Apologies if this isn’t the appropriate forum for this question. That said, I’m planning a garage gym build in preparation to do the beginner’s template and then plan to proceed to the strength I template. The gym I train at now isn’t equipped for barbell lifting. No power racks, no deadlifting allowed, no chalk, the barbells are 30+mm junk, etc. I’ve checked out other local gyms, but can’t find anything that I can make work due to my varied schedule. All the decent barbell gyms are a long drive away and seem to keep banker’s hours. So, my plan is to buy a Rouge R3 rack, bench, barbell and plates, and build a deadlift platform. (Thanks to Alan Thrall for the excellent YouTube video on how to build one.) Can anyone recommend any additional equipment I may need for the beginner’s and Strength I template or, thinking ahead, what else I might need? I am on a tight budget. (I’ve watched my local Craigslist like a hawk now for months, and so far nothing. I’ve visited the local used sports equipment reseller many times, and they have nothing either.) Any advice would be appreciated. Thank you.
I think it somewhat depends on what your budget is. I lift in my garage gym and I use a lot of Titan equipment because its cheaper. In terms of quality they are definitely a step down for Rogue, but I think they are a good fit for garage gyms. I’d get a tall rack that is 36 deep if you have the space for it with a High low pulley system. That is going to run you $700 with Titan and higher with Rogue. https://www.titan.fitness/cages-and-…wer-combo.html
I’d also buy a middle of the line bench. I have the Titan FID and I like it ($175), but there are a lot of similar options out there. Don’t go too cheap on the bench.
I’d get two barbells, one with center knurling (for squatting) and one without. I’d get one nice bar ($300) and one strong (PSI 190,000) but cheap bar ($135). I’d go with Rogue for the expensive bar and probably Titan for the cheap bar. I have a bunch of speciality bars from Titan and over time they are nice to acquire. I have their Safety Squat Bar version 2.0. I have one used it once so I cannot give a definitive review but it got good reviews after their first one tanked. I also going to order a Titan Bison Bar when it comes back in stock because squatting aggravates my shoulder. I bought a cambered multi-grip bar from Titan and would probably the non-cambered one if I got a re-do because I paid an extra $60 for the camber and I don’t really use it.
A couple of the other items I have that I really like are an adjustable pair of dumbbells. I got a knock off pair of the Bowflex 1090’s for $400. They look just like the Bowflex 1090’s, but don’t have any brand on them. They adjust from every weight between 10 and 90 pounds in 5 pound increments, but in reality in you can do 2.5 pound increments by putting the two dials on different numbers (for example putting one dial on 35 pounds and the other dial on 30 pounds would give you a 32.5 dumbbell). I am pretty happy with that buy. I also bought a cheaper Glute Ham Raise machine. So far I haven’t used it enough to justify the price, but I am hoping to work that into my workouts more in the future.
I got my lifting belt ($125) and dip belt ($50) from Rogue and like both of them.
In terms of plates definitely buy them used. They are advertised on Craigslist and Facebook Marketplace. A good price for used plates is 50 centers a pound where I live. That said if you are impatient its easier to find an ad for about 70 cents a pound for iron plates.
All in all, I think you can get a budget gym with all the essentials for $1000 dollars ($300 rack, $135 bar, $150 bench, 300 pounds of weight for $225), plus a couple other things.
I think you can get a pretty nice gym for around $4,000 with things like a nicer powerrack, specialty bars, adjustable dumbbells, a vertical leg press and other fun, but unnecessary toys.
I think for about $10,000 you can probably get a commercial gym quality garage gym.
My gym is the middle option and I like it a lot.
I just wanted to suggest a squat stand like the Rogue monster lite or the equivalent Titan X3. It saved me money and more importantly space and I haven’t yet encountered a reason for needing a rack. I use the Rogue version at my commercial gym and the Titan at home and there’s no difference in the quality.
Some kind of audio setup to play music!
I use a $50 amazon dot for that but I could see a music connoisseur wanting more.
Buy once, cry once seems a good philosophy for high wear items like barbells, support gear an racks, but you don’t need Rouge plates to compliment your Rouge Power bar. So you can save a bunch of money there using good old oly cast plates. ( Dont forget, Rouge has that boneyard sale thing on blemished or less than perfect items, so you can keep an eye out there)
As a point of interest, or not, a Rouge Ohio bar runs to $561 and an SSB to $745 here in Aus.
