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Building a home gym.

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FoxyMcDeadlift
FoxyMcDeadlift Posts: 771 Member
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I am moving in a couple of weeks and am lucky enough to be in a position to build a home gym. I'm uk based, have a reasonable budget and looking to build a gym for powerlifting.

Have many of you on here have got home gyms? Where did you get your kit from? Any brand recommendations or diy hacks you can pass on?

Immediately I will be looking to just cover the basics, but long term I would like to get speciality bars, chains and I would like a GHR.

Thanks

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  • AigreDoux
    AigreDoux Posts: 594 Member
    edited February 2017
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    I have a home gym and I'm in the process of planning to move it from the spare bedroom to the basement as part of a basement remodeling project.

    I have bought my equipment piecemeal over the last year. I'm in the US so no idea of UK brands. I'm also a beginner woman, so don't lift as heavy as some.

    I started off with a 10 lb 1" bar and some cast iron weights that my DH had bought for himself in high school. I had some light dumbbells, some resistance bands, a TRX knock off I mounted to the wall, and a very cheap flat bench from Walmart. I also have a very old treadmill.

    The first thing I bought a was a set of Powerblock dumbbells. They go from 5-50 lbs and are expandable to 90, I think. I haven't needed the heavier ones.

    I next bought a power rack. I chose it off Amazon. It is fine but has some annoying features. If I had known better I may have chosen a better one when I bought it. A few months later I upgraded my bar to an Olympic size bar and purchased a set of bumpers. I chose bumpers not because I do a lot of Olympic style lifting, but because I am not very strong and wanted to get the bar the right height off the ground for deadlifts and hip thrusts, and my gym was next door to my kids' rooms and I often work out early in the morning while they sleep and I thought bumpers would be quieter. I'm not sure they would be necessary vs. cast iron if not for those issues. I do like them though.

    The last things I have added are an incline bench, and storage for plates and the Powerblocks. In between I've added little things like a bar pad for hip thrusts, assorted resistance bands for assisted pull ups, etc.

    I would make sure you have enough space and clearances. Even though I have a women's bar which is slightly shorter than a men's bar, I fairly often hit other stuff with the bar either while trying to move it or to do exercises. This is really annoying. I also have trouble getting far enough back to video myself to check my form.

    Another thing to consider is flooring. I let my DH talk me into covering the wood floor with some sort of interlocking foam that is probably made more for a playroom situation than a gym. It is too squishy to squat and deadlift on. So I have to take out pieces of it when I do those exercises. Annoying. But it is nice for floor exercises like planks and such.

    When we get the basement finished I will have a large space, 16x22 ft. I'm going to have rubber flooring installed like a commercial gym. I'd like a new rack at some point, with strap safeties and plastic inserts in the J cups. I'm going to get a second bar to leave set up for deadlifts and leave one in the rack all the time. I'm going to get mirrors installed on one of the walls, too. My equipment will clearly way exceed my ability, but who cares.

    As far as places to buy things, I really like the things I've bought from Rogue and reviews suggest they have very good customer service. Not sure about their UK presence though. I have no affiliation with this site but it seems like it has thorough and thoughtful reviews, YMMV: http://www.garage-gyms.com/

    Wow, that was long!
  • ew_david
    ew_david Posts: 3,473 Member
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    I do. I've had 2: the first one I had to sell because I moved and no longer had the space for it. Most of that stuff came from Craigslist and Amazon. I moved again and had the space again for a home gym so I had to re buy everything (that sucked). The space is in my basement and I have no special flooring; just some cheaply carpeted concrete.

    I'm not really a brand *kitten*; the only thing I spent good money on was a Rogue barbell. I pieced the rest together from Amazon and a few things from local sporting goods stores.

