Official Home Gym Building Thread

https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B089S2RLYY/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_asin_title_o02_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1

I got these delivered yesterday. Been looking at sets for a while, and also keeping an eye on the mirafit cable wall mount lat station stock.

Pleasantly surprised with how sturdy and smooth the motion is.

I've attached it to a ceiling rafter for now. But long term plan is to utilise the pull up bar on my Iron King foldable rack (when it gets delivered). May even get a second set of pulleys off amazon and use the spotting arms to adjust the height and use for some cable flies etc.

Had been looking at picking up all the different bits in B&Q but it was working out more or less the same price.

In addition to the above, I also picked up a weight pin (https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B08LD8TC5Q/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_asin_title_o03_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1). VCan load more weight onto each cable. All seems to work fairly well so far!
 
timmy85 said:
https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B089S2RLYY/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_asin_title_o02_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1

I got these delivered yesterday. Been looking at sets for a while, and also keeping an eye on the mirafit cable wall mount lat station stock.

Pleasantly surprised with how sturdy and smooth the motion is.

I've attached it to a ceiling rafter for now. But long term plan is to utilise the pull up bar on my Iron King foldable rack (when it gets delivered). May even get a second set of pulleys off amazon and use the spotting arms to adjust the height and use for some cable flies etc.

Had been looking at picking up all the different bits in B&Q but it was working out more or less the same price.

In addition to the above, I also picked up a weight pin (https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B08LD8TC5Q/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_asin_title_o03_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1). VCan load more weight onto each cable. All seems to work fairly well so far!
Click to expand...

That all looks great! May do the same for my pull-up bar.
 
CaptainRAVE said:
That all looks great! May do the same for my pull-up bar.
Click to expand...

My thoughts are, by altering the height of the pull up bar or support arms. Can play round with the angles of motion.

There was very little sway in the weight when i was using it for tricep extensions earlier, which was pleasing. Securing the plates & pin, inside the rack frame with rubber bands and will probably make it even steadier and increase resistance. I am sure I saw a video last year or Coop from Garage Gym Review doing something similar. Will go find it now.

EDIT: Video found - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=up1-7i8OVDM
 
LiE said:
Olympic lifting?
Click to expand...

yeah - cleans/snatch etc - inside the house I can only clean/squat clean stuff as the roof is too low to snatch. Been using dumbells but need to get back to heavier stuff as lockdown looks like it's going to be extended even further in Scotland and gyms staying shut. Thought I've manage for 4 weeks with dumbells but need to get a barbell back on the go.

Outside I can snatch/sq snatch but we are having the slabbing done next week and wife is adamant that if I've outside I need to get something to cover them incase of drops etc.

(previously drop a heavy clean and broke the old slabs!!!:eek:) - costly clean miss!
 
Hi guys, pitching in with another newbie question. Building my garage gym, I'm going to deck the entire floor with 3/4 inch stall mats. I have ambitions of building up to 200kg in the next year for DL, but not near that yet, I don't do any Olympic style lifting like cleans/snatches, so do I need a separate deadlift platform? I plan on getting bumpers as I doubt I'll ever be lifting enough to worry about space on the bar, and I don't want to worry about rust. I see all the home gyms people build and a DL platform seems to be a staple, is there a benefit outside of protection for the foundations?
 
Dan King said:
Hi guys, pitching in with another newbie question. Building my garage gym, I'm going to deck the entire floor with 3/4 inch stall mats. I have ambitions of building up to 200kg in the next year for DL, but not near that yet, I don't do any Olympic style lifting like cleans/snatches, so do I need a separate deadlift platform? I plan on getting bumpers as I doubt I'll ever be lifting enough to worry about space on the bar, and I don't want to worry about rust. I see all the home gyms people build and a DL platform seems to be a staple, is there a benefit outside of protection for the foundations?
Click to expand...

What's the floor like? I smashed our patio with 20mm mats and deadlifting. Its been fine with the 40mm tiles. Depends how strong the floor is I guess.
 
I did Stall mats in my garage, but thinking the same thing for deadlifts I just cut out a few rectangles from the bits of mat I had leftover and I put those under the ends of the bar (so I am basically doing my deadlifts on a double thickness of mat on top of the usual mats on the floor)... seems fine so far
 
uncle_rufus said:
I did Stall mats in my garage, but thinking the same thing for deadlifts I just cut out a few rectangles from the bits of mat I had leftover and I put those under the ends of the bar (so I am basically doing my deadlifts on a double thickness of mat on top of the usual mats on the floor)... seems fine so far
Click to expand...

This approach is fine but just keep in mind you are gaining a small assistance by raising the bar up. This could be fixed by standing on the same height mats.
 
LiE said:
This approach is fine but just keep in mind you are gaining a small assistance by raising the bar up. This could be fixed by standing on the same height mats.
Click to expand...

