Gym Equipment made from Wood
 

Wood has good compression properties and you could easily assemble homemade gym equipment. Here are some ideas for equipment that I built:
Weight Plates and Dumbbell Rack
Homemade Squat Stands
No welding required and no need for special tools.

that squat rack looks kinda scary. i guess you could use more wood, but i wouldn't rack anything remotely heavy on the one he built. if using wood, jerk boxes sound safer to me.

I think Rip said something along the lines of:

"I don't recommend wooden squat racks for much the same reason I don't recommend a wooden car."

Peter Puetz knows a thing or two about wood racks.

Peter made platforms rather than rack like in the article. Interesting ideas but I think I would stick with steel squat racks. I don't squat anything of significance but I would not want 400+ pounds on a wooden rack unless it 6x6s bolted to the wall in some fashion.

It probably holds more than you'd guess. I grew up using two metal garbage cans as my squat racks. Worked really well for a small kid with a 50 pound back squat :D

Jerk boxes double for an awesome squat rack. I've been debating getting the squat racks out of my garage and just putting some jerk boxes in there.

My homemade power rack made of wood. Tried hanging and swinging on a loaded bar making it a total pressure of 300 moving kilos.
http://www.youtube.com/user/tntballe