Free Homemade Variable Weight Bag Dumbbells! (Sociology has never been more useful!)

I've got into circuit training a bit recently, but lack dumbbells where I am ATM.

The annoying thing I have some actual proper weights stashed somewhere else, but no immediate plans to make the trip to collect them, so I'm damned if I'm paying for stuff I already own.

But what I do have where I am is two bags and a load of books, some of which are rather heavy, so I decided to make some mock-dumbbells....

I had been just holding books, but what I can cram in my hands is a bit too light, bags allow me to stack up to around 6KGs in the two bags I've got, more if I employ some other bags which would take more weight, but 6KGs is fine for now.

Below is the process.....

Piles of books, weighting to weighed!

Pun ABSOLUTELY intended! (SMASHED that!)

I got my books out into similar sizes - only the ones I'm liable to use less often these days.... LOTS of sociology books suddenly becoming VERY useful!

Measuring the balancing pole

I didn't have scales so I figured a balance pole using two bamboo canes would do the job, with hanging points equal distances from the center...

Note the one single plate from my collection that made it to my place, the reason being I couldn't be arsed to take it out of the car 18 months ago when I unpacked the rest of them, from the previous move!

Equal weight bags stuffed with books!

Add a chair and then two bags and stuff each with books until they balance. ACTUALLY the seat bit of the chair came in handy as I could rest on bag on this while stuffing the other, made it much less of a faff!

Heavier!

Yeah, it was just a double bamboo cane, and this is with only around 3KGs in each bag, so at its limit.

But overall with all the four combinations I tried, all different weights I COULD go up to around 8KGs in each bag, well I'd need an additional bag for the smaller one as it only fits around 6Kgs worth of books max, it's a small bag.....

Equally weighted book piles!

Fun fact: the selected writings of Karl Marx plus a book on Identity are the same weight as two books on globalisation.

And I've got pictures of the other equally weighted piles.

It's a bit of a hassle swapping the weights around, but I've adapted by mixing one bag dumbbell exercise with one body weight, so I'm not swapping every other round.

It works fine, and it's a bit more awkward that regular dumbbells which is all good in a functional fitness kind of way!