DIY Recycled Bottle Hand Weights

My hand weights and kettle bell are among the few things have not made their way from Michigan to me here in New York. The reason being that they are obviously too heavy to ship in the mail – it would cost more in shipping them than it would be to just buy new ones. So why don’t I just buy new ones? A couple reasons – 1. any store that sells weights and other workout equipement is likely not to be within walking distance of my house, and these are things one must consider living in NYC. The closest place I can buy hand weights is a Target thats about 5 subways stops away from me which means I’d have to trek all the way to the store and then carry the things back a 20 minute trip carrying them and walking with them – ugh. Anyway, carrying 10 lbs worth of weights never sounds like a fun idea to me and that’s why I’ve been perpetually putting it off. Reason number 2. weights can be kind of expensive, and worse – They are more expensive the heavier they are! (At Target the Reebok brand of wights prices were as follows: two lb weights were 5.99 each 3 lb weights were 6.99 each, 5 lb weights were 9.99 each, and so on up to 29.99 for a 20 lb weight.)  And you might as well double that price because if you’re buying hand weights you’re likely to be buying two, right? Not very good motivation for you to push yourself for the 10 pounders right? (“I’m not lazy, I’m just frugal.”)

So lately when working out, if a move is calling for weights, I usually just grab the closest heavy thing to me and use that (my jug of homemade fabric softener, jug of maple syrup… don’t judge) and this isn’t very effective because those jugs are irregular shapes that makes them difficult to grasp and they aren’t completely full of liquid so they aren’t even really that heavy.

Well, these are officially my “no excuses” weights because I already had the empty plastic bottles laying around and I could buy tiny fish tank rocks at a hardware store down the road and putting them together was the easiest DIY I’ve ever done.

So that brings me to what you will need:

-2 five lb bags of tiny fish tank rocks

-empty and cleaned out plastic bottles (of varying number and size, depending.)

You could buy other pebbles, but I recommend fish tank rocks because they are tiny and therefore allow for less air space in your container and can make for heavier weights.

Why I specify plastic bottles is, though glass bottles may be good because they add more weight, when your hands get sweaty they may get slippery and the last thing you want while getting your work out on is a glass bottle full of tiny rocks slipping and breaking spewing glass and pebbles all over the floor.

As far as sizes go, I used a 44 fl oz bottle of Arizona green tea  for my four lb weight, and two 34 fl oz for my 3 lb weights. I chose these bottles because they were good shapes for me to get a good grip on while using them, so that’s something to think about when choosing your plastic bottles. You can make whatever sizes and weights you want accordingly. If you put a weight together and you’re unsure of how much it weighs, then just weigh it on your scale and if it’s too heavy or too light just remove or add rocks accordingly.

As far as directions go…

Open bag of rocks, pour rocks into bottle, done.

See? Easy. No excuses.

Now put these bad boys to good use with this Tone It Up Love Your Arms routine! Love these girls and their weekly work out routines!