average person's view

I might not have a 'westside powerlifting gym' to motivate me when I'm bulking, but at least there's a local junior college in town, and they have a pretty good basketball team. When I'm cutting, I leave my gym and go workout at the college gym at the same time as the basketball players. Almost all of them are very lean and in great condition. At 6' tall and 37 yrs old I'm totally out of place there (I know what midgets must go through now, and I feel for them). I get the strangest looks and questions from these kids, but I want to be around lean people when I'm cutting. I could easily be thrown out of there, but no one ever says anything.
 
About half of my stuff is used and half I bought new. I probably have over $2000 into it. I consider it cheap since it is like having a LIFETIME membership to a gym, which like some other guys pointed out, I get whatever music I want, the gym is open 24 hours and I can exercise naked if I want too!
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(scientific muscle @ Jan. 08 2007,17:28)</div><div id="QUOTEHEAD">QUOTE</div><div id="QUOTE">About half of my stuff is used and half I bought new. I probably have over $2000 into it. I consider it cheap since it is like having a LIFETIME membership to a gym, which like some other guys pointed out, I get whatever music I want, the gym is open 24 hours and I can exercise naked if I want too!
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I must agree with you Sci. As a Senior in College, and one who will have his own place this year, one of my first investments will be a home gym.

I'll keep it simple to adjustable dumbells, tredmill, eliptical, barbell, adjustable bench w/spot rack, as well as a rack to hold the plates. The tricky part is to find someway to do chins and dips - maybe buy a station and add weight to my body?
 
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(colby2152 @ Jan. 08 2007,17:34)</div><div id="QUOTEHEAD">QUOTE</div><div id="QUOTE"><div>
(scientific muscle @ Jan. 08 2007,17:28)</div><div id="QUOTEHEAD">QUOTE</div><div id="QUOTE">About half of my stuff is used and half I bought new.  I probably have over $2000 into it.  I consider it cheap since it is like having a LIFETIME membership to a gym, which like some other guys pointed out, I get whatever music I want, the gym is open 24 hours and I can exercise naked if I want too!
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I must agree with you Sci.  As a Senior in College, and one who will have his own place this year, one of my first investments will be a home gym.  

I'll keep it simple to adjustable dumbells, tredmill, eliptical, barbell, adjustable bench w/spot rack, as well as a rack to hold the plates.  The tricky part is to find someway to do chins and dips - maybe buy a station and add weight to my body?</div>
You do chins on the top of your rack.
 
I agree with the positive stuff for going to a gym too: it's just not my preference. I like the sounds of iron clanking, guys growling into a set, and a cooldown conversation with a shake afterwards...if it doesn't get argumentive of course. But since I go by a log book, and a certain order to my workouts, the main point of a home gym is being able to do it according to my schedule, and without having to wait on anything.
 
<div></div><div id="QUOTEHEAD">QUOTE</div><div id="QUOTE">You do chins on the top of your rack. </div>

That's if I have a tall power rack. If I choose not to buy this (the rack I mentioned were ones for bench pressing and plate storage), I would have to go with one of those tall chin/dip stands. I think that would be the cheapest way.
 
Watch ebay and such for racks. I got an old rack for cheap on ebay. I had to drive four hours to get it, but it was worth it. Great thing was that the guy gave me a bunch of weights for free with it, but yeah... it was way cheaper than actually buying one and to be honest, getting a rack has changed my life, strange to say.
 
My chin bar is in a doorway, well, cased opening to my kitchen...I just bend my knees and it works fine, weighted or otherwise. Odd that some guys like the bent chin bars better than the straight: I'm the opposite, but for curls, I like the cambered bar, as the straight ones hurt my wrists.
 
Here is another vote for working out at home.

Although since I live in Japan in an apartment building, I have to be careful and quiet, so no blaring stereo (just my blaring IPOD!)

As it is, I love it much more than the gym. This has alot to do with gyms here totally sucking though.

I can see Steve's point to a point, but man, I can't wait to get my own house back in the US with an entire room or even a separate building on my land converted into a gym with rubber flooring, a proper multi rack with olympic lifting platform and bumper plates, an elliptical machine, and whatever other little things to really make it what i want a gym to be.
 
I'm toying with the idea of setting up a gym at home although I like supporting my local gym plus I've just paid up for another year. There are some massive guys there lifting huge poundages so it keeps me motivated to try harder.

