Your Fitness Home Gym From The Floor Up
When people want to do home exercises, they tend to start with stockpiling equipment, but something that can be neglected when you are building your own fitness home gym is the floor itself. Depending on where you are building your gym, you may need to take steps to protect your floor and/or your equipment.
A great place to set up a home gym is a basement or garage. Both locations offer plenty of room and allow the gym to be hidden from view if guests come over. Most garages and basements have concrete floors which is extremely hard and can chip or damage your weights if they are dropped to hard, which does happen from time to time. It can also help dampen the sound of weights banging against the ground.
Adding a few layers of shock absorbing material to the floor can make all the difference. A simple solution is to add a few layers of plywood with a nonslip rug on top. It is firm and does the job, but may not be as aesthetically pleasing as some other options. A better and just slightly more expensive option are interlocking rubber mats. You have probably seen them at the free weight area of your local gym. They interlock with edges reminiscent of jigsaw puzzles and come in a variety of colors to spruce up your gym area.
If you are building your multi gym in a room in your house with nice flooring, the interweaving rubber floor mats are a necessity. Believe me, you want to take care of this before any damage occurs to your beautiful hardwood floors as opposed to after.
With your floor in place, you are ready to start adding some bigger pieces of equipment to get your best home gym exercise. Having a shock absorbing floor is also extremely helpful for jumping rope or other aerobic activities such as a home gym sport, to reduce the pressure that can be placed on your knees.