For Some Trainers, Making Barbells and Medicine Balls Comes With the Job

It's going to take an impossibly grueling workout for anyone using the equipment at Hard Training Club to match the sweat that went into making it. That's because the Adams Morgan gym, which opened last month, has an unusual feature in this era of increasingly fancy-pants fitness facilities: Virtually everything in the place is homemade.

The heavy-duty machines were welded by hand in Baltimore, and most of the other stuff was constructed personally by the Hard team, led by founder Mark Schuler. While taking me on a tour of the place, he proudly points out the ab board, a tilted plank of wood with a T-shaped piece of pipe at one end to hold your feet. A similar pipe connected to used weight plates form what Schuler calls "T-grips." "It can do most of what a kettlebell can," he explains. Then there are the red boxes with the word "Hard" spray painted on them. "We made different sizes for different capabilities -- for step-ups, box jumps," he says, lifting one up, so I can spy design sketches on the underside.

Barbells, also made from salvaged parts, sit on a stand constructed from plumping pipe. The same material was attached to the ceiling for a monkey bars/chin-up bar hybrid that Schuler leaps up to grab. "They're very multipurpose," he says, swinging.

Not counting the cost of man-hours, it's definitely cheaper to put a gym together this way. And it might serve as an inspiration for handymen and women who are on the lookout for new projects. But why go so DIY? Partially, he says, it proves they're serious about what they do. "We wanted to create the atmosphere of true training. It shows the passion. We're knee-deep in this stuff," he says. But the thrill goes beyond the aesthetic: "I think it's one of those things that gives you a sense of accomplishment. It's really cool to see it in motion and at work."

And it sure was a lot of work that started with figuring out how to pack training benefits beyond what you can get with traditional weight equipment in a small space. Certain pieces required more imagination than anything else -- there's a tire and a sledgehammer to swing at it, a rope that hangs in the stairwell between the two floors for extra length, and a series of Xs painted on the wall so exercisers can target their medicine ball throws.

But other equipment and accessories demanded serious tool time. Take those medicine balls, for instance. The 20-pounders at Hard start life as cheap basketballs that go under the knife and then get filled with sand. Schuler heals the cuts with Liquid Nails ("It shuts it like a Band-Aid") and then duct tapes the heck out of them. The end result is an improvement over most commercial brands because they don't bounce, hence they can be used for an exercise called "slam ball," which involves smacking a ball to the ground with all of your power, scooping it up and repeating. Plus, medicine balls are the first step toward making tornado balls, another project Schuler hopes to tackle. The idea is to enclose the ball in a basketball net and run a string from one side so you can whip it around.

Although the whole space is filled with these sorts of inventions, Schuler is quick to refuse credit for any of them. He's developed his techniques by swapping secrets with other folks in the industry, who've tinkered away for years. 'There's a whole culture of people who love making their own stuff and thinking outside the box," he says.

That includes Jerry Hill, owner of CrossFit Old Town, who certainly sees the appeal in homemade. "It creates that old garage feeling," he says. And in CrossFit -- a conditioning program that emphasizes constantly challenging your body in creative ways -- there's nothing more desirable. "One day, I'm going back to basics again," he vows, reminiscing about the days when he used to train clients under I-95 in Philadelphia and also made his own medicine balls. (Instead of Liquid Nails and duct tape, he sealed up his punctured basketballs with a tire repair kit.)

The demands of his current facility make spending hours funneling sand impractical, so he's gone more commercial with his equipment, but Hill still has some DIY pieces in his arsenal, including a "slosh pipe," an eight-foot-long PVC pipe filled three-quarters with water and capped on the ends. "The water shifts inside so you have to use your stabilizers," he explains.

And one thing Hill will probably never buy are parallettes, which are a scaled down, miniature version of parallel bars from gymnastics. In CrossFit, they're used for moves like L-sits and handstand push-ups, and while you can purchase them, Hill says his come exclusively from parallette-making parties. "I need to throw another one soon because one of ours broke when someone dropped a barbell on it," he says.

If all of this sounds a little too Home Depot for you, join the club. But even I -- who struggle putting together Ikea furniture -- have discovered a DIY piece of equipment I can "make." Or, if you insist on being all technical about it, "open."

I first saw it in action while working out at the DCJCC, when personal trainer Shirley Eggleston handed Emilie Carroll, 24, her secret weapon: two paper plates. Soon Carroll was in push-up position walking her hands toward the mirror at one side of the room while her feet were dragged along by the casual dinnerware. "It's working her arms, core and building cardio, and she's using her whole body weight," Eggleston told me, right after Carroll complained, "This is impossible."

Which it may be. But it's also a cheapo version of those purple gliding discs you may have seen at another gym or on TV. And just because the pair of plates costs about $20 less, it's obvious that doesn't make it any less effective as an exercise. "They always look at me like I'm crazy the first time I bring them out," Eggleston says. "Then it's, 'Oh no, not the paper plates.' " Somehow I'm thinking Schuler would respond with an "Oh, yes."

Comments: misfits@washpost.com.