Makeshift Muscles, Part IV

More improvised weight sightings, this time around Northern Luzon.


Milk cans filled with cement, rusty boys. On an Abra farm.

Beside the sidewalk in Laoag, Ilocos Norte. A bamboo bar.

Molded cement with bolts that make the weights removable.
Makeshift muscles, Part I, II, and III.

Makeshift Muscles, Part III

Improvised weights are all over the country. Oil and vinegar containers are cut and filled with concrete. Similar sightings here and here.


Poured concrete weights by a kitchen in Davao City, dumbbell version.

Makeshift Muscles, Part II

By a guard house.

More variations on the poured concrete weights, with a bar running through them. Seems a little humorous due to the preconceived notions we have of what weights should look like (commercial barbells, to be precise).

It also made me remember a colorful pair of antique weights for elite females (no pictures, unfortunately) that I spotted in India at one castle or another, which resembled beautifully painted bowling pins. One can only imagine the exercises of those days that kept royal ladies' arms "toned" despite their lack of work (their activity level being probably equal to the regular working person these days).

And yep, about other objects that are squarely in the "Spandex Zone" (e.g. bikes, until recently) which can benefit a wider audience just by a bit of reframing.

Makeshift Muscles

Gym in front of the garage.

In a small-yet-pricey Makati subdivision, someone has set up a homemade gym. I assume a driver owns it because it is by the cars. And no one living there would be caught dead using such a charming health facility. I know, I know, I'm generalizing.


Improvisation: salvaged wood, a metal bar, two cement-filled milk tins.