Official Home Gym Building Thread

Can anyone recommend anything. I've spent hours looking and can't seem to find a decent bench.

My requirements for the bench are:

Has to hold at least 170KG inc weights
Has to sit up at 90 degrees for shoulder press

Also be able to of course be adjustable in a few positions for chest press and fly etc.

Dumbells. I'd like a decent 40KG set where I can adjust the weight. I don't lift the same on bis as I do chest obviously. So buying fixed dumbells is a no no.

I deteste the spin lock... is there no other ones? Perhaps the clips?

Budget is around £100 for each... I'll spend a bit more if I need to.

Buchanan0204 said:

Can anyone recommend anything. I've spent hours looking and can't seem to find a decent bench.

My requirements for the bench are:

Has to hold at least 170KG inc weights
Has to sit up at 90 degrees for shoulder press

Also be able to of course be adjustable in a few positions for chest press and fly etc.

Dumbells. I'd like a decent 40KG set where I can adjust the weight. I don't lift the same on bis as I do chest obviously. So buying fixed dumbells is a no no.

I deteste the spin lock... is there no other ones? Perhaps the clips?

Budget is around £100 for each... I'll spend a bit more if I need to.

Click to expand...

I use this bench and find it more than capable. The most I've had on it is 190kg (me plus 110kg barbell) and I feel confident it could handle a lot more. It inclines, declines and it's very sturdy.

Regarding dumbbells, these are your options.

Standard spinlock: Cheap, annoying to set up but quite sturdy and safe.
Standard spring clip: Cheap, quick to setp up but not stable or safe.
Olympic spring clip: Expensive, quick to set up but averagely sturdy and safe.
Adjustable fixed dumbells: Very expensive, quick to set up and very stury and safe.


When I say sturdy and safe, this is only really relevant if performing exercises where the bar is going to be perpendicular to the floor as if there is a lot of weight the spring clip may not hold.

I own an olympic barbell set with 220kg ish of olympic weights, but for dumbbell exercises I have a pair of standard spinlock dumbbells and a pair spring clip dumbbells with about 80kg of standard plates between them. I find this to be a decent compromise between cost and usability

Mansize_tissue said:

I use this bench and find it more than capable. The most I've had on it is 190kg (me plus 110kg barbell) and I feel confident it could handle a lot more. It inclines, declines and it's very sturdy.

Regarding dumbbells, these are your options.

Standard spinlock: Cheap, annoying to set up but quite sturdy and safe.
Standard spring clip: Cheap, quick to setp up but not stable or safe.
Olympic spring clip: Expensive, quick to set up but averagely sturdy and safe.
Adjustable fixed dumbells: Very expensive, quick to set up and very stury and safe.

When I say sturdy and safe, this is only really relevant if performing exercises where the bar is going to be perpendicular to the floor as if there is a lot of weight the spring clip may not hold.

I own an olympic barbell set with 220kg ish of olympic weights, but for dumbbell exercises I have a pair of standard spinlock dumbbells and a pair spring clip dumbbells with about 80kg of standard plates between them. I find this to be a decent compromise between cost and usability

Click to expand...

That's the bench I had my eye on. I was unsure if it went straight up for shoulder press?

I can't seem to find any dumbbells with the clip, can you point some out to me please? I noticed some Macy 40KG for £70 and some York for £80... both are spinlock. I've had spinlock before and always found they came loose and I found this quite annoying. I'd much prefer the clips like you get on the barbells in the gym.

The bench will go up to about 80 degrees (steeper than in that picture) which is perfect for shoulder press, wouldn't want to go any steeper than that in my opinion.

I thought I got my spring clip dumbbells from Argos like my spinlock ones but I just checked and turns out it was just the latter.

Pretty sure I got these 18" ones so I could fit more weight on over the standard 14" bars. You'll also want some spring clips, either these or these, the second pair look more sturdy and will probably be a safer bet.

Out of interest with the spin lock set you used before did they have plastic or metal spin locks? Mine came with plastic which were awful, but I bought some metal spin lock for the bars off ebay and they have a rubber washer/seal which, when tightened, grips onto the plates and becomes immensely tight and there's no movement at all. I usually use my spinlocks over the spring clips now for this reason as the plates don't rattle about at all when you'r exercising.

Thanks for that!

They were metal spinlocks I had. However there was no rubber bit afaik, perhaps why it came loose and wobbly.

I'll pick up those bars if you can recommend some dumbbels to go on them I presume that site sells free weights without the spin lock bars?

Will bag the bench... cheers! I was worried it was at full tilt in the photo.

ironmasters are the best dumbells to get if you want adjustable, nothing else even comes close.

