The Best Home Gym Flooring Guide for 2021!

[Music] hey guys this is coop from garage him reviews and today we're on part one of our how to build a home gym series and we're starting with flooring so flooring is the base of your gym there's so many questions that have come about on how to build your home gym when it relates to flooring i'm going to go through all those details at the end i'm going to have a frequently asked questions like q a section so i can kind of get through all of like the details and minor things that you guys ask by and large there's about three different types of flooring that i think most people will consider for the home gym one and the most popular is rubber flooring the second is like an eva foam and then the third is like a carpet turf that sort of thing most people will go with a rubber flooring and for most people i would recommend a rubber flooring rubber flooring is something that's going to protect your foundation so dropping weights that sort of thing it's going to allow you some extra grip when you're squatting deadlifting and those other movements and it's also probably one of the most cheapest to use other than say eva foam eva foam is going to be a little bit cheaper but it's not going to work as well i'll go through that in just a moment but rubber flooring is going to be the gold standard at least in my opinion for most people most people should be using rubber flooring it's very stable it's something that's going to contact the surface you don't have to put anything underneath a lot of people choose to but i think for most people you can just roll it out and lay it on there now within rubber flooring since we're talking about that there's a few different types you can go with one is just your standard like square tiles they also have ones that come in rectangles or some other shapes and then in addition that you have your rolls for most people this is just my by and large recommendation for most of you watching so if you're like i just don't know which one to get what would you recommend coupe so the flooring you need to get is this right here this beautiful flooring that you see here is the best flooring for your dollar okay this flooring is called stall mats i would say horse stall mats are what i would recommend for most people horse stall mats are four by six mats they're three quarter inch they weigh about a hundred pounds a piece you can get them at any like tractor feed store tractor supplies a place you can get them you know orchard lens is a place around me there's just all these different you know feed and tractor type places where they're you know marketing to people that have farms and that sort of thing not people that have home gyms but the reason you want to go there is because they're very cheap for what you get the value on horse doll mats is by and large the absolute best value that's available now i'm in my new home gym my new garage gym and we're kind of detailing this as i build mine so i can show you how i'm building it and talk about the things that i'm thinking through but i decided to go a different direction with this gym every gym i've had up to this point has been horse stall mats the reason being because it's a good value it's cheap three quarter inches really thick so you don't have to worry about your foundation or anything like that and overall they look pretty good okay like you know there's going to be some miscuts and they're going to smell and that sort of thing but for most people a horse stall mat is gonna be the best option you can get them for about 40 bucks 45 bucks at most places per mat you lay them down they're not going to move i would suggest using some carpet tape beneath there or some other sort of like adhesive to keep it on the floor you can use gorilla tape on top i don't like using that because i don't like seeing like the seam on top i know alan thrall from untamed strength has used these like metal i don't know what you call them but they've got some sort of pointy pieces and they keep them together i don't like those either because they kind of provide a little bit of mound i would say for most people like carpet tape underneath that's what i have in my gym now for my gym i decided to use rolls this time reason i decided to use rolls is because i like the look a little bit better um it has it's there's going to be fewer seams they're not going to move as much they aren't three-quarter inch i'm using i think eight millimeters or three eight inches so it's quite a bit thinner however i've never had issues dropping weight on the mats and then my foundation in addition to that if i'm gonna be dropping things from overhead i'm gonna do it on a platform so for those of you that are like man i want a deadlift in my garage i don't want a platform and then three quarter inch is really what you should get however if you're going to like do some olympic lifting you want a platform or you're going to do heavy deadlifts you want to drop from the top then i would definitely say that you should have a platform now there's one thing that you should definitely not get this bad boy this is a eva foam tile most of you guys have probably seen these in walmart which is probably good enough reason not to buy it because it's just going for the general consumer you do not want foam tiles trust me on this the reason you don't want foam tiles is one because they're going to collect all kinds of dust mold just nasty stuff underneath it the other reason is because they're going to shift and move and the third and most important reason is because they're basically not going to allow you to stabilize during lift so there's that foam so it's compressing underneath you when you lift and you're like oh that feels kind of good because you know i also like lifting with my purse no you don't want this because when you're squatting it's going to compress and you want as stable of a surface as possible when you're squatting so you want to be absolutely grounded it's the reason that guys like chris duffin world record deadlifters thousand pound deadlifters still dead lift and squat without shoes because they're trying to make as much contact with the floor as possible you want to be as stable as possible using something like this is squatting with running shoes and as you guys all know we do not squat with running shoes now your other option is what i've got that's this towel right here so these came in large rolls they were 24 foot rolls at my gym we used the exact same thing intentional fitness and they've got 50 foot rolls they're 3 8 inches they're you know thick recycled rubber and they have a nice fleck pattern so the floor never really looks dirty no matter how much crap is on there okay but for most of you you're going to want a stall man it's the best price it's the best option it's easy to lay down it's just what i would go with you can also add terp now in my new gym i've decided to add turf a turf strip right down the middle one reason i added it is really just because i liked it at my intentional fitness the personal training studio we have i liked using it there it's got a like thick foam on the bottom it's great for warming up it's great for like doing short distance sled work great for doing bounding as well as like lunges you know hip thrust that sort of thing it gives you a place to basically lay on the ground i definitely think it's