Ok, step one is to cut everything out and sadly, I put everything together before I wrote this so I don’t have good in between shots. Strangely though, I’ve gone back over everything and somehow I managed to make all of the important cuts at 60 cm/23.6 inches. I say strangely because I honestly didn’t measure anything but rather just eyeballed it. Also, this is very important! Make sure that you cut the pieces in such a way that when everything is assembled, pulling on the suspension trainer, pulls the cam buckle in the direction that closes the buckle. Failure to think this step through will results in you creating a piece of unusable garbage. This fact may also make void some of the measurements and steps below.
- So from the cam buckle, measure 60cm, strap only e.g., without the buckle, and cut the strap. You’ll now have a short piece with the buckle on one end, and a long piece of nylon strap with nothing. Don’t forget to burn the ends so the nylon doesn’t fray.
- Next, on the long piece of nylon, cut another short section 60cm long. This will be your foot strap.
Both of the handle loops are roughly 60cm. The hand loop looks a little smaller because a portion is sewn to close the loop.
- For the other strap, make the exact same cuts as the first one. You should now have, two 60 cm straps each with buckles on the end, two 60 cm straps with nothing on either end and two long straps also with nothing either on the end.
- If you haven’t done so, cut your PVC pipe handles to length and install the bicycle grips. To cut the PVC pipe, I used a hacksaw. I also chamfered the inner and outer edges of the pipe to be less abrasive on the nylon strap.
Chamfered edges on the suspension trainer handles.
- Take the long piece of strap and thread it through the pvc pipe and fold it back on itself. No here, you have several options for closing the handle loop. One suggestion is a bowline knot, like in SteveoReed’s blog, (I think he’s the original guy suggesting this). I chose instead to sew mine. One note about sewing though is make sure you’re using a heavy duty sewing machine.
- After that, thread the short piece of strap through the handle and under the first strap, to create the foot loop. Again, you can sew or tie a knot and again I chose to sew.
one suspension trainer handle with foot loop, finished
- To make the straddle strap, take the two 60cm pieces with the buckles on the end and on the strap end, overlap them 5 cm/2 inches and sew those together. Make sure that the buckles are oriented the same way.
Cam buckles should be oriented the same way as shown before sewing.Finished straddle strap. The overlap here is 5 cm. Also note the cam-buckle orientation.
Finished straddle strap. The overlap here is 5 cm. Also note the cam-buckle orientation.
- For the anchor, take the wide nylon strap and overlap it 5 cm/2 inches and sew it together in loop. Fold the loop flat and sew it shut every 6 cm or 3 inches. This will be how you’ll adjust the over all height of your suspension trainer.
To assemble your homemade suspension trainer, put one end of the anchor strap on the carabiner and thread the straddle strap through the loop on the other end. Run your each handle strap through it’s cam buckle and that’s it. Total Cost: 3189 yen or $37.93. In America, you’ll probably be able to build this for about a third of the cost. Total Time: about 4 hours.
So far, I’ve worked out a number of times and overall it’s pretty fun and gives a good workout. Combined with the army PT guide, a jump rope and my homemade suspension trainer, you’ve got a myriad of cardio and strength training workouts to pack along anywhere, come rain or shine.
Go back to Frugal Health or back to How to Build a Homemade Suspension Trainer Part I
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