The Simple But Effective Slosh Pipe

I didn't grow up poor, not exactly, but we were close enough to see it in the not so far off distance. I was a pretty athletic kid. I played very physical sports like football and soccer, ran track and worked out pretty religiously from an early age. Working out was great when I was able to use the school gym, but there were times when I wasn't able to, and we didn’t have any money for gym memberships or anything like that so I would have to improvise.

I remember watching the Rocky movies and loving the basic but grueling workouts that Rocky would do in preparation for his fights. None of the routines required expensive gym memberships or fancy equipment and I tried my best to emulate those workouts. Fast forward to today, I enjoy my gym membership and have no intention of letting that go, but I do still have a spot in my heart for those basic types of workouts from back in the day. It's not something that I do exclusively, but it is something that I like to do from time to time.

One of the tools that I like to use is the slosh pipe. Ever head of it? If not, you’re in for a good ass kicking. Let me start with a brief description. A slosh pipe is nothing more than a 4 inch diameter PVC pipe that’s capped at both ends and filled about 2/3’s full with water. Mine is 10 feet long but they can be cut to any length. As you can imagine trying to control ~40 pounds of water “sloshing” around inside this pipe is very, very difficult. The movement of the water inside the pipe forces your stabilizer muscles to work overtime just to keep your body upright and for me that’s the core workout that I was looking for.

The beauty of this beast is that you don’t have to get fancy with it. Any number of simple motions are perfect for getting great results using this tool. All you have to do is pick it up, hold it close to your chest and start walking. I walk my drive way. Sometimes I even do squats while holding it, but that is some seriously hard shit (for me at least). Another thing I've attempted but never mastered is balancing on one foot, for as long as possible while holding the pipe. I usually do this while standing in grass because I always drop the damn thing. :-)

So if you're looking for an inexpensive but VERY effective core workout option, I recommend building your own slosh pipe. You're welcome.