[This MacGyver collage would look awesome airbrushed on the side of a van. You know you'd dig it.]

One-Half MacGyver and One-Half Bad Ass!

Adam Steer and Ryan Murdock are to blame for this post. I was skimming Youtube yesterday and saw a couple videos where they turned into MacGyver and created their own fitness equipment. In one video they make a suspension trainer for under $10 at a dollar store…out of dog leashes and zip ties. Then later on, someone emailed me about Ross's furniture glider video. I figured I would do some digging on the net to find others with this special talent. All joking aside…there are some fantastic ideas here.

Ross Enamait – The Furniture Slider Exercise Tutorial

This is one of the coolest workout videos, I've seen in a long time. Ross is built like an Olympic gymnast and is just as strong (or stronger). No wonder this guy has such deep abs! Some of these movements don't even look like they should be possible. This is all done with a $5 furniture slider (used to slide heavy furniture over carpet). This is a sweet piece of home gym equipment…which would also be great for working out while traveling.

[Here's a link to Ross's site: Ross Training.]

Adam Steer – Gives You His "Pull Up Rig" Blueprint

Adam didn't like most of the home gym pull up bar options, so he had his own created. He hired a metalworker to build a pull up bar to his exact specifications! What I love about this is that he had a ring put on the side of the bar…so he can hook a bunch of equipment to it…Olympic rings, TRX, resistance bands, etc. Adam Steer and Ryan Murdock run the best body weight blog online called Body Weight Coach. I've become friends with both of these guys over the past couple of years…and love their blog, videos, courses, etc.

[Here's a link to the post with the blueprint: Body Weight Coach.]

Stevo Reed – Homemade – "TRX Style" Suspension Trainer

Here's a video showcasing how to make a homemade device that is pretty darn close to TRX suspension trainer. TRX is a great company that makes incredible suspension trainers…but they will run you in the $200 range. This is an alternative for people who don't want to spend that much, but still have a great piece of equipment.

[Stevo Reed's website: All About Performance Training.]

John Sokolowski – The Indestructible Sandbag.

This was the best make your own sandbag tutorial I found online. I also noticed a strange sandbag trend. Many of the sandbag training videos were set to a really cheesy brand of rock…like they wanted to show how hardcore the training is with "intense" music. If I hear "Let the Bodies Hit the Floor" one more time I am going to be forced to call it a day. Yes, I am a little bit of a music snob…but I have to call it out when things are this corny. Got to get that terrible song out of my head now!

[John also has a great blog with hundreds of posts: Athlete 365]

Matt Wichlinski – PVC Pipe Dip Station

I hadn't heard of Matt before, but I found out that he is big in the "functionally fit" community. He has quite a few great do-it-yourself equipment videos. I liked this video the best because he showcases his dip station made of PVC pipe. He also shows how to make a homemade power wheel, bulgarian training bag, and a mace? Yes…I only thought maces were used for war until I watched this video.

RJ Nelson – A Homemade Power Rack Made of Wood

Simply a nice looking power rack made of wood. I like using power racks for doing incline barbell bench presses. With an adjustable bench press you can set the incline at any angle and then adjust the pins to hold the bar. I also love power racks for doing partial presses, to increase pressing power. Finally…they can also be rigged with a chin up bar for chin ups, hanging leg raises, etc.

[I don't think RJ has his own website, but great video!]

Tim Bell – Homemade Weight Vest In Seconds

Tim uses a book bag in combination with some other equipment to make a homemade weight vest. This is great for people who want to make body weight exercises more challenging. MacGyver would be proud for sure!

Pete Mazzeo – Homemade High Impact Medicine Ball

I ran across tons of homemade medicine ball tutorials and Pete makes the least "ghetto" version by far. The one in this video is designed especially for medicine ball slams. This is where you take the ball from an over head position and slam it as hard as possible to the floor. This exercise works your abs and all of the surrounding "detail muscles" hard. He demonstrates this towards the end of this video.

[Here's a link to Pete's website: Today Fitness.]

Ryan Murdock – Mare's Milk Hangover Cure (Yuck)!

Yeah…I know I already featured one guy (Adam) from Body Weight Coach, but this video from Ryan is cool. Ryan and his wife were recently in Seattle for a couple of concerts. Me and my girlfriend met up with him and his wife for some seafood and beer on the waterfront, not too far from my workspace. This guy has traveled all over the place and has tons of entertaining stories. Here is a video, shot when he was in Japan, about a "fermented mare's milk" hangover cure. It kind of feels MacGyver'ish…so I figured I'd include it. He also discusses more readily available cures in case you don't have any fermented mare's milk handy.

[Ryan's main site: Body Weight Coach.]

MacGyver'ing Your Way to Getting In Shape!

Bottom line…there are a ton of creative ways to get in shape at home. These are just a handful of countless videos I found online to develop your own fitness equipment, MacGyver style.

Note: Sadly…MacGyver's final episode aired on May 21, 1992…a day I will never forget (okay so I looked it up on Wikipedia). The important thing is that people like this, prove that his spirit lives on!

