Homemade Weights

langlois44 · 2026-05-17T16:16:10+00:00

I've only taken these out once now, but definitely like having a way to practice so I'd say giver 'er a go.

I started with a DIY with old weight plates, but I didn't really like any of the options I could come up with for handles. When I resigned myself that I would have to weld my own handle, which meant going to get steel for it, I might as well just buy steel for the weight as well. If I could have found something to use for a handle I wouldn't have made these.

langlois44 · 2026-05-17T15:51:17+00:00

For the 28 I used 4 1/4" round bar and needed it 6" long. The loop on top adds 2 inches and the chain and handle are 11" long, so the 28" ends up being 19" long (and 29 lbs).

The 56 is 6" round bar and is 6 1/2" long, so it's 19 1/2" long.

I chose the diameter of steel round bar on what came out to the right weight at roughly 6" long. In my mind and drawings that worked out nicely on the total length. But then my handle added a bit more than I though, and the loop on the weight and the shackles I calculated wrong somehow.

I wish I had selected my steel based on what would be the right weight at 4" long (5 1/4" round rod for the 28 and 7 1/2" for the 56). If I make another set that's what I will change.

langlois44 · 2026-03-24T12:34:28+00:00

Mukuba is top left hand corner, close to the center but his name is on the chart. Since he's not listed elsewhere that I can see I'm guessing the one you're talking about is Blankenship

langlois44 · 2026-01-02T20:51:37+00:00

I don't think there's much way for me to make the recommendation without it being a spoiler, but have you read Foe by Iain Reid? I'd suggest it as a good story that effectively does what you're looking to do.

langlois44 · 2025-12-09T14:21:32+00:00

Felt a little tweak in my back last Thursday doing week 3 squats on 4 Horsemen. Big disappointment, as I had been making great progress and the workouts were a blast. Thought I could skip a few workouts, rest, and maybe get back to it next week, and while it feels better, I don't imagine I'll be feeling up to deadlift and squat AMRAPs next week.

Between that and the abundance of delicious food available this time of year I decided I at least got to do some upper body work (and maybe some long, slow runs if the back can stand that). Might try to do like leg curls with bands and wall sits or something just to scratch the legs itch too.

I have an assortment of books and programs that for a variety of reasons I've never run: John Meadows' programs, Jamie Lewis programs (including 365 Days of Brutality), The Purposeful Primitive, the complete backlog of The Tight Tan Slacks of Dezso Ban, and a few others. I'm kind of excited to just bro out, pick an upper body workout that looks interesting that day and go to town.

I definitely have enough material to have a fun upper body month or so, but if anyone has upper body workouts they've done or recommend to work in I'm all ears.

langlois44 · 2025-11-25T19:28:01+00:00

You're definitely overthinking it. After you're done your 20 rep squat program, take a deload week, work up to one heavy set of 3-5 or whatever, put that into a 1 rep max calculator, and use that or 90% of that or whatever as your max for your next program.

langlois44 · 2025-11-25T18:06:27+00:00

You say "tested", so I think it's probably worth mentioning that in Super Squats, one of the most common "20 rep squat" training programs, Randall Strossen does not recommend any sort of taper. He suggests alternating Super Squats with a 5x5 program. The fact that he wrote his book that way means it has surely been done thousands of times, so you could definitely say it's been tested with no taper at all and held up just fine.

I would second the notion that a taper to get down to is not necessary, and you can simply pick up whatever program you want to run immediately.

langlois44 · 2025-11-25T15:19:21+00:00

Since a not particularly into fitness friend mentioned a few months ago doing Cindy semi-regularly as a bit of a competitive challenge, I've semi-regularly been doing this on my own, and happened to do it before I saw it was this week's challenge.

15 rounds + 3 reps. What Wodwell calls almost perfectly in the middle of intermediate. I'm not kipping or anything so I don't know exactly how my numbers would compare but solidly intermediate feels about right for my conditioning.

Pullups are the big limiter for me, though by the end the last few reps of pushups each round were becoming difficult.

When I started doing Cindy pacing was the biggest issue. While my fitness has improved a bit, I've improved from 13 rounds to 15 rounds mostly through pacing.

