Photo credit to Ivan Samkov
As you may have guessed from the projects section of this blog, I like home gym stuff. I work with a limited space and as such I try to squeeze the most out of it. In 2023, I bought a lat pull / low row kit from Rogue. The lat pull seat is very nice, exactly what I expect from Rogue. The low row did not work for me. This might be a result of trying to attach it to an EliteFTS rack, something it was most definitely not designed for and a project which involved a lot of welding and an oxyacytelene torch. In any case, it did not work and that was likely not the fault of the fine people at Rogue Fitness.
All that said, I think they are onto something with trying to combine pieces but I think my way is better. The lat pull seat and the low row are separate and bulky items. For these two bulky items, I get two machines. If I want to do rows, I need to attach both of them to the rack. In my version, I have two bulky items which replace three machines. If I want to do rows, I only need to attach one of them. The main downside is that I cannot set up my rack to do lat pulldowns and low rows at the same time (which is a combination of exercises commonly done together).
[Caption] My full squat rack is a combination of parts from EliteFTS and Rogue Fitness as well as my own welding/fabrication.
Our device needs to transfer the tension in the cable at the top down to a pulley or two at the bottom. Because I do not know for sure what height of pulley I want for the low row or what distance from the upright I want for the belt squat, I am going to make them adjustable. Hence the 9 hole positions for each pulley.
[Caption] Low row belt squat attachment.
I am using the foot plate from Rogue's kit in this build. The pulleys are from amazon.
[Caption] From the 3d model, I made this dxf file for the machine shop to plasma cut my parts from 1/4" steel plate.
[Caption] Also from the 3d model, I made an exploded view to reduce confusion as I welded everything together.
The holes in the center pieces are deliberately missing. The pulleys I have require a 1/4 inch bolt and therefore 1/4 inch holes in the center pulley supports. The plasma table cannot accurately cut a 1/4 inch hole so I plan to drill those with a manual drill press.