After a LOT of research reading this thread, and others, I have recently put together a home gym - at a rather bargainous depreciation proof price. Unfortunately it can't really be done now (unless you are an amazing haggler!) but this is the deal I got - from the very very kind sales people at Powerhouse Fitness, Leeds branch. The way I got it so cheap is because quidco do 10% from powerhouse, and there was a 10% sale off body craft / body max products in January, making 18% off. After 'combining' a few packages I got the following…

Bodycraft F430 Rack with lat pull down (LPD normally £239.99 on its own, £639.99 together)
Bodycraft F602 Bench (£279.99 on it's own, but Rack, LPD and Bench £799.99 bundle)
Dip attachments £29.99
145kg Radial Rubber Olympic Weights w/ 7' olympic barbell £245.65
4 x 5kg Olympic Cast weights £29.99
2 x 1.25kg Cast Weights £4.99
Olympic Dumbbells £47.98
2 x Spring Collars £9.58
Double Tricep Rope £13.63
36" Lat Pull Down £21.55


RRP - separate total: 1323.55
Grand total (if bought from website outside of promotion + QC) - £1203.36
Total if you had used the discount code and quidco (18% off) - £986.76

PRICE I PAID after phoning the store!! £808

(I had to phone the store and explain about the web offer and see what they could do to beat it. I originally asked for the Bodypower CF475 package but upgraded it to the Bodymax F430 package for £150 more. I think the staff were more confused by my sums and actually asked me to give me the figures I had worked out after totalling a sum several hundred pounds higher! They also sent the pull down bar and spring clips for 'free' as they weren't meant to send them but made a mistake!)

Quite a gigantic saving - 32% off the website only price (which is pretty reasonable anyway!) and 14% after the already massive 18% quidco / promotion discount. So for £808 not bad at all in total considering the rack,bench and lat pull down is £799 on their website!

I'd be quite interesting in BennyC's ironmasters actually - how would I go about PMing/enquiring? Cheers!

sounds like you have went and got some serious bit of kit there and at a bargain price for brand new, i mean i probably spent double that going for powertec / body solid stuff brand new for roughly the same sort of stuff (i got slightly more though).

only thing i can see which is missing and essential is matting, or do you gave some of that already?

maybe a weights and bar storage rack too in the future to keep things tidy, but i usually have half my weights on the rack and the other half sprawled about the place.

you can hav dibs on the ironmasters, im re-building my gym this year so all spare cash is being put into that.

i hope you put some pics up for us to see this excellent brand spanking new setup. but it's probably going to take a while for delivery/building i can imagine.

hope you have decent enough space to house it all, it's getting cramped in my gym atm.

Can get great mats for cheap at StrengthShop.co.uk. https://www.strengthshop.co.uk/equipment-and-bars/rubber-gym-mat-6-x3-12mm-thick.html

I've got one of these in front of my squat rack in my garage. Absolutely vital for deadlifting on concrete.

I got a bunch of equipment from ebay a while back. Got squat rack, bench press (with spotter's platform), 7' Oly bar (28mm shaft), 220kg in plates and a weight tree for around £330-350 ish, can't remember. I've got pics somewhere, I'll try to get them out.

Here we go.

This is what I started with:






By the end of that day, I had this:




And the next day was this:








If anyone's ever been to StrengthShop.co.uk, they'll recognise that last shot. I bought the bar from them and sent Brian (owner) the photo.

Well, it hasn't been that tidy since. At them moment it's full of **** and I need to clean it out this summer and take some more photos with the mat and squat rack in.

I got matting - made a mistake and got some 'gym' matting that locked together from ebay... found out it was bloody EVA/foam after it was delivered! Still, for £40, it was just about enough to cover the area twice over so it was about 2cm thick, and it does mean I can drop weights without leaving a mark if necessary! Probably could do with getting some more though as actually it isn't half bad, but maybe rubber would have been better to start off with?

It's been assembled for the last 2 weeks actually - I'll give the place a clean up and get some photos - TBH I was really wanting to get some stuff from ebay but with the hassle of having to travel to pick up, having to compromise or wait a long long time, having to travel to several places - it made more sense to get this stuff for the price I did, brand new, exactly what I wanted all in one go.

I must say I only did get this setup as I started a new job and wasn't able to go to the gym - it meant I was paying £45 a month and going probably twice a month for the last 6 months - how I wish I had cancelled from the beginning - I'd be a quarter of the way there! The great thing is even if I do move house, if I do come to sell, after the gym fees I've saved have been factored in and also the fact I got it so cheap, I probably will be no worse off financially and have been able to go every day vs twice a month! Win win!

oh how do I go about enabling PMs? Cheers!

SMed said:

Here we go.