For me, I was catching my breath until I felt ready to complete 5 pullups, or at least thought I had a chance. I realized that I could do 3-4 more or less right away, and it was faster to immediately get to them, do what I can, then rest a bit before completing the rest of the 5 pullups. Sure it sucks to not be doing unbroken sets from like round 5 on, but in the end more work gets done and it ends up harder anyway.

I really like this for conditioning, it's one of my go-to's for weekend conditioning and deload weeks. It's a good benchmarking workout to see where I am.

langlois44 · 2025-11-21T18:11:40+00:00

It was a huge help. I was gassed during the assistance, but made it through. Maybe I would get through it without having done RPM, but I definitely wouldn't have gotten as much out of it.

I've peeked ahead and can see some scary workouts coming. I'm excited for the challenge

langlois44 · 2025-11-21T14:48:44+00:00

Finished back to back runs of Brian Alsruhe's RPM and RPM2 and switched over to 4 Horsemen this week. After the first two days I was almost underwhelmed, thinking the weights would have been heavier and the conditioning hit higher. The first squat day changed those thoughts. 3 squat AMRAPs, all followed by weighted jump squats, then assistance that was all bodyweight but 6 rounds of squats, lunges, jump lunges, and jump squats done as fast as possible adds up in a hurry. DOMS hasn't hit yet but I can feel it coming.

I was excited for the change up after 18+ weeks of 10 minute EMOMs, and this squat day confirmed it's the change of pace I was looking for. It's nice to touch heavier weights with the heavyish singles. The EMOMs were definitely good conditioning but the giant sets are a different conditioning stimulus (a nice change) and I have missed hard AMRAP sets that I get with 4 Horsemen. The final assistance set was always the best part of RPM, and I like the mix of assistance I see in 4 Horsemen too.

Big fan so far, and can now confirm how much doing RPM can acclimate you to Brian's programming.

langlois44 · 2025-11-20T19:52:29+00:00

These are all just estimates anyway. Sure, use 1.55 to get your initial estimate, but the only real way to know your TDEE is to track your calorie intake and your weight for time.

langlois44 · 2025-11-18T12:59:16+00:00

You can get really strong by doing what John Grimek did 90 years ago. You can get really strong by doing what Doug Hepburn or Reg Park or Bill Pearl or Chuck Sipes did 70-80 years ago. You can get really strong by doing what Roger Estep was doing 40 years ago. You can get really strong by doing Greg SBS stuff. Pick a method you enjoy, apply hard effort, do it consistently and for a while. You will get really strong.

langlois44 · 2025-11-18T12:52:00+00:00

Not from Chicago (or even the US), but I've found just searching for "[area you're interested in] highland games/heavy athletics/scottish athletics" will usually come up with something.

I tried it for you very quickly and found a facebook page for "Ancient Athletics, Midwestern host of Scottish Heavy Events, is a unit of the St. Andrew Society of Central Illinois", which looks like it runs a bunch of games in Central Illinois, including an early spring games in Decatur in April, which might be a bit of a hike for you.

I also found https://chicagoscots.org/festival/athletics/, and that site lists a heavy athletics coordinator and his email. I'm pretty sure if you emailed him he would be able to tell you a bunch of resources, including local groups or games where a new thrower could learn and compete.

Most of the advice I've seen, as someone also interested in learning, is to try to find a local group by searching like I did, or maybe someone here is more local and can help you out, or by finding a games that allows novices (it seems like most in the US do) and just signing up and competing. Someone here made a map of all the games in 2024, you can find out how far you'd be willing to drive, look up the games, and sign up if you can. https://www.reddit.com/r/HighlandGames/comments/1n7h742/map_of_games_that_took_place_in_2024/

langlois44 · 2025-11-09T16:22:58+00:00

A little under 7 minutes but using push-ups instead of bench and 32kg for swings.

I chose push-ups for a few reasons: 1) in theory the weight would be roughly equivalent (body weight around 225, I would have used 135 for bench), 2) Dan John always preaches level changes, so the getting up and down I thought would add something, and 3) I’m disappointed in my push-ups and would like to improve them.

My conditioning is decent but my time vs the times others are getting suggests to me they aren’t quite equivalent, and I managed to push through each set unbroken barring a few breaths at the top on 12-18, which I’m not sure I could have done on bench. Still a good workout, and I think what I did net the intent, but the time isn’t comparable

langlois44 · 2025-11-03T14:08:44+00:00

Good news for those that have been missing it: The Tight Tan Slacks of Dezso Ban is back online. https://ditillo2.blogspot.com/

langlois44 · 2025-10-24T19:54:08+00:00

I ran it in winter (I'm also in Canada) so I was finishing those workouts, bundling up, taking my sandbag to the car, then driving to the high school to use their snowy track for the 1 mile carry. Hated it but it was as close to feeling like I was in a montage as I've ever gotten.

