What should I build next for my gym?

The_Bullman

I've successfully made myself a power cage which is great but now I'm thinkin of expanding my home gym to another piece of equipment.

But what should I build?

What I have at the moment is a power cage, bench with preacher attachment, an oly bar and a ez curl bar.

I was thinking along the lines of:
a lat pulldown machine with a low cable row bit
a standing calf raise machine
a sitting calf raise
a cable crossover machine

Which would you reccommend? Or is there something else you'd go for? Or should I bother?

BossArky

The_Bullman wrote:

a lat pulldown machine with a low cable row bit

FTW

daveirl

This post has been deleted.

HammerHeadGym

I would go Kettlebells and an insructional dvd, if you don't already have

BrianD3

Punchbag? As you have made your own powercage you're obviously practical so should have no difficulty making a solid mounting to hang a heavy bag from.

brianthebard

Pull up and dips station?

Hanley

High/Low cable pully with a seat for pull downs, something like this except with a seat http://westsidebar.net/images/saliprojekti/ylatalja.jpg

Also, a chin bar for the rack if you don't have somewhere to do them already.

dip station could be useful but tbh I don't like them and think there's many better alternatives.

davyjose

brianthebard wrote:

Pull up and dips station?

Yeah- cheaper, easier to install, and better than a lat pull-down machine.

HammerHeadGym

Hanley wrote:

...dip station could be useful but tbh I don't like them and think there's many better alternatives...

*Gasp*

Don't like dips? Better alternatives?

Explain yourself, young padawan.

BrianD3

I think Bullman's cage has a chin up bar and it should be a trivial matter to make dipping handles for the cage. In that case, the chin/dip station is redundant. Those stations are a pretty limited piece of equopment anyway and the price of them is often not far off that of a cage.

Hanley

davyjose wrote:

Yeah- cheaper, easier to install, and better than a lat pull-down machine.

A high low cable machine is FAR more versatile than a chin/dip station!!

You can do all sorts of pulldowns, face pulls, seated cable rows, pushdowns, standing cable crunches and a whole host of other things. All you really need is a straight bar to do chins on. The OP has already build a power rack so if he set up the pins as high as possible and left the bar across them he could do chins no probs.

HHG, dips are vastly overrated in my opinion. I'm not saying they're not effective, because they definately are. I just think there are better alternatives. The alternates include (assuming dips are done for Tricep development);

-Board presses at varying heights
-Floor Press
-Close grip bench press
-Rack lockouts from varying heights

I've listed them in order of my personal preference.

I've just started doing dips again and they just feel "wrong". Like it's an unnatural motion. I've never really liked them but I'm giving them a run for the next 6 weeks since it's the offseason and I've time to experiment!

HammerHeadGym

Hmm, inttresting.

I'll give those a look over my next few workouts, though it may be a while before I pack in my upper body squats.

The_Bullman

Finally getting a chance to reply to this thread. Its been a busy week.

daveirl wrote:

This post has been deleted.

I've never really used a cable machine like that. Is it much better than a high/low cable crossover?

HammerHeadGym wrote:

I would go Kettlebells and an insructional dvd, if you don't already have

I don't think I'll be able to build kettlebells :-) I'm going to build a piece of gym equipment from steel from work. Unfortunatly I don't work in a foundry.

BrianD3 wrote:

Punchbag? As you have made your own powercage you're obviously practical so should have no difficulty making a solid mounting to hang a heavy bag from.

A punchbag is high on my to get list. I think it will be the next piece of equipment I buy.

davyjose wrote:

brianthebard wrote:

Pull up and dips station?

Yeah- cheaper, easier to install, and better than a lat pull-down machine.

The cheapness of the machine isn't at stake. I might put together a dip station only I'm not a fan of dips so its not high up on my list.

BrianD3 wrote:

I think Bullman's cage has a chin up bar and it should be a trivial matter to make dipping handles for the cage. In that case, the chin/dip station is redundant. Those stations are a pretty limited piece of equopment anyway and the price of them is often not far off that of a cage.

I have a high bar on my cage that I can use for pull ups. Unfortunatly I'm not up to getting too many reps out of it at the moment. I'm too heavy and not strong enough for that. I was hoping that the lat pulldown would help me towards better pull ups.

Hanley wrote:

High/Low cable pully with a seat for pull downs, something like this except with a seat http://westsidebar.net/images/saliprojekti/ylatalja.jpg

That's along the lines of what I was thinking. Now to look for more pics online to get a better idea of what I'm aiming for :-)

Hanley

Glad to see you went with the high/low cable idea. It's a fairly simple design really.. We have a really basic but solid one in the gym that does the job perfectly, I'll try and snap a few photos of it next time I'm in to give you a better idea if ya want?

Actually it's pretty much the exact same as this http://www.flexcart.com/members/elitefts/default.asp?m=PD&cid=167&pid=876 Just make a removeable seat and some knee pads and you should be good to go!

As for improving the chins... Take you max amount, half it and then work up over the weeks from 2-3 sets to the point where you can do like 6 sets of them. Then go back and start it all again but add one or 2 additional chins per set.

The_Bullman

Hanley wrote:

Glad to see you went with the high/low cable idea. It's a fairly simple design really.. We have a really basic but solid one in the gym that does the job perfectly, I'll try and snap a few photos of it next time I'm in to give you a better idea if ya want?

That would be great. There was one of these in my old gym and I regret not takin a few pictures while I was a member there.

Hanley wrote:

Actually it's pretty much the exact same as this http://www.flexcart.com/members/elitefts/default.asp?m=PD&cid=167&pid=876 Just make a removeable seat and some knee pads and you should be good to go!

That's the idea only I'd prefer not to use a removable seat..

Hanley wrote:

As for improving the chins... Take you max amount, half it and then work up over the weeks from 2-3 sets to the point where you can do like 6 sets of them. Then go back and start it all again but add one or 2 additional chins per set.

Thanks for the advise. Now to put it into practice

rubadub

Doing negatives on the chins & pullups helped me hugely. Just stand on a box so you are well up on the bar, then lower yourself nice and slowly.

I also threw some negatives in at the end of a normal set which really taxes you.

If I could weld I would make a shrug bar.

http://cgi.ebay.com/OLYMPIC-SHRUG-HEX-BAR-WITH-RAISED-HANDLES-TRAP-HIP-BAR_W0QQitemZ300083976419QQihZ020QQcategoryZ44081QQrdZ1QQssPageNameZWD1VQQcmdZViewItem

Dunno what the experts think of those bars though.

Hanley

rubadub wrote:

If I could weld I would make a shrug bar.

http://cgi.ebay.com/OLYMPIC-SHRUG-HEX-BAR-WITH-RAISED-HANDLES-TRAP-HIP-BAR_W0QQitemZ300083976419QQihZ020QQcategoryZ44081QQrdZ1QQssPageNameZWD1VQQcmdZViewItem

.

Why tho? Seriously like. Not an attack, but why would you build one? What purpose does it serve?

It's all well and good building it, but what's it doing to help you achieve? It's not very versatile, you can do shrugs, famers walks and that's about it with it.

I think regular deadlift and power shurgs with straight bars would be MUCH more effective.