So Niner picked up the BodySolid G5S home gym from the warehouse, and when I got home, I assembled it.
That killed 5 hours.
Notes on install:
1) Cut a hole in the ceiling drywall about a foot long by 8' wide or so, and took the time to make sure it was square to the wall and to itself. Used the studfinder to centre the hole between floor joists, a 5/8" spade bit to open up the corners, and a jigsaw to do the actual cut. Worked flawlessly - take that Mike Holmes!
Discovered that there is fiberglass pink in the ceiling , but it looks like they used R12 (for 2X4 stud walls) instead of R24 (for 2X8 joists)
2) That turned out to be not quite enough clearance for the rear pulley, so I cut out the carpet underneath the machine to drop it down another 1/2". That worked. That carpet is seriously nasty and has to be replaced anyway, so no big loss.
I'm curious about how deep the concrete floor pad is. It's temping to inset the concrete and drop the machine right into the floor - that would also probably drop it down far enough to eliminate the need for the ceiling notch... but anyway.
3) Body Solid, if you change the design of your machine during its product lifetime, that's OK - but for the love of God, update the assembly instructions to match! It's a good thing I have designed similar structures and know how this stuff goes together (and I expect projects like this to go not quite as planned - nothing for a race car ever just "bolts right up") or I'd still be scratching my head.
4) My Dewalt 18V 1/2" cordless impact wrench rocks. Most of the hardware is 3/4" hex drive (not metric? In this day and age?) and that's a perfect size for the impact gun. Zap-zap-zap and it's together. I figure that saved a couple of hours of assembly time, easy.
5) Overall, I really approve of the design of this machine. Good materials, solid concepts... one or two minor nits I could pick, but overall, I really approve of the engineering done here - picked up a couple of clever tricks for mounting bearings and bushings too. This is one solid machine. And working out the free body diagram for the pulley system was fun. :)
So this morning, time to put the plan in place - get up a touch earlier, and do a quick workout. As it turns out, I can do most of the exercises without even having to get off the machine and change positions, which is a real timesaver.
Also interesting is that different exercises have different mechanical advantages, so it's possible to get different weights without moving the weight pin.
3 sets of 15 reps of the chest press @ 50 lbs
2 sets of 10 reps of the leg extension @ 75 lbs (too much weight; will have to back that down some)
3 sets of 15 reps of the pec fly @ 22.5 lbs (moved the weight pin for this)
3 sets of 15 reps of forward crunches @ 30 lbs
2 sets of 15 reps of bicep curl @ 30 lbs
That took 15 minutes, and it kicked my ass too. The last couple of reps on each exercise was a struggle, and I was definitely feeling the burn afterwards... But 15 minutes... damn, that's *NOTHING*. I can do that!
I think I'll reorder so I do chest press at 50 lbs, then crunches @ 50 lbs, then change weight down to 30lbs, and do leg extensions, pec fly, and pulldowns, and finish up with the bicep curl.
The machine is rock solid and totally smooth too. It feels like gym equipment. Yeah, it set me back 2 bills, but it seems to be quality stuff.
After that was done and I wobbled into the shower, I realized we got the biggest snowstorm Windsor has seen in a decade, and I have 50m x 1/2m of snow to shovel. Just light powder, but after that workout.... damn, that hurts.
Not *hurt* hurt, but sore as hell. Ouch ouch ouch.
DG