How to build an olympic platform
Hi my friends,
in this article I’ll show you how to build an olympic platform and it’s basically very easy. This guide will show you step by step how to build your own awesome platform.
What you need is some plywood, glue, nails, two types of wooden slats and some mats and of course some place where the platform can be placed.
This is the exact list of the things I used for the platform
2 x plywood 245 cm x 125 cm,
2 x plywood 245 cm x 60 cm,
1 x plywood 125 cm x 125 cm,
1 x plywood 125 cm x 60 cm,
4 x planed wooden slats 8.8 cm x 300 cm,
10 x wooden slats 2.4 cm x 200 cm,
4 x mats 60 x 185 cm,
one bottle of glue,
some nails.
Costs in total around 300 Euro.
My platform is in total 262 cm long and has a depth of 202 cm and a height of 8 cm. The inner part of the platform on which you stand is 125 cm long which is a little bit too long. Next time I would subtract 5 cm on each side and go down to 115 cm. Because it can happen that the bar with the plates bounces of the mat and hits the edge of the (inner) platform.
As I didn’t get one piece of plywood which had the size of 245 cm x 185 cm. I split the base into two pieces of plywood with a total of 245 cm x 185 cm. Shown in the picture below.
As I wanted to build some crazy stable platform which basically survives the next nuclear attack I used two layers of plywood instead of one. One should probably be enough.
Before you lay the second layer of plywood onto the first use some glue on it and put the next layer on top as seen in the next two pictures.
first half of layer two and layer one put together
After putting the second layer of plywood on top of the layer one the base is ready and stable.
base of the platform
Then I created a frame out of some plane wooden slats with a height of 8.8 cm around the base. Therefore you have to cut the wooden slats into pieces which fit around the platform and use some nails and glue to affix the ends together.
One tip build the frame on the finale location where you want to place the platform as the platform is now very heavy and you can’t easily move the platform around.
frame made of wooden slats build around the base
Now you have to create the inner platform on which you stand while lifting. For this I used some wooden slats with a standard height of 2.4 cm. I split those wooden slats into parts of 185 cm and parts of 50 cm and placed them in turn in the middle of the base. As my inner platform or center has a length of 125 cm the pits where I can drop the weights have a length of 60 cm.
On top of the wooden slats in the center I put another layer of plywood and this builds the platform on which you are standing. Use some glue and nails to affix the plywood on the wooden slats.
This is how it will look at this stage.
almost finished
Now you put the mats in the pits on both sides and you are ready to lift. Instead of some mats you could also use some (old) carpets. I have seen some articles where guys used carpets as the first layer and top of that used horse mats. So basically be creative here 
And this is the final product.
Hope this will help and encourage some of you to build your own platform.
Stay strong,
bossk
P.S. In case you have any questions place a comment or write an email.
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