unnecessary i definitely think you know it can limit some of the space that you have but if you have a large enough gym and you'll know you you'll use it turf is something that isn't too expensive and easy to add i would say and i would not recommend going with like football turf because football turf is going to be like this astro turf that also includes these rubber pieces like rubber piling in the middle it's not going to have a ton of foam but the main reason i wouldn't use it is because it's scratch and feels awful you're not going to want to lay on it it's not for like that sort of use it's for using cleats on and running and you know that sort of thing so i would go with something that's dedicated for gyms it's not crazy expensive but i do think it's an unnecessary expense for most of you okay now i want to answer some of your guys questions so these are questions that i've received in email and that sort of thing over the years and i kind of just added them all in here so these are frequently asked questions related to gyms one is what flooring should i get if i park in my garage a lot of you guys are gonna be parking in your garage and you're gonna be worried about adding flooring driving on top of it you know ice from your cars if you live up north or you know just different things that come on your your car are gonna fall on the mat is that okay i think horse doll mats are quite all right for that listen if you're parking in your garage you know my recommendation is just get rid of your car put it outside street parking but for you that you know like your wife is like i want to use half the garage if it's cold out you know that sort of thing i get it i don't recommend you get a divorce i recommend you just use stall mats drive on top of them they're going to be fine there's no problem driving on top of a horse doll mat next how do you get rid of the smell that's on stall mats this is one that's really annoying horse doll mats are basically recycled rubber oftentimes from tires that have been mound mashed down and then compressed into like these rubber tiles same thing can be said for like high temp bumper plates recycled rubber they end up smelling you know they've got like this weird like film on them that's just kind of the nature of the beast of using recycled rubber products is they end up smelling now the way that you can get beyond that is the way that i suggest is leaving them outside to off gas so when you buy them most of the time they're going to be outside anyways and the reason they leave them outside is because they want them to off gas before you buy them however it can take a long time so you know there's all these different cleaning products you can try to apply i would just leave it outside for a while and let it kind of air out third is how do you clean gym flooring well the way that i suggest clean cleaning gym flooring is with something like simple green so what i do is i get a leaf blower i use a leaf blower constantly so every day pretty much i'm blowing out the garage just to get all the you know leaves and all that kind of stuff out of the garage now if you want to do like deep cleaning i use something like simple green with a deck brush so i pour simple green on there i use a deck brush scrub it and then i'll like mop it off or something like that let it dry out i use that because it's natural and i'm like after a workout or something if i'm laying on the ground like i don't want that stuff on my skin if it's not natural so i'm not using bleach and that kind of those products i'm using something a little bit more natural that's still like a heavy degreaser and that's going to be like your simple green they work well next when's the best time to buy stall mats black friday is pretty much the go-to time for most gym equipment as well as stall mats the reason being they don't discount them very often they're typically around 40 bucks but about every year at black friday time the tractor supply they put them out there for like 35 30 bucks a math so you're gonna save like five bucks a piece you're like that's not that big of a deal well it is if you're buying like 20 to 30 of them so if you're like around that time i wouldn't really suggest waiting that whole time to get them but if you're close to that time of the year then that's the best time to buy them they're going to be cheapest every once in a while they'll have a sale outside of that time but for most of the most people most times black friday is going to be your best bet next how do you cut stall mats this one's actually really easy a lot of people think you have to have some special device you need a long like straight ruler something that's metal and long and straight and then all you need is a exacto or box cutter knife you put it up there make sure it's straightened and then just cut right into it the difficulty comes when that blade dulls so i just suggest buying a bunch of blades and making sure your blade's still sharp and just cutting through it just cut the score the top of it get it right and then you can bend it back and then bend it the other way as well and it's going to cut it for you it's actually much easier than i think most people realize it's not too difficult to cut into the rubber and as long as you make sure it's straight use a sharp knife sharp blade it's going to work well and the last one will i hurt my foundation if i use you know stall mats or something else and i'm dropping from overhead i don't want to give like a you know blanket statement for you to like break your foundation and come back say coop you told me it wouldn't matter my wife's now pissed at me because i said i listened to coop and now like i've got you know broken concrete okay so i'm not going to tell you that but i will say that stall match should protect against most drops i've used stallnets in four different garages dropped overhead you know i'm at least a thousand pound overhead presser come on man but i could clean jerk 315 i dropped that from overhead and i never had issues dropping on a stall mat now your neighbors aren't to like you the people inside aren't going to like you but your foundation should be fine for most people i would not suggest doing that in the second floor on an apartment or something like that it's a little bit dangerous the building's really not made for that in most cases but if you're in a concrete slab in your garage like most people will be or in a basement god forbid you're living in a basement okay it's okay but most people i'd say go in a garage but if you're dropping away from overhead you should be fine there shouldn't be any worry so this is coop from garage cam reviews let me know any questions that you have about flooring in the comments section is there anything you want us to cover more about flooring we've got more series or more videos coming out in this series that include lighting picking your equipment sound i mean there's there's quite a few different like particulars that we're gonna go through this is the first in the series thank you guys for watching see you next time peace [Music] [Music] you

Channel: Garage Gym Reviews

Views: 468,488

Keywords: garage gym, garage gym reviews, home gym reviews, coop garage gym reviews, home gym, best home gym flooring, best garage gym flooring, horse stall mats home gym

Id: 3-h63U7T8uI

Length: 13min 39sec (819 seconds)

Published: Tue Apr 06 2021