Construction of a Slosh Pipe

If you haven’t heard of the splash pipe before, you’re probably wondering what the heck it is. The basic design, and that is the beauty of it, there is NO complex design, it is a 10′, 4″ diameter PVC pipe (3″ for women or men with smaller hands), partially filled with water and equipped with 2 end caps. You can use glue-on hard plastic caps or removable rubber caps that come with plumber’s tape, the adjustable, screw-on type. Fill it up so the whole thing weighs about 42lbs (or 28lbs for the 3″ version) and you want to mark the center with some masking tape. That’s it. The whole project, once you get all the materials, takes less from 15 minutes to It can certainly withstand the elements that live outside, however if you live in an area where it drops below freezing you should add anti-freeze windshield washer fluid If you live indoors then you shouldn’t have a problem Wherever you do use, make sure you have at least a 12″ diameter clearance. If you really don’t have that much room, feel free to cut it to whatever length your space can accommodate.

Training with a Slosh Pipe

What’s so great about the slosh pipe? It’s a simple tool that’s incredibly effective at training the entire kinetic chain with every exercise. It falls into the realm of what is known as foreign object lifting, along with sledgehammers, tractor tires, and sandbags. Because it’s only partially filled, the water can move back and forth with every little movement you make, continually changing where the weight of the water sits inside the pipe. Now what you need to remember is that because you have a 10 foot long pipe, when you hold it in the middle, you now have about 20 pounds of water moving all the way to the end of the pipe, about 4-5 feet away. of your center of balance. As the water moves toward the end of the pipe, it creates more torque. This creates an extremely variable load on the entire muscular system as the water never stays in place. Continuous load change requires micro-adjustments of every muscle in your body, putting more demands on your system and recruiting far more muscles than any traditional version of the same exercise. The slosh pipe is to a bar what a stability ball is to a bench.

What does this all mean?

Imagine that the pipe is on your shoulders in the shape of a crucifix and you are standing and you are not keeping perfect balance with the pipe: all the water moves towards the lower end of the pipe. If everything flows to the right side, you now have the right arm working to raise the pipe, the left arm pushing down to lower the pipe, the back trying to keep the spine upright, the core muscles trying to maintain total body stability , and your legs moving back and forth to prevent you from walking. Every muscle is working synergistically to coordinate this balancing act: all your stabilizers are working nonstop; all your muscles are working non-stop. The first time you pick up a Slosh pipe, you WILL notice EVERY muscle in your body being activated at the same time. In the long run, this means you get more work done in less time!

Adaptability of other exercises

There are numerous exercises that are adaptable to slosh pipe training: squats, good mornings, lunges, calf raises, chest press, shoulder press, side bends, 180′ trunk rotation, just to name a few. You can do sit-ups, isometric back extensions, kayak paddles, bicep curls, just about anything you can do with a barbell or Bodybar®, Bosu®, or stability ball. Have fun and experiment.

muscle confusion

As the kitchen saying goes, “variety is the spice of life.” The same is true in exercise. Muscle confusion is the principle that to continue achieving results you must change your routine regularly. Currently, the belief is that your body adapts to what you are doing after 4-6 weeks, which is why it usually plateaus after doing the same routine for months. All that is needed is a variable to make it a different exercise. If you think about it another way, what does your bicep do? Brings wrist closer to shoulder under load. So how does an exercise “confuse” the body? Simple changes are all that is required. Using your biceps as an example, you can change the angle your arm is at in relation to your body, you can sit or stand, use a dumbbell or barbell, change the pace at which you perform the exercise, the number of reps or sets you perform . ; but your bicep is still pulling your wrist closer to your shoulder. This is why you will see so many different types of equipment in a gym. Any adjustment will challenge your brain to think about the exercise you are doing. By constantly adding new exercise methods to your routine, you can ensure that you don’t plateau and break through those walls you’ve already run into.

It’s fun!

All of this aside, did I mention that he’s fun to play with? The look of determination on people’s faces, or pain as some might describe it, is priceless. I’ve seen big guys who can bench press twice my weight and can’t stop a splash tube from tilting back and forth uncontrollably. This thing is unlike any other tool you’ll use in your training and best of all, it’s cheap and easy to make! So get out there and start splashing around.