What should I put in my garage gym?

My home gym consists of: dumbells, press up bars, pull up bar. It’s surprising how much you can do with these things. Like someone else said though, it depends on your fitness objectives.

Apart from a chin up bar and some weights, I’d go for a punchbag and one of those wooden martial arts dummies.

To be honest, the wooden dummy is something that I’ve always wanted. Not because I do a Chinese style martial art, but because they are awesome and would scare the crap out of a burgler.

I reckon keep it simple, bag, few free weights, rope, & then it wont break the bank when you never even dust it off.

organic355: I’ve had that rack myself, it’s a fantastic value option if you want to use space efficiently and still have a solid rack.

It’s equally as good for squats as bench press which is important as the bench is the one you want to cover most in solo training. I’ve recommended it to a couple of friends who’ve been equally impressed for £130ish delivered.

Ski, is that a steam room? How much and where from?

TRX set up, do your core a treat

i too have got that bodymax squat rack with spotters. it also has a dip station on the reverse. got a bench from there too with leg extension and preacher pad. chins/pullup bar and free weights too does all i’ll ever need.

Almost there kit wise. I’ve added Gymnastic rings for pull ups off the RSJ. Had a slight cock up with the rubber matting, which is supposed to be for gyms. It’s too slippy and makes doing the Jerk quite interesting as my feet drift about. I’m hoping it either roughens up or I’ll have to glue some wet and dry to it in the right places so I can Clean and Jerk without risk of doing involuntary splits!

[/url]
Workshop Gym[/url] by brf[/url], on Flickr

Well the floor didn’t last long, just dropped a bar bell through it!

[/url]
Oops![/url] by brf[/url], on Flickr

Will have to build a proper weights platform…

I don’t want to hijack but could I ask a question?

I have a bench and some weights in the garage which I pootle about with. However, I am fearful of pushing myself to muscle failure on bench presses as I train on my own and don’t want the bar falling on my chest / getting stuck.

I there any piece of equipment out there that would protect me from the bar falling on me if my muscles failed?

look for a bench with spotters mate. plenty out there.

Weight training… Chris Hoy style

A poster or two.

Heh – another thing I’d never thought of but now want thanks to STW!

Edit: the gym obviously. 😳

Well the floor didn’t last long, just dropped a bar bell through it!

Thicker mats needed! Have a look at ‘horse mats’ used in stabling … designed to take the weight of a big thing on four legs so fine for dropped barbells 🙂

Those mats are 15mm thick, weigh 40kg each (6′ x 3′) and are for gyms, so I was hoping they’d protect the floor. However, obviously not….

So I spent most of this afternoon repairing the floor and building a proper Olympic weights platform:

Using a very nifty tool I found recommended on STW, I cut out the collapsed bits of 18mm Ply:

[/url]
Cutting out the broken bits[/url] by brf[/url], on Flickr

[/url]
Barbell damage[/url] by brf[/url], on Flickr

The insulation under the Ply was crushed, so I replaced the duff section with some old fence posts to re-inforce that spot:

[/url]
4" fence post used to repair insulation[/url] by brf[/url], on Flickr

Covered it all in foil to keep a complete vapour barrier:

[/url]
Foil Vapour barrier[/url] by brf[/url], on Flickr

[/url]
Repair complete[/url] by brf[/url], on Flickr

So I need something more robust under the bar:

[/url]
Barbell impact zones[/url] by brf[/url], on Flickr

Using 3 sheets of Ply, I made a 7′ x 6′ pad, with triple layer 18mm ply on the outer 2′ each side:

[/url]
Ply base[/url] by brf[/url], on Flickr

I cut up the 15mm rubber sheets to cover the edges and filled the middle with scraps of 18mm ply:

[/url]
Matting on top[/url] by brf[/url], on Flickr

I put more rubber mat in the middle section with a final cover of Ply (as it gives better grip for shoes):

[/url]
Untitled[/url] by brf[/url], on Flickr

So there are now 4 layers of Ply and 1 layer of matting over the Celotex, which hopefully will last a bit longer…..

haha, fantastic work, wish i had your DIY skills. YOU DA MAN!!!!! 😀