home made thick bar

[danm]

hey all- I'm new here-and to grip specific stuff-  though i did go on a nail bending jag last year

I have a question about the thick bar in the equip section-  the pvc covered galvinized steel one,  anyone have a est. of home much weight something like that could hold?    I was thinking to reiniforce/wiegh it down some more of filling it with cement and rebar or something like that- what do you all think

thanks

[Guest StoicGrip]

I use heavy galvanized plumbing pipe  1 1/2'' inside diameter . For the handle I use PVC pipe 2 3/8'' outside diameter . The galvanized pipe will hold any ammount of weight easily .

[danm]

cool-

thanks for the reply

[Guest steiner1014]

  I simply wrap a regular olympic dumbell handle with dact tape until I get to the desired width....then wrap that with some hockey tape for a better grip....Believe me, this is very tough to lift!!!!

                                STEIN

[Guest PPiatt]

buy lots of cheap duct tape.get 2" inside diameter pipe-cut it to the distance from inside collar to inside collar on a standard(not olympic)bar and standard dumbbell bars.Wrap the tape around the bar in sections-round & round til you get that 2" diameter,then move to next area.Wrap a bar like this down the entire support length and you get tremendous compression strength.slide the pipe over the taped area.Do not just concentrate on barbells!The dumbells give tremendous benefits that will carry over to all your upper body work.

[Guest kINGPIN]

I have thought about using duct tape on my dumbells for a while now.  Does it not morph a bit or is it rock solid?

[Guest PPiatt]

wrap the duct tape tightly around the dumbell handle-don't spiral the wrap,roll it around the bar in the same way it is on the roll.Two wrappings should suffice.Done this way,it shouldn't morph for a good long while.When it does,cut the old tape off and replace it.

[Guest kINGPIN]

Thanx PPiat, I'll give it a shot.

[Roark]

George Jowett explained in Muscle Training

Illustrated Jan 1966 his method of making bars

thicker:

"To improve my ability to handle thicker bars

 I wrapped thick twine around a regulation one-

 inch bar and covered this with friction tape.

"As soon as I could handle this with ease I added

 more weight. When I reached my limit I added

 another layer of twine covered with friction tape,

 took off some of the weight, and started all over again."

 This was the method he used as a teenager (circa

1907). Later he would claim that his forearm measure-

ment was 1-/2" larger than his biceps for awhile. For

this to be possible (which it probably isn't) means, that

all those thick-handled exercises he did such as cleaning

and curling, had no effect on his upper arm. Further, he

would have gained triceps development thru overhead

movements, which he mentions doing with this apparatus.

Nonetheless, he claimed this size differential,

existed for awhile.

But his twine and tape idea has merit.

[Guest Luke Reimer]

Twine and tape--yes this does sound promising. I thought of this myself, but wasn't sure how uniform the surface would be. That was really interesting, Joe, about how George Jowett used this system to increment diameters. I might have to give this a try. Meanwhile...

Has anyone tried clear (no strands) hocky tape? I just discovered it a few days ago and really like it.  It’s almost as firm as moulded plastic when you wrap it tightly, but with slightly resilient, resinous texture. For dumbbell handles, all you have to do is wrap one band of tape to the desired depth on each end of the handle, and slide a length of pipe over it. The fit is snug and stable (no spin). With this tape and the two windings your handle becomes whatever size your covering pipe is. I just wish there were more pipe sizes available. I’m using 1.5", 2", 3", and 4" pipes (black plastic) labelled by inside diameter to get 1 15/16", 2 3/8", 3 ½", and 4 ½" diameter handles. When I’m using the thicker diameters of pipe, I build them over successively smaller pipe diameters so that I don’t have to wrap as much tape. In this way my 4 ½” pipe handles have 3 ½", 2 3/8", and 1 15/16" handles inside them. If anyone knows of any other pipe sizes, please let me know. I think it would be quite possible to make a handle of any thickness by wrapping uniform bands all the way down a length of pipe and using the tape itself as the outer gripping surface, but this still wouldn’t be quite as uniform as pipe for an outer surface (as in, “How thick is your handle?” “Ohhh, 2 3/4", give or take 1/16th anywhere along”). I would also like to work with handles in 2 ½", 2 3/4", and 3" diameters if I could just settle on a way of obtaining them. (I find that beyond 3 ½” its pretty much all the same–too much for any straight-wrist grip, and therefore limited to whatever weights the wrist can support from some sort of static lock-out such that the hand remains more under the weight. Once you start using your wrist in this way, however, 4 ½" doesn’t seem remarkably harder than 3 ½".)

In case anyone is curious about the call for so many handle diameters, I should mention that by means of them I have been adapting my regimen of one-handed cleans (my snatches are starting to take a back seat) to work different aspects of my grip and upper body. Here’s how it works for me:

1" cleans are arm/body intensive (my fingers are still fresh after failure)

2 3/8" cleans are finger/grip intensive (failure comes without quite limiting out my upper body)

3 ½ cleans are wrist intensive (try it and you’ll see! the weight won’t come up without the wrist!)

4 ½ cleans are wrist/biceps intensive (biceps too, for me, because here it seems to be an advantage to squat low, scoop a supinated hand forward under the handle with the elbow between the knees and at a lower elevation than the hand, and then cheat-curl the dumbbell to the shoulder while standing up. My wrist seems to fail slightly before my biceps, but biceps are close behind.)

Another possibility for the 4 1/2" (maybe 3 1/2" for smaller hands) diameter handles would be plyometric throwing and catching exercises, from one hand to another, with lighter weights. You really have to spread your fingers to keep the bell from tumbling over your thumb or altnernately, pinky on the catch. Try keeping the arc just over your forehead and catching below your chest!