This is what I started with:

Click to expand...

that looks quite similar to how my garage was, except my garage is probably twice the size (still a single garage though) and it was actually filled from top to the roof, it took 2 weeks to clear through it all, seriously it was a tough job, but it had to be done.

SMed said:

By the end of that day, I had this:

And the next day was this:

If anyone's ever been to StrengthShop.co.uk, they'll recognise that last shot. I bought the bar from them and sent Brian (owner) the photo.

Well, it hasn't been that tidy since. At them moment it's full of **** and I need to clean it out this summer and take some more photos with the mat and squat rack in.

Click to expand...

i have recommended those strength shop mats in this thread several times .
but i also recommend doubling them up because the rubber is not "solid" it's bits compressed together, most likely recycled rubber from tyres and they are quite thin, compared to my 17mm solid rubber mats.

if i was you i would get some WD-40, an old pair of socks and some rustoleum primer and rustoleum paint and some rustoleum clear coat for finish from B and Q or Homebase or Amazon and follow my re-furb guide, in this here thread.

i mean for the cost of £20-£30 you could get all your equipment looking brand new again and it will last a lot longer and be more pleasant on the eye too.

i think i used 8 cans of spray paint altogether but i did have tons to do. half a set of dumbells, 200kg of weight, a oly plate and bar storage rack. homebase also had a deal on at the time buy 1 can 2nd can half price, so look out for stuff like that too.

kanine said:

I got matting - made a mistake and got some 'gym' matting that locked together from ebay... found out it was bloody EVA/foam after it was delivered! Still, for £40, it was just about enough to cover the area twice over so it was about 2cm thick, and it does mean I can drop weights without leaving a mark if necessary! Probably could do with getting some more though as actually it isn't half bad, but maybe rubber would have been better to start off with?

It's been assembled for the last 2 weeks actually - I'll give the place a clean up and get some photos - TBH I was really wanting to get some stuff from ebay but with the hassle of having to travel to pick up, having to compromise or wait a long long time, having to travel to several places - it made more sense to get this stuff for the price I did, brand new, exactly what I wanted all in one go.

I must say I only did get this setup as I started a new job and wasn't able to go to the gym - it meant I was paying £45 a month and going probably twice a month for the last 6 months - how I wish I had cancelled from the beginning - I'd be a quarter of the way there! The great thing is even if I do move house, if I do come to sell, after the gym fees I've saved have been factored in and also the fact I got it so cheap, I probably will be no worse off financially and have been able to go every day vs twice a month! Win win!

Click to expand...

EVA foam is definitely not as good, a lot of people buy that because it's cheaper and lighter, etc, but there is a reason why it's cheaper, over time it will deform, etc. basically if you buy cheap you end up buying twice, whereas with rubber it should last pretty much forever. however it's done now, i would suggest you just keep it and see how long it lasts, it may give you quite a few years use since you have doubled it up. i think deadlifts is what will let you know for sure how long it will last, once your dropping 150kg+ onto them, then they will show their true worth.

or you could just buy the rubber matting from strength shop and then use that as the top layer of the double, essentially that would mean that you wouldn't need to double up on the rubber as the foam would help out a lot.

PM's need trust to be enabled i think, i think for that you need to have 1000 posts now and been a member for like a year, the rules have changed, it used to be 250 posts and 3 months i believe but i dont know if that's for trust or members market or both.

anyway you should get some pics up so other members can admire your brand spanking new setup , im sure many will be jealous.

Psycho Sonny said:

if i was you i would get some WD-40, an old pair of socks and some rustoleum primer and rustoleum paint and some rustoleum clear coat for finish from B and Q or Homebase or Amazon and follow my re-furb guide, in this here thread.

i mean for the cost of £20-£30 you could get all your equipment looking brand new again and it will last a lot longer and be more pleasant on the eye too.

i think i used 8 cans of spray paint altogether but i did have tons to do. half a set of dumbells, 200kg of weight, a oly plate and bar storage rack. homebase also had a deal on at the time buy 1 can 2nd can half price, so look out for stuff like that too.

Click to expand...

Yeah, I've already done most of that. I had a serious problem though. The photos above is what the plates looked like when I bought them. They were fine, straight from a commercial gym. They looked a little rough, but had no rust or anything. The problem was I left them all on the tree, and my garage had a leak in the roof and it basically rained all over them before I realised the amount of rust that had covered them. They went completely orange with rust.

Last summer I started at them with a wire brush and garden hose to knock all the rust. Let them dry in the sun and immediately used that black rust primer stuff. They look great now. I've done 4x20s, plus all the smaller pairs. Just have the other 4x20s to do and the weight tree. That'll be this summer. I got the cans from B&Q, but they're like £7-8! I've got another can or two left, I might need another for those plates and the tree.

