Easy to make homemade exercise equipment

Easy to make homemade exercise equipment

Due to the fast paced life many of us lead, finding time to go to a well equipped gym is difficult. For this reason many people have turned to exercising in their own home. Creating your own exercise routine is time consuming and usually unsuccessful. The proliferation of fitness programs designed for those of us who would prefer to workout at home due to time constraints or personal preference has made life easy on us. Pop in the DVD and just follow orders for the next hour.

Unfortunately, the program will come to an end and we are left to our own devices in order to keep exercise fresh. Creating your own fitness program can be daunting and expensive. There seems to be an innumerable amount of fitness equipment on the market and an equal number of ways to use them. One of the most versatile pieces of equipment I found that allows for an outstanding array of uses is the medicine ball. One the best parts about this fitness tool is that it can easily be made at home.

I have used the medicine ball shown for over two years on a weekly basis. It is my favorite fitness tool and it was simple to make. A medicine ball is excellent for working out your core as well as your entire body.

Homemade Medicine Ball:

Most of us probably have an old basketball that we never use laying around the house or yard. We stopped playing ball years ago but always kept it around just in case. That's how it was with me and I decided to put that old basketball back to good use.

I used a regulation size ball but any size will work depending upon how heavy you want the medicine ball to be.

1. Poke a hole large enough in the ball to fit the end of a funnel. I used a box cutter type knife and barely cut it until the funnel fit.
2. With the funnel inserted into the hole, use rice or sand to fill up the basketball. On the particular medicine ball shown I used rice. In hindsight, sand may have been a better idea since I feel kind of bad for using food someone could have eaten to make exercise equipment.
3. As the sand or rice fills up the ball and gets closer to the opening you will have to shake the medicine ball to even it out This also allows as much sand or rice as possible fill it up.
4. After you have put as much sand or rice in the ball, plug the hole using a wine cork. There may be a bit of empty space at the top of the ball, but this hasn't caused me any problems over the two years I have used it.
5. Cover cork with a piece of duct tape (so you know it will hold) and get to exercising!

The medicine ball described weighs fifteen pounds and has held up while doing everything you can with a medicine ball including being thrown against walls. If you enjoy saving a little money (a new 15 pound medicine ball costs around $40) and making things yourself, this is a nice way to reuse something that was probably collecting dust.

Original article and pictures take hubpages.com site