DIY: How to Build an Olympic Weightlifting Platform
Setting up a home gym?
Homemade Lifting Platform. Love it.
You'll Need
- Four sheets of 3/4-inch CDX plywood
- One sheet of AB or AC plywood
- One 8' x 4' horse stall (rubber) mat
- About five tubes of industrial-strength adhesive
- Calking gun
- 1 ΒΌ" wood screws
- Drill
- Reciprocating saw
Optional/optimal
- Square
- Chalk/string straight line drawing tool
Construction
- Lay two sheets of CDX plywood lengthwise side by side in the direction you will face to lift.
Lay it out. - Spread adhesive.
Glue it together. - Lay two sheets of CDX plywood crosswise on top of bottom sheets.
More plywood. - Screw sheets together 2" from edges, 16" apart, around perimeter and along insides edges of top sheets.
Clamp it down. - Measure and mark for center plywood sheet, running parallel with bottom sheets.
(My camera crapped out on me for the next few steps. Grrrr!) - Glue on higher-grade plywood sheet with better side facing up.
- Screw top sheet along 4' edges ONLY.
- Cut stall mat in half lengthwise.
How to: Lay two boards parallel with gap between them. Lay mat over boards. Draw chalk line down the center. Use reciprocating saw to cut mat into two 8' x 2' strips. - Spread adhesive and lay down mat strips along both sides of top plywood.
Add mat strips.
Sources
My husband and I built my home platform this way, based on a design by Jim Schmitz, as explained in an article on Ironmind by Randy Strossen. We varied only on the adhesive and the mat. I'm contributing my version for some added detail, the technical writing format, and the suggestion of the horse stall mats. Thanks to Tom Hirtz for that idea.
Kat 'The Mighty Kat' Ricker is a bodybuilder, writer and lover of putting heavy things overhead. Find out more over on her site.
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