Homemade Power Rack Plate Holder

I have a lot of gym equipment packed into a relatively small space, so it's important that I keep the area from becoming cluttered.

Click to enlarge

All my accessories are hung on the wall, but as I accumulate more and more olympic plates I'm finding out I need another weight tree, but I simply don't have the room for one.

Some of the more expensive power racks provide Olympic plate holders, but this makes the rack bigger and of course the rack takes up more space. One company, New York Barbell, makes an adjustable plate holder that fits on all power racks.

My powertec power rack has 2 3/8" square tube uprights so the plate holder designed by New York Barbell to fit the powertec rack costs $34.95 for a pair, plus another $16 for shipping; making each plate holder about $25 each.

I really don't have the space for two plate holders on my rack, so I started to think of ways to build one homemade power rack plate holder for less money.

Here's what I came up with:

This was really simple to make. I wanted to buy black pipe fittings because they cost less $ than galvanized, but the hardware store was out of stock on a few fittings I needed. The total cost of everything was just over $15.

This photo illustration shows the fittings I used:

If the photo is hard to read, the fittings used were: 3/4" pipe cap; 3/4" x 3"nipple; 1" to 3/4" reducer; 1" x 12" pipe nipple; 1" pipe cap; and a 1-1/2" x 11" piece of pvc.

I used red loctite thread sealer on all connections except for the 3/4" pipe cap. This allows the assembly to be taken on/off the power rack with a pipe wrench. This set up is for Olympic sized plates.

This homemade power rack plate holder is long enough and strong enough to hold at least six 45 pound Olympic plates, but I only needed it to hold four. I guess it's time to buy a few more plates!

Conclusion

In some cases when you are looking to buy accessories for your gym, a simple homemade solution will work just as well. This homemade power rack plate holder sits in the number one hole on my rack. I have never placed the saber spotters any lower than the number three hole. This attachment can stay in this hole position and my plates aren't lying on the floor.