However, I have a young lad who is now getting into training and I don't want to be paying another gym membership for him so I'm coming around to the idea of setting up my own gear. A rack, a bench and lots of weight will pretty much do it I reckon. Thankfully, I have a large basement just waiting for conversion.

Any of you guys go for the rubber clad plates? I'd like to do power cleans and maybe some OLY lifting and these would allow me to 'put' the weights down a little more quickly without trashing the floor.
 
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(Lol @ Jan. 09 2007,07:51)</div><div id="QUOTEHEAD">QUOTE</div><div id="QUOTE">Any of you guys go for the rubber clad plates? I'd like to do power cleans and maybe some OLY lifting and these would allow me to 'put' the weights down a little more quickly without trashing the floor.</div>
Strangely enough, horse stall mats are great for this, and cheaper than bumper plates. I have a couple of 4x6 foot ones. They are thick and tough, made of some kind of thick (maybe close to an inch) hard rubber.

Considering that they're made to have thousand pound animals stomping on them with metal shoes I guess they have to be made for durability.
 
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(Lifting N Tx @ Jan. 09 2007,11:05)</div><div id="QUOTEHEAD">QUOTE</div><div id="QUOTE"><div>
(Lol @ Jan. 09 2007,07:51)</div><div id="QUOTEHEAD">QUOTE</div><div id="QUOTE">Any of you guys go for the rubber clad plates? I'd like to do power cleans and maybe some OLY lifting and these would allow me to 'put' the weights down a little more quickly without trashing the floor.</div>
Strangely enough, horse stall mats are great for this, and cheaper than bumper plates. I have a couple of 4x6 foot ones. They are thick and tough, made of some kind of thick (maybe close to an inch) hard rubber.

Considering that they're made to have thousand pound animals stomping on them with metal shoes I guess they have to be made for durability.</div>
I learn something new everyday!
 
I have rubber floor mats on my gym, but even with those I'd still love to have rubberized plates. They make a huge difference. Bumper plates are even better. I've dropped over 700 lbs at professional gyms with rubber flooring AND rubber plates, and the sound is nothing. I do that at my gym and it sounds like a 9 on the richter scale.

There is no way I would ever do a clean and press in my gym without having bumper plates. Once I do a press overhead, I'm dropping it and getting the hell out of the way. Controlling the weight all the way back down to my shoulders and then from the shoulders to the floor is too hard on the rotator cuffs.
 
WOW! THAT is CHEAP compared to gym mats that go for $75-$150. Another trick was posted on that site Dan put up...(building home gyms) where they use layered plywood for the squat area.
 
So it looks like bumpers AND horse stall mats are a belt and braces solution. Thanks. As ever, great advice guys.
 
Do you guys drop your deads or always control the descents? I'm concerned about my floor joists for when I start getting them up in weight. (I just started doing deads and I'm only at 335 lb. sets so far) I can brace the floor beneath, but that won't save the flooring itself under the rug. I may just have to do them outside...yuk!
 
Well I have plates that are fully rubberized and rubber interlocking mats (1 cm thick). Now, I don't really know how floors are constructed, but wooden floors are the norm here in Japan.

I live in an apartment and I assume there is concrete between each floor of the building itself, but my floor seems hollow somehow, like the wooden floor is elevated above the real floor.

Anyway, if I dropped even one plate, it is LOUD! The whole floor of the room vibrates somewhat.

These plates and the mats were expensive. I bought them thinking it would be silent with a combo of rubber plates and mats. I was quite disappointed actually.

But, if you laid the mats on top of bare concrete flooring, I think there would be much much less noise.

Hey Quad, got any ideas on how to make it quieter?

Just for reference, here are 2 pics of my plates and mats.



 
Wow, those are really nice looking plates...even if the weights are a bit weird for us americans! Those type mats aren't much: we've used them for shop floors and they're not as solid as a gym mat. Your booming noise is because of the wooden floor, yes, but I don't know what you can do. I'm still trying to figure out what these 'bumpers' are the guys are talking about. I don't think I've seen any.
I built a soundproof stage once for a broadway production here in Atlanta. We put foam rubber down first, laid the floor joists over that, filled them with insulation, covered them with felt, screwed down plywood over that, put a layer of what we call soundboard, or blackboard (a noise reducing composite 1&quot; thick) over that, and laid floating flooring over that. You could jump on it and the mikes wouldn't even hear but a small thump. I guess I could design something like that except for taking heavy loads.
One could use two layers of 3/4&quot; ply just laid over machinery blocks - these soft rubber blocks used for isolating vibration from machinery. That would be cheapest and better than nothing.
 
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