Multipurpose wooden squat racks...

[Allen Yeh]

Originally Posted by Pierre Auge

Finally someone who uses real measurments! Thank you for using mm, thank you thank you thank you!

To be honest as a engineer I'd prefer if everyone in the US just jumped to the metric system since that system makes a heck of a lot more sense than pounds and inches...etc.

[Brian Sullivan]

Thanks for the plan. I was planning on building some outdoor squat racks (if spring ever comes) using a bucket full of concrete and some 4x6's sticking out of them, but this looks like a better design for me.

[Rick Deckart]

You are welcome Brian.

[Rick Deckart]

As it looks I have to work Saturday and Sunday...

So I will start the building plan in this post and continue this on a more or regular basis. The design is from an old eastern german book on weightlifting. Still the only book in german on olympic weightlifting. I modified it to fit my needs, as I need some place to store my plates which are usually lying around in my barn gym and because I thought that lowering the COG would be a good idea. I realized that with a little extra effort this could be used as plyometric box too.

The tools:

• power saw
• mitre box saw (for solid angle cuts in several planes)
• alternatively and what I used a good alround japanese saw (the best handsaws on earth)
• Power drill with torx bit so that you don't have to fix all screws by hand (which would be a super workout...)
• wood glue (I use this only for the additional support structures)
• a tape measure, preferably in mm
• adjustable angle, or bevel
• a jig, which you have to construct from wood
• one or two large clamps
• torx screws, preferably M25 5mm x 50mm, although M20 4mm x 50mm should do fine, if you have the money buy self countersink screws, else you will need a countersink too.

The dimension:

• base: 500mm x 500mm
• top: 400mm x 400mm x 21mm (birch multiplex plywood, the thicker the better)
• height: ~1000mm
• legs: 53mm x 53mm x 987mm (you can choose the length between 1000--1200mm as you like) the odd length was choosen because the 2000mm beams turned out to be ~1990mm long...
• outer frames: made from 93mm x 20mm boards

Material list:

• torx screws, preferably M25 5mm x 50mm, although M20 4mm x 50mm should do fine, if you have the money buy self countersink screws, else you will need a countersink too.
• wooden beams 53mm x 53mm x 2000mm
• wooden boards 93mm x 20mm x 2000mm
• two wooden boards, preferably multiplex >21mm thickness, 400mm x 400mm
• a scrap wood plate ~500mm x ~500mm to construct a jig.

to be continued...
:

[Rick Deckart]

Will finish the plan later, just some quick pictures of the 50mm extensions. I have used the rack extensively over the course of the last weeks and sofar they work perfect. Nothing to complain and plenty of safety headroom.

But I am busy on another larger project... Operation Barnstorm

[Derek Simonds]

Nice work Peter. Those squat racks and pulling racks rock! I look forward to you adding more information to this thread as you progress.

I can't wait to see operation barnstorm.

[Joe Hart]

Peter,

Hopefully you are still around...How are your racks holding up? Do you think they are sturdy enough to handle doing heavy rack jerks (having the bar dropped on them)?

[Rick Deckart]

Originally Posted by Joe Hart

Peter,

Hopefully you are still around...How are your racks holding up?

Not really, but to answer your other question, the racks are holding up fine and I seriously doubt that I will ever out-squat them, even if I should double my max back-squat (150kg -> 300kg).

Originally Posted by Joe Hart

Do you think they are sturdy enough to handle doing heavy rack jerks (having the bar dropped on them)?

I wouldn't use it for that purpose on a regular basis but I dropped weights around 90-100kg on it a couple of times without a problem. However doing that frequently would wear them down besides the platform is a little bit to small for such use and so I have plans to build some jerk boxes in the next two or three months. These will be sturdy enough to deal with anything anyone may drop on it.

If I use the racks for jerks I usually take the bar out of the rack, do the jerk or jerk repetitions, drop the bar, deload it for an easy powerclean, place the bar into the rack, load it again and immediately do the next jerk etc. pp.

The main reasons I prefer these racks over standard racks is that there is no possibility to jam the fingers and I can use these for bottom up overhead squats, partial squats if I wanted to train these, box jumps and a couple of other things. Especially presses from the rack are a lot easier for me than from a standard rack.