    I have:
    -Rogue Ohio Bar
    -Bumper plates 45s, 25s, 10s
    -squat rack with attached pull up bar
    -adjustable bench
    -iron plates 10s, 5s, 2.5s
    -3 resistance bands (for pull ups)
    -dumbbells 25s and 15s
    -ab wheel
    - foam roller

    Then I hurt my back and use hardly any of it, but my husband does so it wasn't a total waste. :p
  • dandur
    dandur Posts: 267 Member
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    Start from the floor up. Get some horse stall mats and make a DIY lifting platform. Kinda like this one but doesn't need to be so big: https://youtu.be/3gqlfWXdWVs

    Do NOT buy mats from a fitness supplier. Stall mats are the same thing but hella cheaper.
  • j4nash
    j4nash Posts: 1,719 Member
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    i built that exact platform, use 2 layers of plywood, not 1. i'm OCD and the boards in the middle were not flush. get a power rack, there are a lot of exercises you can do with a bar. also as others stated, check out craigslist, lots of stuff @ a discount. rogue is badass for racks, and I think they have stuff in the UK
  • Azercord
    Azercord Posts: 573 Member
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    I second the horse stall mat, they are almost always on sale and they last forever.

    I got most of my stuff from Rogue a few years back during a New Years package sale thing and have really enjoyed the quality. I've got a power rack, beater bar, flat bench, and various plates. I've also picked up a rower (which I love), gymnastics rings, and a dip bar.

    Try for package deals if you can find a good one if not start a list of what you want and start hunting top to bottom.
  • tross0924
    tross0924 Posts: 909 Member
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    I built my own squat rack for less than $100 US.

    https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B5bFfRcD9r9OR2pIZlJiWHBfalU/view?usp=sharing

    I used 4x4 instead of laminating 2x4s for the vertical post though.
  • nossmf
    nossmf Posts: 9,056 Member
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    Have thought about building a home gym just to save money from gym membership fees (at current rates it'd pay for itself in under a year), but my wife needs the push of a personal trainer not named Husband in order to actually work out consistently, and keeping her on would defeat a lot of the point of making a home gym. (Plus I'd have to figure out where to move a lot of stuff currently sitting in the basement.)
  • geebusuk
    geebusuk Posts: 3,348 Member
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    I'm in the UK and have home gym setup.
    Unless you've got silly amounts of money, I'd go secondhand for most.
    Ebay, gumtree, facebook etc.

    A 20kg Olympic weight is generally a good bit cheaper secondhand, but still weighs 20kg :).

    I made my own cage - already had the wood lying around and some metal brackets I'd used to hold up a bed in a van for motorbike racing. Not the prettiest, but tested it with weights, me sat on weights and my 7 1/2 stone dog on me and did fine :).
    Total cost about £2 for a pack of screws from screwfix as mine were running low :).

    I've also got a multigym I had years ago, which has the cable top and bottom - again available cheaply sceondhand.
    Rower I got years ago.

    Exercise bike I was given, treadmill I was given. Punch bag and bracket that happened to have been with some completely separate work stuff.
    A few other bits too; alas I'm the wrong end of the country at the moment; most of the stuff is in West Yorks and I'm currently Kent and Essex!

    Think I've got around 185kg weights in total - started with a 1" bad.
    Got to the point that was bending. In the mean time I'd kept an eye out and got some more 1" weights including a set that had 2" weights (I could see in the picture on ebay they were - pretty sure the person selling thought it was a bad thing and tried to hide them in the others :) ). Also got a pile of 20kg 1" discs.
    Actually made some good money selling a load of the weights on - enough to buy me a 2" bar and more weight than I'd sold. Did get the smaller weights new as none around cheap when I wanted them, but bigger all second hand.
  • BusyRaeNOTBusty
    BusyRaeNOTBusty Posts: 7,166 Member
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    I have no idea if these are availbe in the UK, but I just ordered these:

    https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B01HDVZJ9A/ref=oh_aui_detailpage_o06_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1

    https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B01M5G2PND/ref=oh_aui_detailpage_o06_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1

    https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B000RNU280/ref=oh_aui_detailpage_o07_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1

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