I have:
2 x barbells - new
1 x SSB - new
1x Spud squat belt - new
1 x dipping belt - new
1 x dipping station - used
1 x Force USA rack - used
1 x home made landmine gimbal
A bunch of plates - new and used
1 x flat bench - new
1 x incline bench - new
An old PC running Windows 98 where all my tunes and templates live - very used.
Probably around 2K for the lot.
A glute / ham station will be next in line if I can find one at the right price.
This has been more than enough equipment for the several BBM programs I’ve run.
$3k is plenty in the US.
I have a Rogue S-1 stand & safeties, flat bench, good barbell (B&R), used iron plates, platform. Works fine, don’t really need anything more.
But since you have budget for more, here are some other things I’ve found to be worth money, even though I’m a cheapskate:
- High powered fan (my garage lacks air conditioning)
- farmer’s walk handles (Titan, $90)
- one pair 45, one pair 25 lb bumpers, one pair 5 lb plastic spacers – for teaching beginners to deadlift, and for power cleans, and quieter deadlifts
- extra pair of J-hooks
- plate storage tree
- chains
- DBs (I have a pair each of 10, 20, 30, and one 40 from various yard-sales, super-cheap)
- ab roller wheel ($15)
- shoes, chalk, straps, etc
- dip stand or rack-attached dip handles, dip/chin weight belt
I had a Rack, platform, bar and plates along with an elliptical and successfully did The bridge, 12 week press, and hypertrophy templates.
No problem. You can find a lot of the stuff on facebook marketplace or craigslist for cheap just to see if it will work for you then upgrade as you progress. I didn’t have things such as a SSB and leg press but the templates give variants that worked out well. Just one other piece of advice. Don’t skimp on the bar. The Ohio Power Bar is a good all purpose bar.
I think you’ll be fine running these programs using the basic equipment you listed. You can also do the powerbuilding and hypertrophy but it’s nice to have the options for more variety there. The time and flexibility you gain from a home gym is as much a benefit as having the right equipment! I also started with a limited budget, and add a few things each year around Black Friday. I already had adjustable dumbbells (ironmaster) but these are optional. Also had a Concept 2 rower which I still use for cardio.
To start:
- Rogue R3-rack.
- Built a platform.
- Rogue B&R bar. Collars.
- Flat utility bench.
- Used plates (Craigslist). Used a bathroom scale to get matched pairs, and wrote weight on all plates with paint marker.
- Rubber fractional plates (CFF Fitness).
- 4" Belt (Best Belts).
- Shoes.
What I got later:
- Plate storage: Pair of CAP plate trees from Amazon.
- Rogue Matador dip attachment. Very sturdy and infinitely better than setting up barbells across pipe safeties.
- Rogue monolift attachment and strap safeties. Both have been great for benching alone.
- I built a lat pulldown using loading pin plus hardware from Home Depot.
- Added gripper vinyl to bench.
- Straps (Ironmind): I don’t compete so I use straps for top sets of pulling, also high rep pulling.
- Wrist wraps (SBD, flexible medium) for pressing.
- 2.5" Belt (Best Belts)
- SSB for lower body variety (splurged on Kabuki transformer bar but this is still much less than a belt squat or leg press!)
Next:
- Adjustable incline bench for upper body variety
- Safety spotter arms for pin presses.
- Homemade blocks for block pulls.
- SBD knee sleeves.
- Farmers walk handles.
It seems like the safety squat bar tends to be the first specialty bar that most garage gyms get.
Another useful accessory – a barbell pad.
These get a lot of derision online, people call them a “pussy pad”. I don’t recommend one for back squats.
But they are darn-near required for Zercher squats and carries and hip thrusts, which are all very good exercises. I made my pad from a pool noodle, so it was nearly free.
I am going to try to categorize gym equipment into three categories, Necessary, Very Useful, and Nice to Have and also include some links. This assumes you are doing a powerlifting style of weight training. By contrast if you were doing say a bodybuilding style of training I would take some things off this list and add other things to the list (e.g. a cable machine isn’t used much in a powerlifting program, but would be very useful for a bodybuilding style routine.
