Home made Lat machine

[Joemassey]

i was thinking about making a homemade lat pulldown machine, basically my home gym in in my shed and i was going to pass a piece of rope(or whatever) through a couple of loops in the roof and then down to tie on to some weights, would this work and if not what do you think would go wrong with it, let me know if my descripton isn't clear and i'll try to improve it.

[ninjaneer]

i was thinking about making a homemade lat pulldown machine, basically my home gym in in my shed and i was going to pass a piece of rope(or whatever) through a couple of loops in the roof and then down to tie on to some weights, would this work and if not what do you think would go wrong with it, let me know if my descripton isn't clear and i'll try to improve it.

You incorporating a pulley somewhere? Why not just do pull-ups?

[Joemassey]

You incorporating a pulley somewhere? Why not just do pull-ups?

Good point,

[sherman]

This make low budget sense? Takes a strong pot, but good for quick load changes.

[KBKB]

A resistance band attached to a sufficiently high anchor could work well too. Definitely not as much fun to rig up though...

[JJ-]

Unless you are planning on using a pulley the rope will just wear down and break. I think you would have better luck with a resistance band like the above poster suggested.

[Kodokan]

I've played around with this using two pulleys, a loading pin for the plates, and a coated wire along with a couple of clamps from the hardware store.

You fix the pulleys to a high point...I used carabiners to a high mounted pullup bar. You feed through the wire, and at each end of the wire you double it back on itself and put on the clamp to make a small loop. You have to tighten these quite tightly with a wrench to make sure it won't come loose while in use. This happened to me once, which was a pain and the weight came crashing down.

Then, you use a a carabiner to put the loading pin on one side, and another carabiner to attach to whatever bar you want.

I decided I'd rather have my pull-up bar free, but it was a workable setup if you really want something like that for tricep pushdowns. With a little silicone spray it was quite smooth.

...but all that said I'd probably rather pick up a used lat machine. There's also no good way to do rows using this kind of setup.

[Wildtim]

I've played around with this using two pulleys, a loading pin for the plates, and a coated wire along with a couple of clamps from the hardware store.

You fix the pulleys to a high point...I used carabiners to a high mounted pullup bar. You feed through the wire, and at each end of the wire you double it back on itself and put on the clamp to make a small loop. You have to tighten these quite tightly with a wrench to make sure it won't come loose while in use. This happened to me once, which was a pain and the weight came crashing down.

Then, you use a a carabiner to put the loading pin on one side, and another carabiner to attach to whatever bar you want.

I decided I'd rather have my pull-up bar free, but it was a workable setup if you really want something like that for tricep pushdowns. With a little silicone spray it was quite smooth.

...but all that said I'd probably rather pick up a used lat machine. There's also no good way to do rows using this kind of setup.

I did the same thing Kodokan did for a while. Pulleys bolted to my ceiling joists 1/4 inch coated cable and a snow plow skid for a loading pin. Never could get it to slide anywhere near as smoothly as a cheap lat machine. I figure the problem was my pulleys but if I had spent enough to get good pulleys I would have ha more into the contraption than it was worth and than I ended up paying far a lat low row machine.

[Kodokan]

I did the same thing Kodokan did for a while. Pulleys bolted to my ceiling joists 1/4 inch coated cable and a snow plow skid for a loading pin. Never could get it to slide anywhere near as smoothly as a cheap lat machine. I figure the problem was my pulleys but if I had spent enough to get good pulleys I would have ha more into the contraption than it was worth and than I ended up paying far a lat low row machine.

I pretty much came to the same conclusion. I think you could fiddle with it and get one running pretty smooth, but still even the tubular lat pulldowns attached to squat stands / half racks which I see at Play-It-Again seem a little better.

[tombro]

way way way back in the day when all i had was a parabody rack with the straight pull up bar in the front, what i did was simply buy like 400 feet of the rope from home depot for like 9.99 and i cut it into ten foot links and tied one end to a carabiner and the other to a loading pin with 45's on it and simply did lat pulls and tricep pushdowns that way. the only problem is after like a few sessions of heavy use the rope would start to wear down so id replace it like once every 2 weeks. so honestly, for 9.99 of rope, it lasted well over a year and i know it seems half a*s, but no moreso than any of the things discussed on this thread so far, and it required no work and no permanent space and served me great until i found a good lat tower on craigs. to be honest, i preferred this better than the cheap light commercial lat towers i tried out from body solid and nybb

[tombro]

lat towers r funny business. i personally never ran into a home model lat tower that didnt have at least 2 major problems that inabled me to get decent use out of it. knock on wood, the cybex 250lb weightstack one i found for 200 bucks on craigs 4 years ago, i use it 4 times a week, heavy loads every time, and so far, not one issue. thing seems like it will outlast my grandkids...ITS funny how the lat tower, when reliable and sturdy, can be used just as much as a power rack. i have 9 lat attachments alone, 4 tricep attachments, 2 ab attachments, 2 bicep attchments, and recently i discovered that if i attach my valeo ab straps to it with no chain, its an instant pull over machine. making a discovery like that, in my sick mind, is like finding 3 grand in the street somewhere, caz thats what a pull over runs you