Pain in the ass, but necessary.

SMed said:

Yeah, I've already done most of that. I had a serious problem though. The photos above is what the plates looked like when I bought them. They were fine, straight from a commercial gym. They looked a little rough, but had no rust or anything. The problem was I left them all on the tree, and my garage had a leak in the roof and it basically rained all over them before I realised the amount of rust that had covered them. They went completely orange with rust.

Last summer I started at them with a wire brush and garden hose to knock all the rust. Let them dry in the sun and immediately used that black rust primer stuff. They look great now. I've done 4x20s, plus all the smaller pairs. Just have the other 4x20s to do and the weight tree. That'll be this summer. I got the cans from B&Q, but they're like £7-8! I've got another can or two left, I might need another for those plates and the tree.

Pain in the ass, but necessary.

Click to expand...

they are cheaper on amazon, i think when i bought some they were £6-£7 a can, you could try ebay too, but amazon has free shipping for over £15.

but i ran out and decided rather than wait for online delivery, i headed to homebase which had the deal mentioned above on.

i also in winter regularly spray everything with wd-40 every 2 weeks, it has to be done, with the cold, moisture, etc weights can go from okay to completely wrecked in a short space of time. wd-40 is soooo cheap, that anyone who doesn't spray them is basically shooting themselves in the foot for no reason.

then i may spray them again once every couple of months during all the other months. i mean for a big can of wd-40 it's like £2, the cost of all my equipment is probably £3k+, i mean literally nothing for wd-40 in comparison and a can will last me a year easy with constant spraying.

Psycho Sonny said:

they are cheaper on amazon, i think when i bought some they were £6-£7 a can, you could try ebay too, but amazon has free shipping for over £15.

but i ran out and decided rather than wait for online delivery, i headed to homebase which had the deal mentioned above on.

i also in winter regularly spray everything with wd-40 every 2 weeks, it has to be done, with the cold, moisture, etc weights can go from okay to completely wrecked in a short space of time. wd-40 is soooo cheap, that anyone who doesn't spray them is basically shooting themselves in the foot for no reason.

then i may spray them again once every couple of months during all the other months. i mean for a big can of wd-40 it's like £2, the cost of all my equipment is probably £3k+, i mean literally nothing for wd-40 in comparison and a can will last me a year easy with constant spraying.

Click to expand...

Doesn't it make everything greasy though? I can imagine having greasy plates, changing the plates then getting it on the knurling of the bar, making deadlifting impossible. Is this not the case?

SMed said:

Doesn't it make everything greasy though? I can imagine having greasy plates, changing the plates then getting it on the knurling of the bar, making deadlifting impossible. Is this not the case?

Click to expand...

nope, i dont cover them in it, i just do a quick spray, i only ever do a proper spray on my dumbells, but that's because they were in a state when i got them.

i do a quick spray all over, and usually 2 day's later when i go back into the gym, it's vanished, it's as if the dust absorbs a lot of it.

i mean just do a light spray over everything.

A few photos - no close ups as I couldn't be bothered to get my regular lens for my camera - used a ultra wide angle to fit it all in! The room isn't big - just big enough for the rack really!

Copied form the Gym Rats thread:

What do you think is the best rack/bench combo available for under £800

I used to have a Powerline PPR200 Power Rack & Body-Solid GFID31 bench which was great, although the safeties only had 18 holes for adjustment which meant I could never get them set right for flat benching.

ATM I have a cheap n' nasty Argos bench which is rated to 100kg but doesn't seem safe at 60kg so its going back as soon as I can find a good alternative.

So far narrowed it down to these 4:









Anyone got any of these or is there anything else I should take a look at?

My main concern is safety as I train alone at home 3 days a week and go to the gym 2-3 days for cardio and circuit training.

Doesn't need to be super heavy duty, can't see me going over 150kg.

if i could choose any one it would be a toss up between the gym ratz and the powertec from the above, both are brilliant power racks and built to last forever (great resale value too compared to other makes). it depends on how big a lifter you are the gym ratz rack is much more solid but more expensive no doubt i would think. i actually have the powertec rack myself (take a look through this thread).

bench i would go for body solid or gym ratz, anything which does incline and decline and fits your budget, gym ratz can be pricey so i would stick with body solid tbh. i actually have both a body solid and a gym ratz bench.

take a look at this place if you want to see what the best equipment money can buy is http://www.gymequipment.uk.com/

they make custom pieces, which are the best of the best and i think they are a lot better than gym ratz for slightly more money if your thinking of going down the gym ratz route, but tbh your better off with powertec and body solid combo.

will say this again, take a proper read through this thread before making your decision, then if you have any questions feel free to ask away. we have one rule though, we expect pictures when it's all built.