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Homebrewed Wrist Roller Machine
The wrist roller is a great forearm exercise. The usual apparatus is pretty simple - a short fat pipe with a cord attached to the middle. You attach a weight to the end of the cord, hold the pipe out at arm’s length, and lift the weight by twisting the pipe and rolling up the cord. When the weight reaches the pipe, you unroll it.
Simple, but limited; your forearms will soon be strong enough to handle weights you can’t hold out at arms length. There are commercial machines that let you duplicate the exercise, but you don’t have to have one if you’re up for a little rigging.
One easy way to overcome this limitation is to just rest the pipe on something. (You’ll probably need to make the wrist roller out of longer pipe.) Two handy resting spots you can find in many gyms: the pins of the power rack, or the top of the parallel dip bars. If you do the exercise resting this way, you’ll probably just want twist both hands back and forth together, so the weight just bobs up and down a few inches.
I have used a 3′ pipe resting across the top of dip bars many times and it’s a fine setup, but this one is even a little better:
This is pretty much self explanatory. It is made from a $2 nylon dog leash. A short loop of chain and a snap link are clipped where the dog’s collar would normally go.
The attachment to the bar took just a little work. I carefully cut the stitching of the hand loop with a razor, so I’d have just flat strap to work with. The nylon strap would slip on the sleeve without some treatment. I just rubbed some silicone adhesive into the fabric, which dries to a slightly tacky surface. (If you have ever used a plumber’s strap wrench, that is what I was going for.)
The knot is a clove hitch. For those of you who were booted from the boy scouts before you learned the clove hitch, here’s a picture:
That’s it, give it a go, for less than $5 and less than 15 minutes, you can’t go wrong!
Byron Chandler
on October 8th, 2006 at 10:56 am
Thus proving that “Where there’s a will…there’s a way.” Although I’ve seen this before…the idea of using the dog leash tied in a clove hitch is fairly ingenious. The revolving sleeve of even a cheap Olympic bar should be smoother than just a piece of pipe or a PVC sleeve over a bar. Good work, Byron.
on October 9th, 2006 at 5:04 am
Thank you sir!
This setup is especially convenient if you train at a commercial gym - easy to fit in your gym bag.
on October 9th, 2006 at 8:09 am
Is this the now-famous Joe’s gym? The one with the Alaskan-seasoned reverse hyper?
on October 9th, 2006 at 12:21 pm
That is the place! The reverse hyper is off to the left of the power rack with the safety squat bar.
on November 24th, 2006 at 6:08 pm
[…] A very useful power rack may be had for about $250 dollars, or if you’re handy, can be built for about half that price. There are plans in the IOL Wiki database for such a rack constructed from 4×4 lumber. It is rare to find these used and they don’t stay on the market very long. Generally, people who buy a power rack have carefully considered the purchase and won’t normally part with it, unless unusual circumstances force the sale. For similar reasons, used power racks don’t last long on the market before they are snapped up by someone that has been patiently searching for one. A power rack can also be used as the base unit for a variety of homemade training devices, such as a wrist roller, dipping bars and hyperextension/reverse hyperextension bench. Your creativity will only be limited by your imagination and pocketbook. […]