We’ve gotten some great feed back! Here are the pictures I took this Saturday after we made some changes to the machine.
Tomorrow I’ve got two CrossFit certified trainers coming out to use it and give me their input. I am really interested to hear what they have to say.
I am very grateful for all the comments and good advice so far. I look forward to more ideas flowing in from all of you. If you have an idea, if you know exactly what you want out of a home gym….leave a comment! ;)
May 11, 2009 at 10:40 pm
The rear support braces can hold a lot of weight plates when posts are added. Also great for storing barbells.
It looks narrow, while I understand the idea behind making it narrow, the width could be made adjustable to accommodate user preferences. Six foot long barbells just don’t quite fit on power racks. Frustrating when in a small workout space. Also, some users will prefer a full width 7 foot barbell.
The safety catches should definitely be adjustable. Sabres work great and can also be taken out and used for other exercises. Sabres also can be used for holding a barbell in front of the rack in low position. Great for loading up a barbell for deadlifts.
Will a gun rack setup be placed on the vertical poles for the barbell to be placed at multiple heights, or is another method going to be used for attaching the barbells?
Twisting handles that hang on the chin up bar.
If the safety spotters can adjust high enough, two barbells across it can be used for dips.
It looks a little light, especially towards the bottom.
Where do the rubber bands go ;)
May 12, 2009 at 6:42 pm
This is turning out to be a good home gym but somehow, you have to include a way to do bodyweight dips. An idea of doing this is possible attaching a horizontal member between the post that has two dipping handles sticking out perpendicular to the frame. The dipping handles can also be angled so there is less stress on the wrist while dipping. The problem I can see is attachment to the vertical post since the weight on the handles will create a torque on the vertical post and you know the strength of the post resistance to bending forces. An addition, the member will have to be adjustable along the post to accommodate people of different heights.
May 12, 2009 at 7:20 pm
Thanks Garrett
Glad you mentioned the barbell length, I bought a 6′ standard barbell, 1″ in diameter and it works perfect with the rack. 7 foot would be fine too. I do have a brace in the back with pegs for plates, I think that’s where the 45lb plates would work best.
I think we’ll do a welded-in rack for the barbell lower down, more in the bench press position? We may just have a cradle for all positions. I’m meeting with a guy tomorrow to discuss those options. One of our next steps is to figure out where and how many holes to drill.
We are going to make the safety adjustable for sure! We haven’t decided exactly what we’re doing there yet. We have a few ideas.
It’s all thick walled steel, it is on the lighter side but our intention is to target the broader, more likely users who don’t intend to load up the barbell more than 200-250lbs. The commercial style racks are huge and intimidating for the average person. We hope this ends up looking like something you can put in your home, even if that’s a 1 bedroom apartment ;)
No rubber bands on this machine…sorry.
I had 2 certified CrossFit personal trainers out today to take a look. They both liked it! Big relief, it was the 1st official showing other than the blog. They did pull ups, squats and messed around with the barbell some. The stability and weight seemed sufficient they thought. They were also helpful in thinking through some of the attachments like a dip bar and a bar that would act as a glute/hamstring developer. Excited too about the potential for using rings and a few other CrossFit essentials ;)
May 12, 2009 at 7:25 pm
Sage
We are already thinking about free body dips, we think it’s a must. There will be adjustments for peoples height difference not to worry.
You’re mentioned the phase coming…kicking the crap out of it! We’ll try and beat this thing up every way we know how before we let the 1st one go out! ;)
Thank you for the comment!!!
May 13, 2009 at 12:41 am
Hi Molly and the rest of the Gang.
I work out at home in a small one bedroom apartment. I had a Soloflex Muscle Machine and would put 400 pounds of freeweights plus weightstraps on it regularly. I now have a power rack, and go over that weight on many lifts.
I think a 250 pound weight limit is way too low. For me, 250 pounds is a warmup weight on many exercises. I think that a 250 pound weight limit on the unit is a BIG BIG mistake, even for home trainers not into heavy lifting.
