What Good is a Used Tire Tube?

I had an old chest pull exerciser that was getting too loose and no longer gave me the kind of resistance I craved. I bought some latex resistance bands a while back but they also turned out to be a disappointment. An idea popped in my head so yesterday I went on an excursion to Bob’s Cycle Shop in Fair Oaks and asked the cashier what they did with old bicycle tubes from changing flat tires.  He replied that they recycle them and if I wanted to bring my old tubes over they would gladly recycle them for me. I surprised him a little when I said I am interested in taking some of their old tubes. He told me to wait a minute and disappeared behind the bike repair area.  A couple minutes later he returned with a handful of tubes of all sizes. I was ecstatic at the sight of all those different size tire tubes. I ran like a gazelle back home. No, not quite. It was actually 100 degrees outside so I more or less trudged back home, over the Fair Oaks bridge, crossing the bike trail and finally back home nearly an hour later. At home I immediately got to work. First, I removed all the old resistance bands from the chest pull. Next, I cut a tire tube in half and threaded it through each end of the chest pull handles. Finally, I tied the tube together, tested the resistance, made it a little tighter and voila! I now have a really incredible chest pull with hundreds of pounds of resistance to pull and push against. When pumpkin came home, she got excited too. We spent a half hour together doing pushups, pull ups and I let her try out the chest pull. By the way, those old tire tubes are great for tying trees down. They don’t dig into the tree’s bark and are incredibly strong.