If you do not have a Slosh Tube…well why not? Seriously, what is wrong with you?
Slosh Tubes are not for elite athletes. In fact, my heaviest one is only 29 pounds. If you look at the bright yellow spray paint in the picture above, you can see my current tool box contains a 29 pound, a 25 pound, an 11 pound, and a 9 pound Slosh Tube. If you do not know how to make one, check out this post or download The Low Cost Gym for complete directions.
Traditionally a Slosh Tube is a 10 foot long PVC pipe half filled with water. The standard sizes are 4″ and 3″ diameters. A 4″ diameter will put you at around 50 pounds. For those of us with tiny hands, a 4″ diameter is unusable. The 3″ diameter will get you the 29 pounds as you see above. I eye-balled the filling of the 25 pound one and apparently I filled it with less than half with water. That is a blessing in disguise because now I have a slightly lighter Slosh Tube for those who aren’t quite up for the 29 pounder.
What if you need an even lighter version? At first we toyed with the Mini Slosh Tube, but the 4 foot length did not allow for the all-too-important “sloshing.” Therefore, we had to create all new exercises for the Mini Slosh Tube. You see, the sloshing is what activates your core, making the Slosh Tube the greatest core-building piece of equipment since the Physioball.
That is when we came up with using the 2″ pipe. My 10 feet long pipes ended up at 9 and 11 pounds (see photo above). These turned out to be perfect for teenagers and women. Well, some women. My wife is already looking for a heavier Slosh Tube. So, here are our thoughts. We are planning on using the 3″ pipe, but testing out shorter lengths such as 8 feet, possibly 7 feet. Any shorter than 7 feet and you risk losing the “sloshing” effect. You can always put in less than half water to get the weight down.
As for my younger daughter, we are thinking of a shorter 2″ pipe, which should prove to be perfect for her. Just remember, the key here is to avoid shortening the pipe like we did with the Mini Slosh Tube.
Let us know if you have any Slosh Tubes and what length/diameter you went with. How heavy is it? Do you love it or what?
Don’t know if you need or want the advice but I also add lead shot to my slosh tube, just to make them a lil bit heavier.
Oh excellent idea! Where would go about getting lead shot and how expensive is it generally? I think that would be great info for our readers.