The joy of the Soloflex Muscle Machine was that it could use up to 400 pounds of weightstraps, plus 500 pounds of freeweights together for a total of 900 pounds of resistance. I have broken a lot of gym equipment in my workouts, both at home and in commercial gyms, and this looks like something that I would break because of the small tubing. I have never broken anything on the Soloflex Muscle Machine, no matter how heavy I loaded it up.
What you guys have built so far looks almost exactly like a setup I was going to get built at a fabrication shop utilizing mainframes and other parts from Soloflex Muscle Machines. I was going to have it built so that the barbell arm, bench, leg, and butterfly could be attached to either side. Extra barbell arms modified to be used as safety sabres for standard barbell work which would be done between the two frames. I would set up the vertical poles as removable. I thought this would be a super strong setup as each Soloflex frame was rated at 900 pounds, I thought I could build a setup with huge capacity and versatility.
Due to lack of funds, I didn’t build it.
Please build a tough unit like the Muscle Machine, not a light duty fragile piece. There are housewives that workout at home that lift much more than 250 pounds for repetitions. If it’s intended for crossfit, it has to be tough because when that mode of training is used they like to go to failure with heavy weights. One drop and the machine is busted.
This setup will be in removable pieces I hope. If it’s one piece, it would be hard to get into an apartment or small workout space. This would also make the width easily adjustable.
One thing on the width, I like to do some exercises wide grip. If the design is forced to be 3 feet wide, it is too narrow for me on certain exercises.
There are compact squat half racks very similar to this current setup, most of them are rated at 600 pounds or higher. If consumers see it rated at 250 pounds, they won’t buy it.
Did you guys consider angling the rack backwards at 7 to 10 degrees or so to save space and make it more compact?
May 13, 2009 at 8:28 am
Hi again, Painting an art picture and inventing is an interesting process. You always need to be open to try somthing new. But you also need to take a step back once in a while and look where things are going. Sometimes that can mean scraping what you have and starting over. I find it interesting how many times I have scraped an idea only to find after much work and effort that my original idea was still the best. I am not saying that it is a waste of effort to see if there is a better solution. It is very rewarding to arrive back at your original idea and feel good about that idea. With that said, I think you could work a month of Sundays and never come up with a concept as good as the original soloflex. I think it was and is a genius design. I hope that in your inventive process that you will keep the original soloflex design on the table. I think the original soloflex could be improved. Not from a function standpoint but the frame structure. Look at how the big construction cranes are built with the use of truss arms. You could lighten the Solo frame and give it a platform base and make it bolt together so it can more easily be moved and shipped. Keep it strong but make it lighter and more moveable. That should be a good challenge for you. The world could use more SOLOFLEXs! Best wishes, Will
May 13, 2009 at 4:10 pm
Will
I appreciate the desire to see more Soloflex’s. I think that would be great too. We have discussed a lighter, slightly modified Soloflex machine. That may happen.
I hear what you’re saying about stepping back. Good advice. None of us are married to any specific way of doing things, we’ll just keep tinkering until we think we’ve got it right. Sometimes right, is something totally different…we will see ;)
May 13, 2009 at 4:18 pm
Garrett
You may be right about 250 lbs not being heavy enough. However, this design may withstand more weight. We have not done that testing yet. It’s less about the dimension of the tubing and more about the thickness of the wall. We completely intend to make this a machine that can be used by a serious lifter. That said, 900lbs is not normal ;) I’m going to continue showing it to as many athletes and trainers as I can. So far, there’s been good feedback. We have also talked about the option of the same design for people who lift heavier weights. Because the majority of people do not use over 250lbs, we would like to keep the design slight but also offer a bigger, stronger model of the same for people like you.
May 14, 2009 at 9:00 am
Do you think a inverted hanging situp can be designed on this machine like the original soloflex?
February 6, 2011 at 9:11 pm
There will never be a better alternative to a power rack, a flat bench, a barbell set, and plenty of plates.
Unless it’s a set of squat racks, safety spotters, flat bench, barbell and plates.
Both of these setups can be had in high-quality equipment for a few hundred dollars.
It’s not rocket science.