Fair point but unless it's going to be harmful/damaging/risking injury I'm happy to live with it :p It's probably affecting the range of movement in a similar way to if I bought some different trainers that have a slightly taller/shorter sole
 
uncle_rufus said:
Fair point but unless it's going to be harmful/damaging/risking injury I'm happy to live with it :p It's probably affecting the range of movement in a similar way to if I bought some different trainers that have a slightly taller/shorter sole
Click to expand...

Yea it's just something to be aware of, when I used to compete this would be a big no no since when you step on stage you'll find yourself lifting from the floor and not some small blocks.

Depends how pure you want your deadlift to be :p
 
Floor underneath is just the screed finish on the concrete base of garage. Tbh it will be re-screeded in the future so not too worried. Figure if I'm going to build DL platform or be worried about the floor, may as well get cheaper iron plates.

Oly lifting aside, are you all cast iron or rubber plates? Plan on getting a dehumidifier from the tips on this thread to limit rust of the barbell and rack fixings. Kind of like the idea of old-school iron plates, but they tend to have a big variation of like + or - 2% weight allowance.
 
Regarding the Dehumidifier, I'm still undecided on it for my gym. When it's cold in there, I've checked, and there's no condensation on the metal. The log cabin has air holes for air flow which I guess helps. Where the problem comes is when I'm in there training, my breathing adds a ton of humidity which almost instantly condenses on the the cold surfaces. I can crack the window which helps a lot, but I'm unsure if a dehumidifier would work in this scenario.

Personally I prefer how I have things now, that is I have a mat under where I train, the rest are tough office carpet tiles which feel nicer to train on outside the rack. Add in a DL platform and you'd be sorted. I never liked the big thick rubber flooring in my home gym, it was a pain to keep clean and was also freezing cold. The carpet is way better.
 
I've got a dehumidifier in the garage, but I can't get much out of it in the cold. My sensor puts the relative humidity pretty high a lot of the time, seen it as much as 95%... But of course when the air is cold and in the single digits that's not actually that much moisture in the air in absolute terms, and like LiE I haven't really noticed condensation appearing on anything. At those temperatures my dehumidifier barely extracts any water as well...

Will be interesting to see how that changes in the warmer months, tempting to pick up a portable air con unit while they are easy to get hold of
 
Dan King said:
Floor underneath is just the screed finish on the concrete base of garage. Tbh it will be re-screeded in the future so not too worried. Figure if I'm going to build DL platform or be worried about the floor, may as well get cheaper iron plates.

Oly lifting aside, are you all cast iron or rubber plates? Plan on getting a dehumidifier from the tips on this thread to limit rust of the barbell and rack fixings. Kind of like the idea of old-school iron plates, but they tend to have a big variation of like + or - 2% weight allowance.
Click to expand...
My garage is about as rudimentary as it gets - single skin brick lean-to on the side of the house with an up + over door and very poorly fitted corrugated roof. I've had no issues with rusting on my plates or rack. My bars have gathered a little surface rust at the areas I grip them. Brass brush and some 3 in 1 oil cleans that up pretty easily. To be fair I didn't bother "maintaining" my bars for a good 6 months but now I keep an eye on things.
I've got mainly iron plates - York G2 thin style. No rust at all.
Note that if you buy the "regular" cheaper bumpers you will run out of room on a 7ft bar pretty quickly - some 20kg bumpers are nearly 4 inches thick (my first York bumpers are stupidly thick). I have one set of Mirafit narrow 20kg bumpers for the inside on deadlifts and use the Yorks for the rest of the weight.
I'm lifting on a 12mm stall mats from Arkmat and don't drop my deadlifts. Lifting up to 200kg for reps (full stop - it's a deadlift, not a basketball!) with no issues so far.
If I had more/better/space I'd probably build a platform but my height is restricted and another couple of inches for a platform may cause issues with my rack hitting the rafters. As it is I've inverted the pull-up bar.
The York plates were out of necessity - my original order was for York old school Standard plates but the supplier screwed up and after a delay sent me the G2. By this time plates were out of stock everywhere so I kept them rather than risk being without weights waiting for restock. If I had my choice I'd have 4 pairs of Standard plates and the Mirafit bumpers for deads.
 
Ah ok I may be overestimating the rust then. This is my first home gym so not sure what to expect. I will definitely watch out for the bumper thickness, the Mirafit narrow bumpers are a great shout.

Talking about barbells.. this is definitely a purchase I want to get right first time. Assuming they come back into stock soon, is there anything that competes with the ATX Ram bar for price & quality? Again not a serious lifter, but aspire to 200kg DL in the future.
 
Got some 10kg Hex plates from Mirafit, just need the 1.25s. These mainly get used on the cable tower and ez bar, or oly bar for smaller increments where the bumpers are too big of a jump.

AmRfEf5.jpg
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top Bottom