I wanted to get some thoughts from you guys about some things you maybe have come up with for strength and conditioning that you've made or either some alternatives to strength equipment you've found.

For example, the use of heavy tires are pretty popular with various strength programs. I was thinking that you could use smaller tires (like the donuts on some cars for spares) as make shift medicine balls. I've also heard some people using old empty beer kegs and throwing them as well. Any other ideas? I know baseball coaches are pretty good at rigging things up to save some money.

Slosh pipe.....easy to make, breaks up the routine, and a tough workout.

I've made a lot of stuff:

- Tires like you said for pulling and hitting w/ bat
- Plyo boxes (plywood)
- Medicine balls (basketballs w/ sand)
- Gymnastic rings (nylon straps and PVC or rope)
- Use "horsemat" for rubber gym type flooring
- Rig a galvanized pipe for pull-up bar
- Almost anything will work for obstacle type cones
- Agility ladders from straps and paint stir sticks

Honestly, you can DIY almost anything if you know what you want it to do. Also, it is amazing what you can do with just "body weight" exercises such as lunges, pushups, burpees, etc...

Great suggestions; to one I would add "jump rope" (obviously, this would ideally be a quality piece of rope). If I were the Emperor of baseball training, I would decree that any player that wanted to play infield would jump rope for at least ten minutes a day.

Oh, and sand bags. We use them all the time; very unstable to hold and they can be used for multiple exercises. Great for building the grip too!

Rice Buckets for forearm and grip strength.