Homemade Parallettes

So after my first attempt of making a medicine ball I caught the bug to make my own parallettes.  This week has been crazy busy with school so after I finished my test this morning I was itching to release some creativity.  I found a good free reference on the Crossfit Journal that you can find here if you're interested.  Then I went to out the home store and bought my supplies.  I only needed the PVC which came out to $23ish.

Once I had everything all that was left was to measure, cut, and piece together.  You could cut the PVC with a fine tooth hand saw, but I ended up using my saw-zaw.  It buzzed through the pipe like butter and made for quick work.

There are two 24 inch, four 8 inch, and eight 5 inch sections when it's all said and done.

Here is everything after I cut it all up.  You'll notice that I'm missing two 5 inch sections.  Well I'm not sure how it happened, but I didn't cut the last cut.  You can see the left over pipe on the top corner of this picture.  Good thing I didn't mess up because every inch of the 10 foot pipe was used.

After cutting all that was left was gluing and fitting it all together.  Here is one drying on the drive way.

And here are both of the completed parallettes.  I'm very excited to use them.  The Crossfit article even provides a nice list of exercises that they can be used for.  I originally was just thinking full range of motion push ups, dips, and L sits.  Turns out there is a lot more you can do with these.

Anybody else have experience with parallettes or making your own workout equipment?

Happy Hump Day

Today was little different than others in that I was late getting out of bed, I had to write a paper for a Biological Psychology class, and wrap-up some other work that needed to get done.  That meant that my workout was pushed off till later.

Anyway after getting finishing my work that had to be done today it was off to get my workout in.  I'm not a big fan of doing my workouts in the afternoon unless it consists of wetting a line in a local pond.  None the less I went out to the garage and set up some tunes and prepared for the pain that was ahead of me.  I didn't want to run or bike in the heat so I found a workout online from Crossfit St. Charles.  They had posted a free home and travel workout that I found and decided to try out.  The workout was called the Prison Workout.  It consisted of nothing but 20-19-18...3-2-1 burpees.  Between each set you're supposed to walk across the room (I did it in my garage) and then complete the next set working down from twenty.  When it's all said and done you end up completing 210 burpees!!!  It's burpee hell and if you don't know what a burpee is google it or youtube it.  If you're tall like me with long legs it's even more difficult.  I was very close to quitting somewhere between 100-120.  I just told myself to make it to 155 (set 10) then I could stop.  Once I hit 155 I told myself that it was down hill from here and I was out of the double digit set and into the home stretch.  Well this mantra/tricking myself worked and I made it through the entire workout in 34m:18s.  When it was over I was wrecked to say the least, but it was a great cardio workout.  Covered in dust, dirt, and sweat my legs, arms, core, knees, and everything else was screaming, but I finished.  It felt great to push myself to the edge and a few steps beyond what I thought I could do.  

  (ran myself into the pavement)

Route Stats:

Activity - Prison Workout (burpees)

Time - 34m:18s

Distance - N/A

Average speed - 6.14 burpees/m

Total climb - N/A

Lessons Learned: 

Don't be afraid to push yourself.  I will conquer any obstacle.

Rest Day

Time to rest.  

Here is what I found in my free time today.

Crossfit Games

If you're not familiar with Crossfit or "The Games" they were held this weekend in Los Angeles, CA at the Home Depot Center.  For the first time ESPN3 broadcast them around the world and there was live streaming of the events on the net.  I highly recommend to check it out as the athletes are truly inspiring.