Poor Men's workout: Kettlebell using a basketball?

From our last post in Poor Men's workout we spoke about using basketball as a DIY medicine ball for your workout.

Today we will show you some ideas of making a kettlebell using a basketball and other materials.

Average kettlebell now cost about USD 50 + around RM150 and more depending on the weight. Using the same concept of using the basketball as a weight (with a different filling instead of air) you can make a kettlebell as well. all you need is a PVC handle.

What you will need:

Materials:
-1 bag of pre-mixed concrete mix
-1 cheap rubber ball (under $5)
-26" of 3/4" or 1" PVC (sch40)
-Small quantity of sand
-Duct tape


Tools:
-1 Hacksaw or Jig Saw
-1 Heat Gun or Oven
-1 Bucket (for mixing)
-1 Small Garden Spade or similar tool (for mixing and transferring concrete to the ball)
-1 Pair of Scissors


You can follow this guide here in this blog post on the technical side of how to get the cutting, patching and finishing done.

The handle used for these Kettlebells is made from PVC pipe which has been heated and bent to form.
3/4" PVC is sufficient for smaller weights (10 - 20 lbs.), but use 1" PVC for larger weights.  To save costs on these builds you can use PVC Conduit (for electrical installations). 


For sizes & weights, a mini basketball will end up around 13 lbs. or so, while a full sized basketball will be just under 30 lbs.  You can also adjust the weight of the Kettlebell by adding in less/more dense items (ie. lead or steel shot or washers, etc to increase the weight, or packing peanuts or similar to decrease the weight).

Use the hacksaw to cut the PVC to a 26" length.  Depending on your preferences you may want a bigger or smaller handle, but I've found that 26" makes a comfortable sized handle.

Use Duct tape to cover the opening of one end of the PVC. Fill the PVC pipe with sand. Once packed full, use Duct Tape to seal the other opening of the PVC. The sand is used to keep the PVC from losing its roundness when being heated up and shaped.

Once the PVC has been filled with sand and sealed with Duct tape, it is ready to be heated and formed.

There are two options that I've tried and both have worked well.  The first is to use a heat gun to heat the PVC until it is pliable enough to bend and form the handle shape.  The other is to use an oven.  With the oven method, I would wrap the PVC with tin-foil, place it on a baking sheet and heat it at 350F for 10min.  After that, the entire length of PVC is soft and ready to be bent.

Whichever method you use to heat the PVC up, you would then either bend it by hand (using oven mitts for protection) or use a template to wrap the PVC around to create the shape you want.  Ultimately you want the PVC to be shaped like a triangle with nicely rounded corners.

Once the PVC has been bent, you need to keep it in this shape until the PVC cools again.  Dipping the pipe in cool water will help speed this process up. Once cooled, you have yourself a handle.

NOTE: if you are not happy with the shape of the handle, simply use a heat gun to re-heat the area of concern and re-shape it again. With the handle complete, it's time to move on to the ball.


All in all the cost is going to be only mainly the ball at RM10 while the tools are stuff you can pull out from your home (even if you dont have tool like hacksaw / hammer / heat gun they will only add up to about RM50 which you will only need to buy 1 time).

Happy swinging.