Home Gym Review Series: The Platform

I started building out my home gym in 2018, the Spring before my second child–Bee–was born. I figured it would make it far easier to get in workouts–with both my then-two year old Gee and a newborn Bee–if I could just go outside to my detached 2-car garage and bang out some sets.

My first purchase was a bunch of used 45-pound plates I found on CraigsList -they were in decent condition and the price was right (especially considering how the price of home gym equipment skrocketed during the pandemic)

Next was another Craigslist find – a Rogue Bravo set,¹ which consists of a Rogue Ohio bar and bumper plates that an Olympic lifter was selling so he could pick up a more specialized Olympic lifting bar.² I am mediocre (at best) at the Olympic lifts, and the Rogue Ohio is known as a decent all-around barbell, so I snapped it up. He was nice enough to throw in some lifting chalk!

So I now had my barbell and around 680 pounds of plates. Now all I needed was something to make sure I didn’t destroy the foundation of my garage.

Hence: I (with major, major assistance from my brother, who is a lot handier than I am and who has actual woodworking tools) built a lifting platform on one half of the garage! There are probably a lot of places to find instructions on how to build a platform, but this is the one I used: https://www.artofmanliness.com/health-fitness/fitness/how-to-build-a-weight-lifting-platform/

I more or less used those instructions, but instead of bolting down the multiple layers of plywood with wood nails, we used glue:

After we had the two layers of plywood down, we put down another piece of plywood, flanked by two strips of horse stall mats, which my brother scored at a Farm and Fleet out in the exurbs. Let me tell you, those things are a major bitch to cut down, so if you’re using horse stall mats, make sure you have utility knives with plenty of extra blades:

Now I had a place to deadlift!

Later on, as I continued to accumulate more gym equipment, we followed the same process to make another lifting platform, this one completely covered in horse stall mats:

Note that garages are generally sloped downward toward the alley or driveway, so we used wood planks of ascending thickness to even out the platform.

So now I could deadlift. But being a competitive powerlifter,³ I also wanted to bench press and squat in the garage. So, of course, that necessitated more additions to the home gym….

COMING UP NEXT TIME: OMG, WHAT IS UNDER THAT TARP????

1. I took a look at what a Rogue Bravo set costs new nowadays, and egads! I’m sure inflation is somewhat to blame there, but looking at the sticker price really reinforces the fact that you’re much better off looking on Craigslist and Play It Again Sports for weight equipment. Though as we go through this series, you’ll see me breaking that “rule” over and over again… ↩︎
2. The  Olympic lifts, often known as “the fast lifts,” are the snatch and the clean and press. These are the weightlifting movements you see in the Olympics every four years, and really emphasize quick, powerful movement and technical skill, which…. er, let’s just say are not my strongest suits. My attempts to learn those will likely be the topic of a future post ↩︎
3. Powerlifting, which I jokingly call “the sport of kings,” is a competition in which lifters compete at the squat, the bench, and the deadlift (sometimes known as the “slow lifts.”) I’ve competed about a half dozen times, which will likely be the subject of a future post. ↩︎