NECESSARY
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Power rack or squat stand: You cannot do a powerlifting program without access to either a power rack or squat stand. The main two benefit to a power rack over a squat stand are its safer if you do not have a spotter and you can attach more accessories to it that allows you to do more exercises than squat stands. The main advantage to squat stands is they take up less space, which could be the most important factor in a garage gym. I would recommend getting a power rack combo that includes a high low pulley system (an example of one of the accessories you can put on a power rack that you cannot put on squat stands). A 2 x 2 power rack will work but a 2 x 3 or 3 x 3 rack will be studier. If you have the space a power rack with 36 inches of depth is idea though 24 inches will work. Also for pull ups or chin ups getting a tall power race is preferable. An example of what I think would be a good fit for a garage gym https://www.titan.fitness/cages-and-…wer-combo.html ($800)
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Barbell: You need one barbell but if you have the money you should get two for a couple reasons. One so you have a beater if you have some exercises where you intend to treat he bar roughly you have a cheaper bar you are less worried about damaging. Second it allows you to superset two exercises that require barbells. In high volume routines supersetting is an effective way to save time. I would get one bar with center knurling for squatting and one bar with center knurling for overhead pressing and Powercleans. My recommendations are:
a Expensive Bar: Rogue Bar 2.0 (no center knurling) https://www.roguefitness.com/the-rogue-bar-2-0 ($265) I would use this one for deadlifting, power cleans, barbell rows, and overhead press
. Cheaper Bar: This Titan Bar with center knurling is an example of what I think would be idea for a second bar … with 190 PSI strength and 30 mm thickness you can squat heavy without worrying about bending the bar and its idea for both benching (where I prefer a thicker bar) ($130) https://www.titan.fitness/strength-e…-capacity.html. Due to the center knurling its not idea for power cleans or overhead press and due to the thickness its not idea for deadlifting or barbell press because it will be harder to grip and you won’t get any bend out of the bar.
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Set of weight plates: You should be able to find a set of iron weight plates used online for about 75 centers per pound. Try to find ones that have the standard diameter as if they are smaller than standard$18 you will be doing all your deadlifts out of about a one inch deficit.
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Weight Bench: You only need a flat bench and you can get one of those for around $100. That said I would get Flat Incline Decline (FID) Bench with at least a $600 pound weight capacity. This bench is a good example of what I think is idea for a garage gym https://www.titan.fitness/strength-e…/fidbench.html ($180)
If you were going to do more of a bodybuilding style lifting, I might get something that let you do leg extensions and hamstrings curls on it like this… https://www.walmart.com/ip/Body-Soli…ench/358494789
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Flooring: I would make an 8 foot by 4 foot lifting platform out of horsestall mats and plywood. The reason I would go 8 by 4 rather than 4 by 4 is you should be able to put your power rack under it if its 8 by 4 and you can actually secure the power rack to the flooring which will make the power rack really stable. Having this flooring will protect you garage’s cement flooring, less noise, and make the power rack stable. Estimated cost of project ($500)
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Basic lifting clothing: Includes Lifting belt ($130), shoes ($130), straps and wrist wraps ($30).
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Clips to keep the weights from falling off the bar (Just go to amazon, I paid like $12 per pair)
I am going to edit this post and provide more information on the below items including what they are useful for and links with examples, but for now I will just list them. Let me know if people think I am missing any useful items for a powerlifting program.
