This fitness buff sets up gym using junk material

Ajay Joshi

Tribune News Service

Jalandhar, October 30

It is being said if you aim at something, you will hit it every time. This holds true in case of Jaspal Singh. A fitness freak, he says he is now contended as he owns a gym. However, what’s special about his fitness centre is that he built it on his own.

The 24-year-old youth has turned scrap into fitness machines. The videos of his makeshift gym ‘Bal Fitness Club Ramidi,’ are now viral on the social media, bringing him accolades.

With an investment of just Rs 20,000, one can spot every workout essential machine in Jaspal’s gym. From using discarded iron rods, spring to cemented poles lying unused in the roads, he has transformed every piece of scrap to give wings to his imagination.

Mentioning his continuous toil for three months, Jaspal said, “By the time lockdown ended, I was convinced enough to build a gym in my village. As to keep themselves toned and fit, the youth in our village had to move towards fitness centres in the cities. For which they sometimes had to travel extra miles. Hence, once I was sure, I visited city based gyms and accumulated knowledge on how a particular machine works.” To add perfection, he scrutinised minutest details, following which he tried to create replicas of all machines and weights.

“For dumb bells, I used cement and iron rods. The concrete was also prepared using discarded iron to make the weights and dumb bells strong. To give weights, a proper shape, unused buckets were used. We used the base of the buckets for apt round shape weights. Similarly, while wooden or cemented slabs were used as tables, unneeded, sofa seats and mattresses were used as cushions or sitting support. Besides, that out of use cylinder was also tuned into sitting support with proper padding. It took me nearly three months to set up the gym, which has become the talk of the town,” added Jaspal, a resident of village Ramidi, in Kapurthala.

There is a free entry for both men and women in the gym. Interestingly, those who didn’t like his idea of building up a DIY gym, now come to his fitness club to tone their muscles.

“I wasn’t bothered about the negative comments. When I gradually succeeded in devising the gym equipments, the results forced my friends and fellow youngsters to lend an extra had for early completion of the fitness club. It was formally opened on October 20. Both men and women are allowed to work out in the gym. While morning time is kept for women, evening time is kept for men,” said, Jaspal, who used extra space around his house to set up his gym.