Setting Up Your Weights With Carabiners
Setting Up Your Weights With Carabiners
Yes, there's ways to save money absolutely. The best way to reduce the cost is to build your own hanger.
Build Your Own Hanger
There's a few different homemade hanger attachments, the captains wench & the muzzle hanger can also be used for ADS, or manual stretching purposes also. I'm not as familiar with the sock hanger, but that might also work for those purposes too. All of these have pictures and instructions, except the sock hanger guide appears to have no illustration(s):
Captain's Wench Hanger - Instructions
Muzzle Hanger - Instructions
Sock Hanger - Instructions
I just realized there's also a few things I do which I have never read elsewhere (either others have not done it, or just not shared it, who knows). Also, I'll elaborate a bit on how much weight to buy. If you want to save money, just start with 10lbs of weight. I strongly recommend you set up your weight so you have enough to always adjust in 1/2lb increments. This will allow you to really fine-tune your hanging (and 1/2lb increments definitely help a lot when you're first starting out).
Buying Weights
The weights, fishing weights, & 4" pvc halfpipe can be either purchased at Wal-Mart or your local hardware store. In fact, things like the 4" PVC halfpipe on the front of my chair & my fishing weights had to be homemade; I don't think there were other alternatives. A 5lb and 2.5lb weight are pretty cheap; if you get a 10lb weight too, you should easily have enough weight to last you at least several months or over a year. If you make 2x 1lb fishing weights & 1x .5lb fishing weight, you'll have a total of 20lbs (10 + 5 + 2.5 + 1 + 1 + .5).
If you wanted to add another 5lb plate that would allow up to 25lbs. Very few ever hang more than that, it takes years, or extreme dedication to build up to that. Dustpan eventually reach 30lbs (maybe 20 minute sets?) and Bib eventually reached about 45lbs (also for full sets possibly). I think both of them did at least 3 years in a row of hanging (maybe more in the case of Bib, I would have to double-check his history).
Sport Climbing: Carabiners
I used to do a lot of sport climbing during my college years. A close friend of mine was an extremely good climber who happened to have all the gear. While sport climbing, he would always lead-climb, using spring-loaded Cams in cracks (where there were no bolts), or Carabiners in areas that had bolts. I spent years climbing, so I think I internalized some of the concepts about keeping things safe / stable / convenient, etc.
When I saw cheap 99 cent Carabiners at Wal-Mart I was reminded of sport climbing and I immediately thought having a quick-release Carabiner on each weight plate would make things easier for me (for adding or removing weight). It seemed logical, stable & maybe even safer too (less chance of a weight falling on my foot or the weights falling apart during a set, etc.).
Above: Here's a picture of a real Caribineer (real ones cost about $6.50 vs. $.99 at Wal-Mart for the cheap ones).
Carabiners for Hanging (Quick Release = Convenient)
I like Carabiners because I can quickly add & remove them. I change weight during my sets quite often. I'm always adding weight if I am not getting fatigue or removing weight if I feel I am reaching the point of pain. I have noticed that the Carabiners can get slippery when I have lotion on my hands (I am often using lotion when I hang to avoid stretch marks and help my skin stretch). As long as I don't go crazy with the lotion, and as long as my room is not too hot (sweat), things are usually fine.
I like these Carabiners because of the quick release capacity they have. I can quickly add or remove weight from my hanger. My bib hanger also has a small figure 8 S-type hook (you could add your own to a home-made hanger too). It's not exactly an S--it's a figure 8 with one closed loop, and one partially open loop. That partially open loop is where I add or remove my 2x 1lb weights and my .5lb weight. I usually try to configure things so that most of my changes during a set are done from the S-hook, while I remove bigger plates which I have attached with Carabiners to the blue strap of my Bib Hanger.
Attaching Carabiners to The Weight Plates
I used polyester rope (its white, thick & sort of soft) to attach a Carabiner to each of my weight plates (see the image in hanging 101). I used a lighter to melt a square knot into place on the weight plate as well (square knots don't slip when firmly in place). I tied the Carabiner as close as possible to the weight. I had a looser knot at first, but it was annoying when the weight would hang too low and bump the ground or the feet/legs (whatever) of the chair. I still have to raise my chair sometimes, but not nearly as much.