VERY USEFUL
- Dip Bars: If you have a power rack you must likely going to want them as an attachment to the rack. However there are stand alone dip bars available. The options cost starting at $30 and up. The most popular ones seem to be Rogue’s Matador and the various knockoffs of the matador. This is Titan’s knock off https://www.titan.fitness/t-2-y-dip-bar.html ($30-$100)
- Spotter Arms for power rack (necessary if you want to do the pin overhead press and you powerrack is not tall enough to let you do it in the rack-also useful for loading and unloading plates when deadlifting) Amazon.com: Yes4All Premium Barbell Safety Squat Bar Attachment - 1,000 LBS Capacity Squat Rack Spotter Arms 2x2 – Adjustable Height : Sports & Outdoors ($50)
- Tree for Weight plates Amazon.com : CAP Barbell Olympic 2-Inch Plate Rack : Plate Trees : Sports & Outdoors ($50)
- Holder for bars https://www.titan.fitness/9-bar-olympic-barbell-holder-vertical-storage-rack-19-x-19.html ($75)
- Curling Bar: Useful for both bicep curls and lying tricep extensions. In terms of bicep curls you actually hit the muscle slightly better with a straight bar according to rip, but if you are like me, it may aggravate your elbow in which case a curling bar becomes the best option. Its also great for lying tricep extensions. Make sure you get one that fits 2 inch plates https://www.titan.fitness/strength-equipment/weightlifting-plates-and-bars/barbells/4-olympic-ez-curl-bar.html ($50)
- Bumper Plates: Make sure to check to see if the price includes shipping if you order online! Since we are talking about 100’s of pounds being shipped, that is important. Alpha Bumper Plates Sets | Fleck Bumper Plates |Vulcan Strength ($300-$1000)
- Fractional plate set (usually a 5 pound set that includes two 1 pounders, two .75 pounders, two .5 pounders, and two .25 pounders) Necessary to micro-load-- for me they are almost a must have… Amazon.com : 44SPORT Olympic Fractional Plates -Pair of 1/4, 1/2, 3/4, 1 lb Weights (8 Plates. Total Weight: 5lbs) : Sports & Outdoors ($30)
- Ab roller Amazon.com: N1Fit Ab Roller Wheel - Sturdy Ab Workout Equipment for Core Workout - Ab Exercise Equipment as Abdominal Muscle toner - Ab exercise equipment used as at home workout equipment for both Men & Women : Sports & Outdoors ($15)
- Chains or bands Great for overloads Maybe buy 3 sets including one set that offers a lot of resistance at two sets that are on the lower end (you can always combine the two sets that offer low resistance to form a medium set)… https://www.roguefitness.com/rogue-monster-bands
NICE TO HAVE
- Safety Squat Bar
- Multi-grip Football bar
- Hex-Bar
- Cambered bar (like the bison bar)
- Plyo-box
- Front Squat Vest
- Vertical Leg Press or Leg Press attachment for Power Rack
- Adjustable Dumbbells
- Landmine’
- Dip Belt or weight vest
- Glute Hamstring Developer
- Reverse Hyper
- Bench designed for Incline Sit-ups
- Bench for back extensions
- Slingshot for Bench
I have a question for you guys/gals with a deadlift platform in your garage. My garage is sloped (per code) so the bar will roll on me when doing deadlifts. I am planning to build a platform but I’m not sure if I should just lift parallel to the slope (meaning one side would be slightly lower than the other) or shim it with some old roofing tiles to level it out. One concern I have with shimming is if that put extra strain in the middle where it may not be touching the floor.
Other concern not shimming would be is that enough of a difference (1/4’ over 8’ is the slope amount) to cause a noticeable difference in pulling strength/leverage/etc.
Thanks for any input!
My garage sloped more – about 1.25" across the diagonal of the 8’x’8 platform. The problem with the slope is for lifts that start from the floor, like deadlifts, cleans, snatches, etc. The bar tends to roll around making setup a pain. I don’t think the slope is bothersome or dangerous otherwise.
You could just turn the bar perpendicular to the slope, if that doesn’t interfere with where you placed the rack.
Or, you can just put a shim or pad under the bar to stop its rolling.
Or, you can level the floor under the platform.
I personally leveled the floor with “leveling compound” i.e. a kind of runny cement. I made a rectangular frame of 2x4 boards, mixed the compound in buckets and poured it in. It took multiple sacks of compound, and cost a couple hundred dollars.
Since I expect to sell my house someday, I put some tape down under the compound to make it easier to scrape it off and restore normal garage drainage for the next buyer.
I’ve noticed in the years since that the compound has cracked and some has flaked away under the edge of the platform, but so far this has not caused any practical problems.
My platform is (bottom to top) leveling cement, 3/4" OSB, 1/2" plywood, 1" rubber horse-stall mats.
Layers are connected sparsely with screws. It’s important to only screw down the rubber along the inside seams, to allow for expansion and contraction with temperature w/o buckling up. Garage temps vary a lot with the season.
