Deadlift Jack

This is a wooden deadlift jack. It is used to assist in loading plates on to the bar for deadlifts.

Timeline

I designed and constructed this in 1 day.

Motivation

During a co-op in North Carolina, I joined a private powerlifting gym and enjoyed the luxeries that they had to offer. One of these luxieries was a full size deadlift jack. A deadlift jack is a weightlifting accessory that is designed to help lift and load plates onto the bar when performing deadlifts. The jack is placed under the bar and used to raise the bar slightly off the ground. The image below illustrates the jack I was using with the height slightly off the ground. The small gap that is made makes it easier to slide plates on and off the bar. Without the jack, loading the kilogram powerlifting plates was nearly impossible since they required 2 hands to hold due to them being so thin and slippery. During the 4 months I became accustomed to using a jack and when I came home, I did not have access to one. This meant that loading and unloading plates from the bar was difficult, time consuming, and increased the amount of unneccessary strain that I put on myself during the loading and unloading process. There are simple solutions that people use or recommend such as:

Unfortunately, both of these solutions pose their own issues for me:

Since these simple solutions did not work for me, I decided to create my own personal jack to make my life easier.

Design

The requirements were:

First, I determined the largest size of jack that I could fit in to my bag was 24" long. From there, I chose to draw a 19" x 5" rectangle since I wanted it to be as long as possible to provide maximum leverage but still slightly smaller than the maximum size to make it easier to pack in my bag. Then, I looked at common dimensions for plates and drew the hole for the bar slightly higher than the radius of the plate to ensure there would be a gap from the bottom of the plate to the ground. The average powerlifting bar has a 29mm (1.14") diameter but I made the hole 1 5/16" (1.3125") since that was the closest hole saw bit I had. Next, I marked out a handle, estimating a reasonable width. For the location of the handle, I placed it directly in line above the hole where the bar will sit to ensure that there is approximately 0 distance in the x direction so there would be no moment. I took into consideration that there would be large moment on this handle created from the distance in the y direction so I made sure to keep the width dimension as large as I could while maintaining something comfortable to use. Then, I made some more cuts to allow for easier loading of the bar and rolling of the jack.

Construction

I chose to use wood for this project since I had material sitting around and the material would not damage the bars at the gym. I found some scrap 3/4" plywood in my basement, cut 2 rectangles from it using my table saw, and glued them together. From there, I measured and drew the cut lines for the handle, bar holder, and rolling features. I then used my drill with a 1 5/16" hole saw bit to cut the hole for the bar. Then used my bandsaw to cut out the handle and rolling features. Next, I sanded the handle edges for comfort, and finished the entire piece with 3 coats of polyurethane since I expected the jack to get beat up in my bag and during use.

Testing

I went to the gym the next day to test it. To start, it fit in my gym bag therefore the first requirement was fufilled. Next, I progressed from 0-3 plates and completed my workout with any issue so the 3rd and 4th requirements were fufilled. Finally, I loaded 5 plates on to the bar and it rolled without any issue meaning all requirements were fufilled. I was extremely impressed with how easy it was to roll the bar. It almost felt the same as the full size jack I was used to from before, but at a fraction of the size. The only issue I had was after 2 plates, I would have to be more gentle when loading or unloading plates because if I was too agressive then the jack would tend to want to fall sideways. This issue is not huge but it is slighly annoying.

add testing vid and pics

Outcome

Overall, I am very happy with the outcome of this project. I was able to find a problem and develop a simple and effective solution for cheap.

Recomendations for Future Iterations