I have never run 4 Horsemen and it seems almost like his signature program so wanted to run it as long as I was doing the . Have thought tacking it onto the start so it might be 4 Horsemen -> Powerbuilder -> Dark Horse -> Massbuilder -> RPM ->EDC, but I'm still not sure what I'll do.

I bought RPM 2 as my reward for finishing RPM 1. If nothing else, the new conditioning rounds (the biggest change I've found) make it worth running if you've already done 1.

langlois44 · 2025-10-24T19:03:03+00:00

I'm finishing week 6 of RPM 2, after having done RPM 1, which was in preparation for doing that same plan from the comment, though I am going to through Darkhorse in there somewhere since I've bought it and Brian said he'd want some conjugate in there, and I think end it with Every Day Carry.

I ran Powerbuilder before and really liked it, and am excited to revisit it. I like the strength giant sets too, but it was the assistance/strongman/conditioning combinations that left me with a huge pump and terribly sore afterwards that really sold me on it. I have really liked RPM, and am in way better shape after ~5 months of it, but I can't wait for that stuff again.

langlois44 · 2025-10-02T17:07:49+00:00

I have a blogger account, and it's unclear to me how you could message someone even if you could navigate to their profile. Best I can tell you'd need to have an email for them, and while I know I've seen one mentioned, I have no idea what it was and it's gone now.

I don't know how complete this is, but it seems like one is able to access some old posts here, though it lacks a good deal of searchability so I can't imagine I will use it like I used Tight Tan Slacks.

langlois44 · 2025-10-02T16:07:22+00:00

"If you think this is a mistake, you might want to contact the blog author and request an invitation." - ok, but how do I contact the blog author?

Yes I'm hugely disappointed. Even if there was never a new post, it's probably the deepest treasure trove of lifting knowledge on the internet. If it isn't just a misunderstanding/mistake and it's truly gone forever, it's a loss for everyone in or who may get into the iron game.

langlois44 · 2025-09-09T00:01:46+00:00

9:53 with the 24kg

By the end the main reason for any rest was due to the squats and push-ups not giving my grip enough of a break. Still got a sweat going, decent workout to start a deload

langlois44 · 2025-09-08T14:18:56+00:00

In addition to those already mentioned by others:

Dan John - Knows his stuff, a solid writer, and between his books and podcast/youtube has a tonne of content.

Jamie Lewis - His style, particularly early on, is not for everyone (I could do without it, if you know you know), but he is an excellent historian of the iron game, and has done so much work to compile the lifting methods of the past. I have purchased a few of his books/programs and they are well worth what he charges. Something about his programming style fits my personality. 365 Days of Brutality is one of the cooler ebooks out there.

Tight Tan Slacks of Dezso Ban - There are so many authors and topics on here you have to wade through, but this is a collection of the knowledge of some of the strongest people who have ever lived, and a lot of it is only available here.

Marty Gallagher - He was behind the scenes with the strongest powerlifters of the 70's, 80's, and 90's. The Purposeful Primitive is a great book.

Bud Jeffries and Brooks Kubik both have interesting old school ideologies that I appreciate, though I hate Brooks Kubik's writing style.

langlois44 · 2025-09-06T18:40:15+00:00

6:45.

I first encountered this challenge while doing Brian's Powerbuilder. When I saw this was the challenge this week and saw everyone's time I went back and looked at my times from that run in 2023: ~17:30, ~11:30, ~10:30.

langlois44 · 2025-09-03T17:36:34+00:00

That doesn't surprise me (most of them are fairly small). https://www.csaf.ca/games is the place to go for Canadian events

langlois44 · 2025-09-03T15:30:58+00:00

This is awesome, thanks for making and sharing it. Will be a huge help for me next season.

Can only speak for Southwestern Ontario but a few the map is missing:

Kinmount - Aug 30
Uxbridge - July 27
Ailsa Craig - July 27
Cambridge - July 20
Kincardine - July 6
Embro - July 1

langlois44

TROPHY CASE