Dealing with Injuries

While I’ve been training consistently the last few months it seems I have had to deal with one injury after another. I’ve had issues with my always wonky lower back, hip pain, knee issues and shoulder injuries. I’m used to dealing with the lower back and knee issues. This time it was my shoulders, specifically my left shoulder, my good shoulder that caused me to change up how I was working out.

I’m still not sure what I did to it. I simply started noticing discomfort each time I tried to bench or do pullups. That discomfort suddenly became agonizing pain. I was sure I had torn something, probably a rotator cuff. Fortunately I was able to work around it and keep going. I rested the shoulder and focused on lower body exercises and conditioning. Thankfully I am feeling pretty good now and this week have started going all out again.

DIY Dip/Chin Belt

In order to add weight to my chin ups and dips I recently made a dip/chin belt. This is one of the easiest DIY fitness devices to make. All that is needed is some chain, a pool noodle (make sure it is the kind with a hole in the middle), a carabiner and duct tape.

Once you have your material it is easy to put it together. First you will need to measure the pool noodle and cut it to the correct length. The easiest way to do this will be to wrap it around your waist and cut it to fit you. I cut mine a bit longer than what I thought I would need and then cut it down later after a trial run. After you have the pool noodle cut to the correct length run the chain through it. Put the carabiner on one end of the chain. Next wrap duct tape around the entire pool noodle. Make sure to use a lot of duct tape. If you don’t, the chain will eventually start to pull through the pool noodle. This will be the longest part of the process. Now you can slide some weight plates or a kettle-bell on to the chain and you’re ready for weighted pull-ups, dips or even hip belt squats.

71217080_527417988049946_3325766463845559058_n

Make sure to start light and work your way up. I found that a 20 lb vest felt much lighter than 20 lbs on the belt. So far it is working great. It is comfortable, strong and versatile.

DIY Landmine Base

Landmine exercises are typically done by placing one end of a barbell on the floor (typically in a corner of the room) or into a landmine base attachment. I had been interested in trying out some landmine exercises in the garage gym for a while now but kept running into different problems.

Cost – A landmine base that does not attach to a power rack can cost anywhere from $60 to over $200. Power rack versions can be purchased for around $25 but I do not have a power rack so this wouldn’t work for me. There are also versions which can be inserted into a stack of weight plates on the floor. But I do not have enough plates to make this work for me.
Space – You can simply place one end of the barbell on the floor in the corner of your room. However, since my garage is used for storage as well as my gym, this would not work for me either.

My solution was to make my own landmine base. I scrounged around and found a piece of particle board and an old 2 x 8. I even had the screws to put it together so my cost was $0.

landmine 2

So far it works great. I put a dumbbell or other weight on the back to keep it from moving and am able to do any landmine exercises I want anywhere in the garage. So far I have been doing front squats and one arm presses with it, but I plan on adding more landmine exercises to my fitness journey in the future.

DIY Equipment – T-Handle

I enjoy a good bargain and I also enjoy do it yourself projects. That has also applied to my fitness equipment. Most of my equipment has been purchased used and some of it I have made myself. I am going to discuss one of those home made items today and plan on featuring others items on this blog in the future.

The first item I am going to discuss (as you can tell by the title) is the T-Handle. This item provides you with an adjustable “kettle-bell” for swings. It is fairly inexpensive to put together and extremely easy. I was fortunate to get the weights for free so that also helps with the cost. As I was driving down the road one day I noticed someone putting out a large amount of items with a free sign at the end of their driveway. Some of those items were old plastic cement filled weights with three barbells and two dumbbell handles. I stopped and grabbed them all.

The T-Handle is made from 3/4 inch black pipe and should cost you around $20 or so to make. Below is a list of the parts needed:

1 3/4 floor flange
1 3/4 T
1 3/4 12″ long pipe nipple
2 3/4 3 or 3 1/2 pipe nipples
- These are for the handles. If you have bigger hands you may want to consider 4″.

Optional:

Tape for the handles
Clamp to keep the weights from moving. I don’t have one in the picture below but I have used clamps in the past until mine broke. With the weights I am using they fit fairly tight and don’t move much.

59766838_171478517186111_1729519469009148912_n 60722863_863954723953499_2929044636011686673_n

It is important to make sure that each fitting is tight each time you use this. I also would caution that the T-Handle is not a replacement for all kettle-bell exercises; only the two handed swing. It is a great finisher at the end of a strength training workout and an excellent conditioning exercise.