My Home-Made "Versa Stick" For Bodylastics
Tuesday, April 29, 2008
In a followup to my earlier post on the Versa Stick, I mentioned that I thought it was a good idea, and that I'd jury-rig up my own "Versa Stick" alternative to my Bodylastics kit, and see how it works out.
Well, before I go into more details, here's a pic of my jury-rigging:
Yeah I found a metal bar in my home, leftover from a renovation I did a long time back. I never remembered why I kept it around, but I'm glad I did. It's made from solid aluminium or steel, or something, and it's super-light. The black straps you see in the picture are the ankle straps from the Bodylastics kit.
I did a few pull-downs (to work the back) and it felt almost like the gym machine. Almost. As you can see, I already had every band available hooked up, and it still felt "light". I calculated, that with all the bands up, I only had roughly 65 pounds of resistance. In the gym, I was pulling 90 pounds or so.
Now if you don't have a metal bar like mine at home, and you do have a chin-up bar (many people do), unhook it from your doorframe and use it as the "stick" like so:
Personally I preferred my own metal bar over the chin-up bar. As for how it feels, it feels alot better than just pulling on the 2 handles. The only problem now is that I can't seem to find a suitable "replacement" for the bench-press using the stick, to work the chest. Hooking the bands at chest height and standing a few feet away with your back turned still doesn't quite match the feeling since the bands tend to pull you towards the door when you're trying to push the stick away from your chest. There's nothing on your back to stop you from being pulled back towards the door.
So I guess, bench-press replication is still not possible (maybe it is, I just haven't figured it out) even with a stick on the Bodylastics kit.
For now, this jury-rigged stick is used solely for my pull-downs workout. All other workouts are still done as per the instruction booklet provided by Bodylastics.
Well, before I go into more details, here's a pic of my jury-rigging:
Yeah I found a metal bar in my home, leftover from a renovation I did a long time back. I never remembered why I kept it around, but I'm glad I did. It's made from solid aluminium or steel, or something, and it's super-light. The black straps you see in the picture are the ankle straps from the Bodylastics kit.
I did a few pull-downs (to work the back) and it felt almost like the gym machine. Almost. As you can see, I already had every band available hooked up, and it still felt "light". I calculated, that with all the bands up, I only had roughly 65 pounds of resistance. In the gym, I was pulling 90 pounds or so.
Now if you don't have a metal bar like mine at home, and you do have a chin-up bar (many people do), unhook it from your doorframe and use it as the "stick" like so:
Personally I preferred my own metal bar over the chin-up bar. As for how it feels, it feels alot better than just pulling on the 2 handles. The only problem now is that I can't seem to find a suitable "replacement" for the bench-press using the stick, to work the chest. Hooking the bands at chest height and standing a few feet away with your back turned still doesn't quite match the feeling since the bands tend to pull you towards the door when you're trying to push the stick away from your chest. There's nothing on your back to stop you from being pulled back towards the door.
So I guess, bench-press replication is still not possible (maybe it is, I just haven't figured it out) even with a stick on the Bodylastics kit.
For now, this jury-rigged stick is used solely for my pull-downs workout. All other workouts are still done as per the instruction booklet provided by Bodylastics.
Labels: Bodylastics, Versa Stick, workout
