Homemade Equipment

Joe Herzog
Region 28 Director for CAHPERD
President of the Fresno Alliance for Phys. Educ. and Athletics
Fresno, California

I have made millions of PVC hurdles from 6" to 10" in height. They were a foundational part of our Plyometrics unit as the kids did all kinds of bounding, forward, backwards and side to side exercises over them, including bounding after they came off of a jump box.  You can do dribbling or dodging skills around them.  We also had kids who could jump rope over the lowest ones, side to side. 

We made courses for our "auto-rama" with scooter boards. In our track and field unit we had kids running over sticks laid out on the ground, a flight of 6" hurdles, one of 8" and one of 10", then to regular 30" and 36" hurdles. We started out progressing from low to high, or as high as the kid felt comfortable and after that it was student choice (challenge by choice/low level risk taking), but there was something everyone could do.

A couple of sets of graduated weight medicine balls were very beneficial. We do lots of fitness exercises (crunches/partners crunches and plyometric drills).  We did lots of backward over the head throwing to teach explosiveness. Balls were 4Lb, 7lb and 10 lb. Don Chu (CSU Hayward) and Tom Fahey (CSU Chico) have great books on plyometrics and medicine ball exercises.

For more information contact Joe at bigfish344@hotmail.com