I don’t think you should do anything under the platform for 1/4" over 8’. You might not even have rolling unless you shove the bar…rubber stall mats are firm but still a resilient material. If it’s a problem, I second cwd’s pad idea, with bar parallel to slope. Something mildly compressible like yoga mat or low pile commercial carpet, under the plates.
I have run strength 1 and currently running the untamed training cycle. I have a very small gym space, 10 x 8 with a little less than 8ft ceiling height. I have a titan t3 short rack, its a rogue r3 clone and is perfect for what I need. I got plates from tag sales, craigslist and facebook market place. I have a few bands and started with a rep fitness bench. If your looking for an adjustable bench I hear the rep fitiness fid is great but I found an ironmaster super bench for cheap in new condition. I have a cap barbell that is similar to the rogue power bar without the price tag. It all works great. I just added the pulley system for my rack so I can do lat work.
Hi Rod, I’m sorry it’s super challenging to acquire items for your home gym. I was lucky to have leveraged Rogue’s “Black Friday” sale last November to pull the trigger on a new home gym. This wasn’t absolutely necessary as my wife and I have a gym membership and that’s where we train all the time and the idea was to build this in our weekend place. I’m cheap and wanted to just wait on the idea. But, wife was more pragmatic about it and if we want to leave town early and need to get a training session while we’re away, we’d have problems. Good call by her and we executed on it.
While I enjoyed Olympic lifts in the past, our focus is purely on strength and powerlifting, so I made the following decisions for our gym setup:
(2) Rogue Monster Lite Squat stands with feet (I had no interest in drilling and making semi-permanent decisions for the racks)
(2) Rogue Ohio Power Bars 45 lb Stainless Steel
(2) Rogue Monster Utility Bench 2.0 Short with Competition Fat Pad
(1) Vertical Plate Tree Bumper Stacker Wheel Set
About 1,000 lbs of Rogue Calibrated Steel Plate weights
(2) Custom made deadlift platforms, 4’x8’, 3 plies of 3/4" board, 3/4" plywood, and 3/4" stall mat
(1) Rogue Deadlift Bar Jack
(1) Rogue HG 2.0 Collars for wife
(1) OSO Barbell Collars for me
I made a video of the gym coming together here: https://youtu.be/lo9xH1pm6zs You can get a good idea of what it looks like and how I planned it. I’m happy to also send you more detailed pictures of anything that may help.
You’ll notice some choices above reflecting my philosophy of “buy once”. I hate buying crap and replacing/throwing away things. So, I’ve learned through life that I much rather take the pain of paying more upfront and just not have to deal with issues later. So, there are opportunities to save some money above choosing other items than what I did, but now that I have about 6+ months of solid use of this gym, I wouldn’t change anything.
A couple of more items you may think about for conditioning and items that I have:
(1) Concept 2 Rower
A range of Kettlebells from 15 lb to 50 lb (facilitates some bicep, tricep, row variation work)
There’s, of course, a whole world of other things you can buy. But, we’ve kept ours minimalist on purpose to suit our needs and not just accumulate stuff. I would like to have an actual deadlift bar, especially since I compete. But, I’ve been too cheap to do so yet. Plus, I figure I can continue to get strong on a stiff bar and get that nice +5-10% (surprise) advantage when I do reach competition… 
Hope that helps…
Just a disclaimer, half my family is Scottish so I’m not the kind of guy that will pay full price for anything. I’m in the same boat, trying to build a cheap home gym and here is what I’ve found.
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I’ve watched a bunch of Garage Gym Reviews and videos of people staring gyms. I’m going to disagree with most people and say you don’t need a Rogue Barbell. I have heard the “buy it to last” debate and set out to buy a Rogue barbell. At the warehouse that sold them the rep had me try one of his Chinese barbells and compared it to the rogue. I ended up getting the cheaper one because I was able to get it for a third of the price of the rogue bar and then bought a couple of no name 45 lb plates with the money I saved. The bar stays inside and I use it pretty regularly. It will be stronger than me for some time and I haven’t had any issues with it. You probably don’t need a Rogue bar?
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because of Covid there are a lot of Gym that are closing for good, especially some of the CrossFit boxes. I would try rounding up some equipment from them as they try and liquidate their inventories. Even stable gyms are always trying to get rid of stuff.
