Building a home gym in a bedroom on the cheap

[TameRacingDriver]

I'm hoping to be moving into a much larger property soon and if it comes off I'll have a few spare rooms to play with. I'd quite like to assemble a small home gym for doing weights and perhaps an exercise bike or cross trainer.

What sort of equipment should I be looking for, I presume gumtree and ebay will be the places to look, and if anyone has a similar set up at their home I'd be interested to see pictures.

[CAH706]

Hard to answer without knowing budget and goals but i will have a go

For exercise I mainly recommend people to buy the equipment to support what they like doing. Better doing sub optimal exercise than no exercise initially as once the bug bites you can upgrade then.

Assuming you are already into training I would get

Power rack to allow safe barbell training of squats and bench press. Also will have a chin up bar and possibly dip attachment.

Bench

Free weights Inc bar and ideally a couple of sets of dumbells to start with.

With the above you can do all the exercises you will ever need weights wise for not a lot of cash.

I also have;

A trap bar as my back can play up at times and this allows me to work round it

Hyperextension bench for my lower back

Various bands etc just for fun

Ab wheel just because it works and is cheap

Cardiovascular equipment. If you are not running/biking/walking enough already then maybe something to help support cardio. I have a treadmill, bike and rower to allow me to train when I can't get out (young child at home) and also I like doing HIIT

I've built the equipment up over time and outside of my rack and bench just waited for decent stuff to come up for sale cheap. Eg concept rower for £200. Old but serviced and working great 3 years on.

Hope that helps a bit

[lemmingjames]

Is the room going to be on the ground or upper levels as you may need to look into the loading the floor can take vs the weight you intend to install into the room.

If its ground and solid concrete then youd probably be ok. I dont know what the load ratings are of normal joist so maybe something worth looking up?

[TameRacingDriver]

Thanks chaps.

The room will be a spare bedroom and will be upstairs so yes that is something to think about, although I don't exactly lift massive numbers now.

[TheJimi]

If it's upstairs, then you're inherently limited in terms of how much weight you can put up there. IMO.

Or are you? Is it possible to get some kind of survey done to discern how much weight the floor is capable of bearing?

Though the thought of doing heavy deadlifts upstairs in your average semi gives me the heebie jeebies

I agree with the poster above btw, give us a budget to play with. Also, what do you actually want to achieve?

Edited by TheJimi on Sunday 15th January 23:50

[TameRacingDriver]

Budget wise, I'd like to keep it cheap if possible - say under £500. I'd be just collecting stuff second hand if I could. I don't do deadlifts any more as it was exacerbating lower back pain I sometimes get.

Goal wise - lose the gut and and gain a bit of muscle. Nothing crazy here just a better overall body shape and fitness. I'm just a middle aged guy with a dad bod so any improvement on that would be welcome

[lemmingjames]

TBH ive probably over thought it regarding the floor loadings when you consider the weight of a bed + mattress + occupants spread over 4 corners of point loading or a bath tub full of water etc. It might be worth putting down some ply underneath the equipment to help spread the load but maybe not worth it, though i guess it all depends on how much you intend to install weight wise