I recently upgraded my basement home gym to a larger garage space which I’m pumped about. One thing I didn’t account for was the slope that comes standard with most (all?) garages.
For squatting I’ve been squatting parallel to the slope (facing towards doors) and I haven’t really noticed much of anything.
The problem is when I try and attempt the same thing with deadlifts the bar starts rolling away from me pretty significantly once the load gets heavy enough. This makes setup and rep work a bit challenging.
My question is - in absence of building and leveling out a platform (which I frankly don’t have the skillset or patience for) how big of a deal would it be if I deadlifted perpendicular to the slope? My thought is as long as it’s not overly noticeable it should be a non issue over time….? Perhaps alternating the direction I face between sets would help as well?
I would love to build a platform in this situation and shim it, as that would be a nice place for dedicated lifting that would limit your setup issues. Outside of that, sure, deadlifting on a slight slope wouldn’t be an issue either from adaptation, strength, or injury risk standpoints
If I could jump in, how detrimental is it if the rack is not parallel to the slope, but set up with the slope? Mine has been set up that way for 6 years.
I would buy 4 sheets of 4 x 8’ plywood. Lay two next to each other in one direction, then the other two on top at 90*. Screw them together to make an 8x8 platform. I’d put a layer of horse stall mats on top- again screwing them in place. You could also glue them, but the plywood will need to be replaced in a few years from all the heavy deadlifts and you can reuse the mats. I would not place a 5th piece of plywood on top in the center, as lifting on wood for the slow lifts kind of sucks.
Interestingly, I think the DL tiles Rogue sells is one of their worst products. They’re very expensive compared to plywood and stall mats, bouncy, and are a pain to arrange.
the construction of the standard platform it seems straight forward enough. It’s the building it level/shimming it that seems like the tedious part. Some of the videos are like a geometry lesson.
