Sore Core and DIY Junk

Yes, from yesterday's workout, my core is sore! Pain expanding from my chest hair and penetrating into what feels like my duodenum. I'm either about to give birth to a nematode-gazelle hybrid or I'm just sore.

I really believe in the static and hold position type exercises i.e the plank and incline one armed holdups on the rings. Great stuff!

Onto today's crap. There are two reasons why I like having my own Bat Dojo:

1. Making up shit to do.
2. Making shit to do.

Today is #2, as I'm resting from #1.

A few days ago I took one of our shattered 10 lb rubber medicine balls and filled it with concrete. I searched through the internets for Atlas ball howtos etc.. There were a few, but nothing interesting.
Taking advantage of the gaping crack in the ball, I decided to stuff some commercial grade, crack resistant concrete in it's gullet.
During creation of this Atlas ball I stuffed in one of those 4 inch diameter foam balls from the local craft store. This helped lighten the Atlas ball, as I wasn't sure how heavy it would be once completed. I was afraid of creating something too heavy, creating some sort of gravity well or black hole. An alternative would be to mix Perlite in with the concrete mix. Which I believe would be the better way.

Another added element was the polyester strings from a rope I pulled apart. These get mixed in with the concrete to act as mini-rebars. Probably didn't do shit! It was recommended on an Atlas ball forum and thought I would give a go. Next ball, I'll skip that part...

Here's a pic of the ball in progress, using the amazing jumpbox as my impromptu worktable.

Here's the demon device in it's glory! 40lbs of pure hate!

You'll notice the snot along the crack in the ball. That is foam sealer. I put that in because one major issue with concrete is it has 1/4 inch rocks in it. These rocks fall off, rattle around and fall out the crack. I learned this with my mini-kettle bells. Annoys the hell out of me. So I sealed them in! I think next time I'll use a hot melt glue gun, as the foam is fairly messy.

So does it do it's job? Am I now a gigantic Viking warrior ready for invasion of Northen Europe armed with nothing more than an axe and a pointed helmet? Not quite! But it is fun to lug around and drop in the grass. The rubbery surface is comfortable and provides excellent grip. DO NOT USE THESE BALLS ON CONCRETE OR YOUR MATS! DO NOT USE THESE BALLS TO PLAY HACKY SACK, FOOS BALL OR AS AMMO IN YOUR PAINT BALL GUN! KEEP AWAY FROM CHILDREN AND CHIHUAHUAS!

Onto project number duex.
Bulgarian sandbags are pretty cool. Surprisingly, Bulgarian sandbags are rarely sold. Everyone just builds their own. In fact I tried to find a supplier for these and could not find one. Don't flood me with emails with where to buy them, I don't care. I'm with the crowd on this one, DIY is the best way and here's my recipe for success.

Get yourself a roll of that frenchdrain/leech line pipe filter stuff. Looks like a 6 inch diameter sock about 1000 feet long. Probably costs you about $5. Then buy some small, smooth rocks. A bag of which is about $3 at the local builders supply. Get yourself a dozen medium zip ties.

Take some tube sock about 4 feet long, tie a knot on one end, fill it with 8 lbs of rocks. Then choke it off with two zip ties. Fill the sock again with 8 lbs, choke it off again and keep going until you have four 8 lb sections. Tie off the last section with nothing more than a basic knot.

At this point, take your handy hose and soak the segmented worm to blow out the sand and dust particles from the rock. It will tint your sock red. Who cares? If you train properly, your blood and the blood of others will tint it some more.

Once the water dried, I took three more 4 ft sections and stuffed them inside of each other creating one big sock. I figured with all the slinging at each other with this thing it would need all the support it could get!
I then tied a simple knot on one end, then dropped the weight into the mess. Tied it off on the other end and it's done. Note: the inner sock holding the weight is not part of the knot of the outer three socks. This allows the rockbag to drop and squish down into one end, changing it's shape. Which is AWESOME! Spin it around and it slips to the other end. Grab both ends and it levels out. How badass is that! An infinitely changing shape to contend with. Not nearly as tough as holding up a menstruating Wolverine, but we take what we can get.

First layer of sock, holding the rocks in. Make sure you cut the zip ties close, but leave 1/4 inch for expansion. Also trim the edges, because they are SHARP!

Here's the segmented worm all put together, inside a three layered sock.

When you grab one end, it all slips to the other end. The weight stays stacked and inline so that nothing goes funky when you spin it back around!

I made a one segmented bag(2 sock layers) to see how much weight it could handle. This one weighs 12 lbs. I'm confident it could hold twice that.

I'll probably use this one as some sort of grip device or marker for sprints. Run to it, pick it up, run back holding it in your teeth type stuff. You think I'm joking!

Next workout will be concrete balls and rock bags!


Mark