much easier to mount since they use lag bolts.  The grayish grips have to be backed by a fancy nut they include and that’s why some of the holes are pre-drilled above.

Hanging Your Mini Rock Wall

Building the rock wall is actually the easy part.  Hanging it firmly and safely is the difficult part.  In the video I zoomed in on the bolts drilled through the I beam and the back supports just for good measure.

On the rop of the board, Aaron mounted a 4 x 4.  That 4 x 4 sits on  the I beam and has bolts coming from the bottom up into it to ensure that it doesn’t fall down.  The back supports are also fastened to iron, which make sure the board doesn’t swing.

Homemade Mini Rock Wall Training

So why bother?  The rock wall creates a TON of hand strength and adds dexterity.  Also, we use it for pull ups (back and biceps) without the actual climb.   If you can make it around the board like in the video, you have some seriously strong hands, back, and biceps!

More Homemade Gear

Here’s some gear from previous Synergy articles:

•  Homemade Equipment Directory (30 homemade equipment articles or videos)
• Homemade Bulgarian Training Bag (a personal favorite)

Your Help

If you find this article helpful, please share with your friends via facebook, twitter, or email.  It greatly helps Synergy to grow and more articles to get posted!   Thank you.

- Joe Hashey, CSCS -

PS.  If you want even more, I made this DVD with Jedd Johnson nearly two years ago:  Homemade Strength with lots of more cool stuff.