Homemade Dip Bars For A Power Rack

Dips are said to be a great exercise for building chest, triceps, shoulder and lats.

At least in some cycles I should have given serious attention to the parallel bar dip. As it was, I had a bench press fixation. The dip, done in good form, is a terrific exercise that is much underused. It is at least as productive as the bench press.  (Stuart McRobert, author of Beyond Brawn)

If you work out at home like I do, you probably do not have the space and/or money to buy a Dip Station. Some Power Racks allow you to attach expensive Dip Bars to it. Mine does not have this option. I always wanted to use Dips in my workout routines.

I saw an idea on Crossfit Forums where you they take water pipes and build two stands but this would cost about 80 Euros.  It took several months until I thought of this solution that is so simple that I’m embarrassed to admit it and to call it a “Do it yourself”.

Why would you consider doing Dips?

Advantages of Dips:

• you don’t need a spotter
• you don’t need additional weight at the beginning
• you can add serious weight if you need it
• works more muscles than the bench press
• works your balance and coordination

What do you need for the DIY?

• two pieces of wood that are about 3 cm longer than the distance between the security handles of your Power Rack
• optional: 2-4 clamps, screws

I cut one big piece of wood into two pieces with equal length:

The wood does not move on the security handles as long as I don’t fool around and go some kind of monkey style. The friction keeps it in it’s place. If you want to make it more safe, you can screw clamps on the wood and then put the security handles through the clamps, like this:

Why would you wanna do this?

Besides the already mentioned advantages of Dips, here are some more of this solution:

• the width can be arranged according to your needs
• the height can be arranged according to your needs
• very cheap solution (Dip Station about 150 Euros, DIY: 10 Euros)
• portable
• does not need much space when it’s not used
• can work grip depending on the shape of the wood you use

This entry was posted on Thursday, July 23rd, 2009 at 9:41 pm and is filed under DIY. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.