Introduction: How to Make a Sand Duffel Bag for Weight Training

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About: I am the master of nothing!

So I've been planning to make this sand duffel bag for a while now, and I've finally had enough motivation to do so, the main purpose of the bag is to use it for weight training and heavy lifting, so using it to dead lift, clean and press and squat.

This style of training is now becoming more and more less common, Strength training is all about building strength, not size, and this is done through a different style of technique. Often at gyms you will be hard pressed to find people that work for strength, instead it is dominated by bodybuilders and people who want size.

So then why a sand bag, and why not just strength train using barbells or dumbbells. Well one of the best thing about a sand bag is its form, its so unique in the way it is round, nothing else is like it, plus when using a sand bag, because of its dynamic form, it means when lifting since it is moving everywhere, you will need to use your core muscles to stabilize the bag above you. Using the sand bag would be like compound exercises, exercises that work out more than one muscles of your body, much different to bicep curls, which only work one thing. Plus every time you do a clean and press with the bag, it always works different parts of your body as each time you do the movement, each situation is random!

The Bag doesn't just consist of sand though, it is made up of smaller bags within that hold a certain type of weight, so being able to adjust weight is easy!

But remember kids! to do research and ask or help before you start any form of heavy lifting, i would recommend using a barbell to do the clean and press and the dead lift first! Its all about good form, and doing the exercises properly so that no injury occurs, i had a mate that helped to teach me how to do it correctly! so remember work hard but keep it safe!



Step 1: Materials

Alright, so to make the duffel sand bag, there will be a few things that you will need. Here is a list and the prices

Sand
I got about 100 kilos worth of this stuff, its already washed and wet, cost about $7 au per 25kg, also save the bags they come in, as they will be used to hold the 10kg increment

Duffel Bag
I purchased this online, 140 liters, which hold about 100kg of sand, if you don't want to lift that much then purchase about 90 liters, be sure to get a good quality canvas material, strength is the most important factor of the bag, be sure it can take abuse! mine was a "wild earth" bag it set me back 50 dollars.

Ziplock bag
These will be used for 2.5kg increments of sand, the size was 27cm x 23cm, you want to be sure to have enough room so that you can double up on the bags.

Heavy duty garbage bags
This will hold the 5kg increment. At this weight though, you would be better of purchasing contractor bags, but since i was unable to get a hold of them, i just decided to stick to garbage bags and see how it goes :P

Scales
Measuring weight!

Duck tape
To seal the edges and fortify the increment bags.





Step 2: 2.5 Kg Increment

So with the 2.5kg increment i used a zip lock bag, a rather big one!

First things first, you will be using 2 ziplock bags, be sure to strengthen the edges by using duck tape, on both bags.

Measure out 2.5kg's worth of sand and pour it into the bag, push out most of the air that is left in the bag when tightening it, but be sure to leave some inside so the sand has space to move around, and will have less chance of being punctured. Zip lock it up, and duck tape the top.

Now once the first bag is compact enough, insert it into the secondary bag and do the same procedure there, take out most of the air, fold it over and seal it off compltely

There you have it! a simple 2.5kg weight increment, that should hold if built properly



Step 3: 5kg Increment

Well this basically follows the same procedure as the 2.5kg instead we will be using garbage bags or contractor bags prefereably

With the garbage bag, seal off the bottom and edges with duck tape as that will be the most likely place of a spill happening.

Fill the bag with 5kg of sand, and push out the air, tie off the end of the bag and there should be enough room so that you can use the left over bag and re-wrap it around and tie that off with duck tape, and by doing this you basically get 2 layers of bag from one.

Then use another garbage bag to wrap around it once again, therefore giving you about 4 layers of garbage bags.




Step 4: 10kg

To make this, you basically reuse the bag that originally held the sand, be sure to duck tape off the edges and make sure there's 10kg and then tie off the top and seal it!

These bags were meant to hold this amount of weight, so out of all the increments this should cause the least amount of hassel!

Step 5: Duffel Bag!

Well the last step is to now place all the increments in the Duffel bag, i started off with 40 kgs, and am now working with 50 kgs, the great things is being able to increase weight as needed and always need to push yourself.

So far i haven't come across any spills or tears of any sort, and i hope i don't for a long time.

Plus since the bag  i purchased was so big, i had to tie off the loose end using a piece of webbing.

So i hope that all you strength junkies and workout people out there give this a go! it gives real strength and really helps to develop your strength, power and technique. This plus some other equipment and good cardio is great for a beginner or professional regime. Plus its relatively cheap compared to buying a barbel, This set me back $80 and a barbell and 70kg of weights costs $170!

So i hope you all enjoyed my first ever instructables and i hope there will be more others in the future! Give my blog a visit too!

http://jengsworkshop.blogspot.com/