17
Dec 2011

A Walker As Exercise Equipment

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I’ve posted before about how much I love Bodyrock.tv and I’ve had several comments from readers saying that they’re also fans of the short, high-intensity workouts on that site.  I’ve been Bodyrocking for 8 months, and I’ve never felt stronger – I highly recommend it if you’re looking for a way to fit exercise into a busy life, and to shake up workout boredom – there’s no such thing with Bodyrock, since the workouts change every day.

One of the things I love about Bodyrock is the emphasis on bodyweight exercises – push ups, squats, lunges, etc.  Lots of exercises that you can do anywhere, anytime, without any equipment.  That said, they do use some equipment, including this dip stand.  I’ve seen it online for anywhere from $79 to $140.  I wasn’t going to spend anywhere near that amount of money for one, so I had been keeping an eye out on Craigslist for quite some time, but with no luck.

In the meantime, I’ve been improvising.  I use two kitchen chairs as my dip stand, and it works fairly well.  For reverse push ups, I put a broom handle across the seats and through the back rails of the chair.  That works ok, but the broom handle is only at the height of the chair seats, so my reverse push ups don’t go as high as they would on a dip stand.  The backs of the chairs work fine for dips and knee/leg raises, although I’m sure it’s putting some excess strain on the chairs and the sharp wooden edges on the chair backs dig into my palms if I forget to wrap them with a towel first.   All in all, my two chair method was working, but wasn’t ideal.  But there was no way I was going to spend $80+ on a dip stand.

Then I saw a comment from someone on the Bodyrock site talking about how he bought a walker at Goodwill and uses that as his dip stand.  Genius!  I can’t believe I hadn’t thought of that.  Look at this basic walker and see how structurally similar it is to the dip stand.  And although I hadn’t been able to find a used dip stand, used walkers are pretty easy to come by.  My parents are out thrift store shopping today, and they just found me a nice sturdy walker (and no wheels or seat or anything that would interfere with using it as a dip stand) for $13.  I’m so excited to do my workouts with my new equipment!

I love outside-the-box solutions.  Many thanks to the person who originally shared this idea.  I thought I’d pass on the favor and share it again here for frugal folks who like bodyweight exercises.  And as an extra bonus, you get to repurpose something used instead of buying something new – better for your wallet and better for our world.

Cheers, and happy dipping!

 

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  • Shireen

    I have you to thank for cluing me into BodyRock, so, “thank you”. I mix it up with “running/walking” outside. BodyRock is great, and it’s nice to be able to do pushups again because of the strength exercises I’ve been doing.

    Also, love your “less is more” blog philosophy. Too much clutter and “stuff” and “buying frenzy” is disheartening and needless.

  • Frugal Babe

    Shireen, you’re very welcome!  I love hearing that the stuff I share on here is useful to people.  And amen to the less is more philosophy.  Definitely makes life better all around. 

  • Debbie M

    When I first read your title, I thought to myself, “Walkers as exercise equipment?  I know that using crutches is pretty aerobic, but I never thought using a walker would be good exercise.”  Ha!  Excellent outside-the-box idea.

    (And FYI, it’s easy to find crutches in thrift stores, too, and just use them to hop around to use different muscles than usual.)

  • Anonymous

    Hi! I’m a fellow bodyrocker and my husband is very resistant to my spending that much on a dip station (and the newer one they’re using now is even more expensive!) and was looking into getting a walker instead. I can see how it’s perfectly suited for dips, but are you able to do the reverse push ups with it, or does the cross bar get in the way? Thanks a bunch! 

  • Frugal Babe

    I’ve been able to do reverse push ups with it, no problem.  The cross bar is pretty high on mine, which helps.  I position myself so the bar is across my chest (not hitting me in the face!) and it works great.  I can use it for reverse push ups with my feet on the floor or elevated up on a chair.  Either way, I’m able to get my elbows to 90 degrees before I bump into the bar, and I can pull up a little more after I bump the bar, just focusing on raising my upper body a bit more.
    Before I had the walker, I used two chairs and stuck a broom stick between them.  That was ok, but the chair seats are not really that high off the ground, so you can’t pull up very far before you run into the broom stick.  I had also used our Bowflex (my husband’s favorite piece of workout equipment – he found it on Craigslist).  That worked pretty well, but the flexibility of the bows sorts of adds a bit of bounce/momentum to the reverse pushups.  I like them best on the walker.
    I hadn’t even looked at the pricing on the new Equalizer thing they’re using now.  I’m sure it’s not cheap!  Did you see the post I wrote recently about making my own sandbag?  That has been working great for squats and lunges and things where I need to have the weight over my shoulders and behind my neck.

  • Anonymous

    Awesome awesome, that’s great to hear about the walker, I’m so getting one now. I was using chairs and a broomstick, but it’s such a pain to set up it wasn’t worth it unless it was a 4 x 3 routine (and not doing 12 individual ones). And it just feels so awkward I feel like I couldn’t possibly be using the same muscles.  

    I did see the sandbag post after I posted on this one. My husband got all excited about both ideas and started scouring the internet for a bag with handles in the right spots, but not much luck with something that’s enough savings over the name brand ones with good handles. I haven’t had a problem with squats and lunges with weights, mine are the softer rubber coated ones so they don’t dig into me, except that I’m holding multiple weights in each hand which can be tricky. I get more annoyed using them for some other exercises though. I had tried putting them into an old backpack, but my husband got all worried when he saw me holding it above my head that it was going to split open and kill me. Maybe I’ll just buy the sandbag and make my own filler bags. At least I would be saving all that money from the dip station and then like $25 from not buying the filler bags! I’m so glad you posted this and it popped up in my google search, thanks! I’ll have to visit Salvation Army this week. 

  • Frugal Babe

    Glad it helped!  I got the idea for the walker from a comment someone left on the Bodyrock site, and I saw that lots of other people had made their own sandbags too.  The bag I got is a regular duffle bag, but it also has handles on the ends which makes it perfect for holding behind my shoulders.  I have 35 lbs in it, and so far the handles are holding up really well.  We’ll see how it’s doing six months from now…
    I saw a pretty cool tutorial someone posted on there one time about a homemade Ugi ball.  I just use a weight if the Ugi is being used as a weight, and a foam roller if it’s being used for instability.  But people have come up with all sorts of creative ideas for that one too.
    Have fun improvising!

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