I always get excited when I find a new piece of exercise equipment that I can make and use.  I ran across this agility high-stepper in one of my equipment supply catalogs and thought that it would make a good addition to our Warrior Workouts on the weekends... especially since I made if for like a third of the cost J

I remember back in the day when I was playing football.  I think that every high school in our area had the old standard double-row of tires that pretty much served the same purpose as this contraption... to coach the athletes to keep their knees up and step accurately.  However, since I'm already pushing my luck with like 6 tires (ranging from small to a 425lb tractor tire) back behind my house, I figured that adding another 10 or 12 of them might not go over too well ; )

PVC pipe is readily available in the plumbing section of most home improvement stores.  I used 2" PVC pipe for strength and durability.  You will need to buy 6 pipes since they typically come in 10 foot lengths.  5 pipes will be cut exactly in half with a circular or miter saw, which is perfect since the plans call for 10 x 5 foot sections.  I cut the other pipe into 8 x 5 inch pieces for the risers that you see in the picture above (I also cut additional riser pieces for optional height increase).

Materials - $101.20

• 6: 10ft. x 2" PVC pipe... $37.20

• 12:  2" PVC T-fittings... $17.28

• 4:  2" PVC elbow fittings... $4.72

• 100ft 5/16" bungee cord... $42.00

Tools needed

• circular saw

• drill w/ 1/2" bit

• knife or scizzors

• PVC glue

My plan is slightly different from the one that I saw in the equipment catalog.  I chose to use T-fittings for the support piece that sits on the ground whereas they used elbow fittings.  My thought behind this was that I could easily raise the height of the entire structure, simply by adding additional riser pieces to the bottom of the T-fittings near the ground.  I suggest cutting all pieces first and laying them out on the ground so that you can get a visual of what you are trying to assemble.

Instructions

• Cut 5 of the 10 ft PVC pipes in half
  (10 x 5 ft sections)

• Cut 1 of the 10 ft PVC pipes into 8 x 5 inch pieces (optionally cut an additional 8 x 5 inch pieces to increase height as desired)

• 4 Bottom Supports:  For each of the 4, Make an "H" using a 5 foot PVC section and 2 T-fittings.  Use PVC glue inside the middle portion of the "T" to provide stability to the structure.

• 4 Upper Rails:  For each of the 4, Put and elbow fitting on one end of a 5 foot PVC section and a T-fitting on the other so that the non-connected side of the elbow is pointing down and the middle of the T-fitting is pointing down.  Glue these pieces in place also.

*NOTE:  If you want to be able to break this structure down for easy storage, that will be all the gluing that you will want to do.  I chose to glue more of it for stability which I will decribe in the further steps below.  Skip the glue references if you don't have room to store 2 large 5 foot x 5 foot sections!

• Installing risers:  Using your 4 Bottom supports, glue a riser to the top side of the "H" on each.

• Connecting the Upper Rail to the Bottom Supports:  Glue the elbow fitting from 2 upper rails to both risers of one of the Bottom Supports.  Then glue the bottom part of the T-fittings from the upper rails to both risers of a completely separate bottom rail.  You should now have a big 5 foot by 5 foot square. 

• Do this again for the other side of the structure so that you have 2 big squares.

• There should now be 2 x 5 foot pieces of pipe left.  Use these pieces to connect one side of one big square, to the other side of the other big square.

• Drill 1/2" holes, horizontally though both sides, approximately every 30" through the top rails.

• Thread the bungee cord through one rail, and across and through the opposite rail and tie a knot.

• Grab the bungee and stretch it about 6 or so inches so that it is tight enough... cut it and knot it on the other side.  Do this for the length of the upper rails.

•  Drill a hole in each of the bottom supports on the end.  Thread the bungee through one support and tie a knot.  Pull the bungee the length of the structure and cut enough so that there is plenty of extra.  I use this piece to tie and untie when I take it apart and put it together.

• DONE