Hope you find what you are looking for! Good luck.
Thanks to everyone for your replies. I posted my question over a year ago. I really appreciate all the advice you all offered. I thought I should follow up here to summarize what I acquired and what I learned. I’m lucky I put together most of my garage gym back in summer of 2019. So I’ve been unaffected by the current scarcities in equipment. One thing about having a garage gym is there always seems like there is another piece of equipment that would be nice to have.
Rack & attachments: Rouge R3 shorty. Turns out a Rouge rack and a Rouge Ohio Power Bar aren’t a great combination. Clipping the rack when walking out a squat with the OPB can be a problem if your attention waivers for an instant. This absolutely sucks when doing heavy squats. Otherwise, the rack has held up ok. It has some dings and chips in the cerakote primarily from clipping it on walk-outs. I haven’t missed any reps yet. So I can’t speak to how well it performs in that situation. Some other disadvantages to the R3 is that all the sweet attachments that go with the Monster and Monster Lite series racks aren’t available. I did get 2 sets of J-cups and I’m glad I did. It makes setting up for the next lift a little easier. Although my garage would’ve just fit a standard height rack, I’m a shorty. It’s nice not to have to jump or stand on a stool to reach the pull-up bar. I did get the spotter arms to do overhead press outside the rack. I got both pin and strap safeties. You don’t need both. If you are going to do rack pulls in the rack as opposed to using blocks, straps are nice so you don’t damage the knurling of the barbell. But the pins are more frequently useful for performing the pin variations. I did get the Matador dip attachment. Dips are a bit difficult for me as a small person using the Matador. The bars are spaced a bit too wide. So I have to grip as close to the proximal end of the dip arms, which means my chest brushes the attachment support. Not a big deal. The Landmine attachment has proved to be useful. I rotate between bent-over rows and lever rows. I also use it for belt squats. Not necessary. But nice to have the option for a little variety. Whatever rack you buy, order shims with it. I needed a few to make it level and ordered them after the fact. So I had to wait a week or so for those to arrive before bolting the rack down. But that gave me a week to experiment with the final rack placement.
Bench: Rep Fitness AB-3100 adjustable bench. I wanted to be able to do incline variations, but didn’t have the budget for the nice adjustable benches. I settled on the AB-3100. It’s Rep’s least expensive adjustable bench. The good: It’s stable and fairly easy to roll around when you need to get it out of the way. (If you’re training in limited space, you may be surprised to discover how much time you spend moving things around.) The bad: The gap between the incline bench and the seat seems to be exactly where I want to put my butt every time. Also, the height is shorter than the Rouge Flat Bench, which is fine with me. But that might be a problem for larger lifters.
Bar: Rouge Ohio Power Bar (45 pound). My reason was the gym that hosts local USAPL meets uses OPBs. Again, I’m a small person and wanted to get used to a 29mm bar without whip. I really prefer the 28.5mm diameter of the TPB. Hook gripping an OPB doesn’t work for me. I can barely get my middle finger and thumb to touch. Also, I live in the humid southeast. So I ordered the OPB with a cerakote finish. It has held up ok but I would just get the raw steel bar and do the maintenance if I had it to do over. It would be really nice to have a second barbell to superset with. And, as I pointed out above, the collars on the OPB clip the R3 easily when walking out squats.
Collars: Rouge HG 2.0. These were free with the barbell and I understand why. These are like securing your plates with a couple of mousetraps.
Plates: Troy Premium Olympic black plates from Adamant Barbell. I’m not impressed. The black paint has flaked off some of them. The black paint also seems to be matte on some plates and glossy on others. And some plates it appears the paint bubbled before it dried. The bubbles look bad but provide a stippled effect, which makes the plates a little easier to hold. The paint issue is cosmetic and doesn’t affect their performance. The black plates are just gray plates with black paint. Speaking of performance, one of the 45s chipped along the inside of the hole. I just avoid deadlifting with that one for now. Eventually, I’ll need it once my deadlift gets to 405. Unfortunately, Adamant has gone out of business since I purchased the plates. Anyway, in retrospect, I would’ve just picked the Plain Jane Standard plates.
Plate storage: I went with the Troy VTX Olympic plate tree since I ordered Troy plates. It was a bit of a pain to assemble. But it hold the plates fine.