The Benefits of Free Weight Exercises

When you do a free weight exercise, you have to control the weight in a 3 dimensional space. What this does is activate the stabilizer muscles and works more than just the prime muscle being targeted. Another benefit of lifting with free weights is that you gain "functional strength" that will help you with real world tasks.

The Benefits of Exercise Machines

As discussed in the previous article, machines can make their resistance match the resistance curve of the muscle. A good exercise machine can exhaust the target muscle fully, without having sticking points in the lift. With machines you can concentrate more on giving maximum effort and less on things like balancing the weight. You can get very hard contractions in your target muscle with an effective exercise machine.

How to Strategically Combine the Two for Maximum Results

A big flaw in free weights is that often times the stabilizer muscles can get exhausted before the target muscle gets worked. I prefer to begin with lifts that require the most balancing first like dumbbell lifts…followed by lifts that require less balancing like barbell lifts…and ending with exercise machines which require no balancing at all. The benefit here is that each lift requires less and less stabilizer muscles. The final machine exercise lift exhausts the prime muscle and basically finishes off that muscle group. This is a great way to involve the muscle fully by combining the benefits of both types of lifting.

You Can Get Fit With Either Machine Exercises or Free Weights

You really don't have to use both free weights and machine exercises to get fit. You can get really toned with just free weights or just using exercise machines. Most trainers do recommend free weights, mainly because it is healthy to work those stabilizer muscles and the strength is a bit more functional than what you get with machines. That being said, I have seen extremely toned and impressive physiques created by nothing but machine exercises.

If You Have Access to Both Machine Exercises and Free Weights, Give This a Try

In the early 70's bodybuilders were spending hours in the gym each day. Arnold and other bodybuilders were spending 1/2 of their days in the gym! Along came a man named Arthur Jones, who preached that people didn't have to live in the gym to get outstanding results. He was telling people to do just one set per exercise…and to go into the gym for a few lifts and then get out…typically in 30 minutes or less just a few times per week!

The Birth of High Intensity Training

The idea of doing one set per body part to 100% absolute failure was extreme back then and it is still extreme today. Several successful bodybuilders such as Mike Mentzer and Dorian Yates used different versions of High Intensity Training to gain extreme amounts of muscle. While I don't necessarily subscribe to the idea of doing just one set. It helped me realize that you certainly don't have to lift endless sets to get great results.

The Limitations of Free Weight Exercises

The thing about free weights is that resistance throughout the lift is limited by gravity…the resistance is in one direction. When you perform barbell curl, the movement is rotational. So here is what happens when you match linear resistance with a rotational movement…the lift feels light at the beginning, heaviest at the midpoint, and light again at the end (almost zero resistance felt in the muscle at the end of the lift). The only point of direct resistance is when your arms are bent 90 degrees in the standing barbell curl.

(A woman reaching the heaviest point of a dumbbell curl)

Why "Sticking Points" Are Common in Free Weight Exercises

Let's take that barbell curl example again. If you were lifting a heavy barbell to failure, you would most likely fail in at that small point of direct resistance…not at the top or bottom of the lift. Sticking points like these are very common, because resistance in free weight exercises don't match the strength curve of the human muscle.

What Arthur Jones Taught Me About Muscle Contraction

Each muscle is made up of a large number of muscle fibers. When a muscle contracts, a certain percentage of those muscle fibers are contracting 100%…and many of the muscle fibers aren't contracting at all. This is called the "all or none" principle. So when you lift a light weight…it isn't the case that all of your muscle fibers are working a little bit…what is happening is that a few muscle fibers are contracting 100% and the rest aren't engaged at all.

Many Free Weight Exercises Have a Flaw When it Comes To Working Muscle Fibers

Aurthur said that muscles need more resistance as they contract. The first 1/2 of the barbell curl is a great example of this. Resistance gets heavier until you reach the mid-way point…but then resistance decreases from the mid-way point to the end. In order to engage more and more muscle fibers into the lift resistance needs to increase all the way to the end of the lift. The point where resistance needs to be the most is at the end of a lift, because the only way to work 100% of the muscle fibers in a lift is at the point of full contraction.

Why Nautilus Machines and Hammer Strength Machines Were Invented

Nautilus machines were invented as a way to address the flaws in free weight exercises. They actually very well-thought out machines. Nautilus machines as well as many Hammer Strength machines are based around the strength curve of the muscle being worked. The resistance isn't the same throughout the entire lift. Numerous studies were done to closely match the resistance to what is needed by the body in each lift, so the weight feels heavy in the right places. They address the flaws in many of the free weight lifts. Note: The Hammer Strength company was founded by Arthur's son, Gary Jones.

Few People Have Added as Much to The Fitness Industry As Arthur Jones. He Was a Great Man and Will Be Missed

Note: I still believe in balancing free weight and machine exercises. I'll discuss how to strategically do this in my next post. I just wanted to write this article, because I think people put down Nautilus machines without thinking about their benefits.