Deadlift platform: I made one with the help of a carpenter friend according to Alan Thrall’s exact specifications minus the logo. After a year of regular deadlifting, my garage floor seems to be fine thanks to the platform. That said, if I had to do it over again, I’d make two changes. First, I’d build it in thirds. As one solid piece, it’s impossible to move by myself. It would take three or four stout folks to move it very far. I do lean it against the garage wall when not in use, which requires lifting one side. This can be a challenge after I’m already spent from deadlifts. Second, I might make the portions with horse stall matts wider and the center plywood section more narrow. The deadlift jack has scratched the plywood quite a bit. Also, sumo on the plywood can be slippery. As for the band pegs, they are just like the one’s in Alan’s video from Titan. They work, but some of the welds are a sloppy. Anyway, I’ve seen some other DIY platforms with less expensive DIY band peg attachments. If you’re building a platform, you might consider going that route.
Deadlift jack: I splurged here and bought the full sized Rouge deadlift jack. I used a “Dead Wedge” for a while before when I deadlifted at a globo gym, and having a full sized jack is just a lot faster and easier on the back.
30" industrial fan: This is a necessary piece of gym equipment in the hot, humid southeast. I don’t remember the specific brand. I picked it up on sale as a floor model at a big box store. A regular box fan just doesn’t move enough air.
Rouge R2 Concept Rower: I wasn’t planning on getting any conditioning equipment. But I stumbled onto a great deal for a gently used one. It was nice to have this as an option last winter when the weather wouldn’t cooperate for cycling or running. A rower is great for general warm-up and HIIT. LISS on a rower is tedious because I can’t let my attention wander like I can on a bike or treadmill.
Ironmaster Adjustable Dumbbells: These were a Black Friday sale acquisition. Adjustable dumbbells are great because you can do a lot of exercises for a relatively small footprint. That said, these aren’t quite like using the standard pancake plate or hexagonal dumbbells. It’s hard to explain precisely, but they feel different in the hand than typical dumbbells. The balance is different and not as pleasant. I know Ironmaster has a video on their website of them dropping these down the stairs. But you cannot drop them. You’ll end up with quite a crack in your concrete floor if you do. To prevent that from happening again, I bought some 3 inch thick playground tiles. 3 inches is actually too thick because they impart too much bounce to the dumbbell, which bounced off and cracked the floor again. Maybe a 1.5 inch version of a playground tile would work better? Why is this even an issue? If you’re using a dumbbell for an AMRAP, you need to be able to drop it. I’ve hit myself in the chest and leg a few times with the corners trying to control the drop. If you go this route, the stand is nice to have. Not only does it work as plate storage, but it gives you a decent surface to swap out plates on. Changing plates is a PITA, but you get the hang of it.
45lb Bumper Plates: CAP, not Rouge. I bought these out of a car trunk behind the jail. No kidding. Turns out the combination of iron plates, deadlift platform, and the cinderblock walls of a garage means deadlifts and Pendlay rows are kinda loud. These plus a layer of carpet backing between the plywood of the platform and the concrete floor of the garage deadens the noise a bit.
DIY Blocks for block pulls: My carpenter friend made these for me with some leftover 2x4s and leftover horse stall mat. Pretty sweet. Only downside is they aren’t adjustable. But they’re prefect for me.
Jump Rope: This is a great tool for general warm up. Skipping rope is a great way to get your heart rate up quickly, especially if you’re not good at it. No, I didn’t get the $50 Rouge version. I think mine was $14 from Amazon.
Inflatable Exercise Ball: I like to use one of these for crunches because it helps to isolate the rectus abdominis, or so I think. But, I left it on the front porch one night and it wasn’t there the next morning.
Ab Roller: This is a great, cheap option when planks get too boring or too easy. Just make sure you’re doing it right.
Keg, spare tire, tow rope, play sand: Wuuuuuut? Lately, I’ve been trying to add some variety to my conditioning. I got this idea from Alan Thrall also. Unless strongman adds a battle gnome division, I’m not likely to compete. But strongman is a great corner of strength athletics to get inspiration for GPP. Even better, I managed to scrounge up this stuff for free.
That covers everything. Please let me know if you have any questions or comments. Thanks again for everyone’s input.