Home gym/training areas

Who has one?

I need ideas for an outside one,I have a bench,squat rack and all my weight in my garage but I want a place where I can roll,hit pads,hit the heavy bag and skip.

I'm thinking a huge shed,but then I'll need a stand for the bag,pre-fab concrete buildings I've looked into don't really look up to the job.

Give me some ideas and inspiration folks.

 

Have a look on Google in the search bar,
if you type in outdoor gym ideas you get a huge selection,
i don't think i can give out a company name on here ?
you will get pro tips for building a gym in your own back yard.
lots of images too.

 

we ended up with a large summerhouse
depends on your budget and size of your garden.

 

Yeah I've had a good look around on google,I pretty much just want floor space but would like sturdy walls I can hang a bag or 2 off.
Hopefully if a mod sees this they'll let us know if you can put up a link.

 

Move, get a double garage, half weights, half mats.

Sorted.

 

Depending on your budget you can get some framework or scaffold to hang bags from inside a shed or garage instead of using a stand. Depending on how you set it up can allow for movement around it.

 

That's a good idea,I didn't think of that.

 

As an example:

8 punching bag frame | Ringsport

 

My advice would be to find the space ( as big as possible, you'll always wish you'd made it a bit bigger ! ) plan your design and do a scale drawing -
then you can make a materials list.

Start by building a concrete slab.
You can use that straight away if you're not ready to start building, for your weights etc. Maybe get a pop up gazebo for cover.

Peg out the site with string and find your levels, I had to account for a difference of about 8" from front to back being on a slope.
After digging out you can either shutter with strips of ply or build up a couple of courses of brick or single block
then put down hardcore before concreting, best to borrow or hire a mixer.

In my case it too another three years or so of salvaging timber and ply before I built the shed. I got some dirt cheap insulation and metal sheet roofing
of ebay, most expensive material was floor joists and rafters.
The floor is dead level and I can hang my bag of the rafters wherever I like.

Easiest way to build is in wall sections the size of a sheet of ply ( 2440mm x 1220mm) then make up frames in 4" x 2" ( 95mm x 47mm ).
Then you'll need to build a bottom plate( 4" x 2") round the perimeter, you can then build walls one frame at a time before putting on a roof plate
(4" x 2") and rafters. A monopitch roof with a slight fall back to front is easiest.
Look online and there's loads of advice to help plan your design.

This is my garden retreat

 

Thanks so much for the replies guys,I wish I was as handy as you Ned that's a lovely little retreat you've made yourself.

I have a bit of work to do first,I need to remove the rotting office the last owner built straight onto soil and build a base,but I'll post something up here when I'm done.

 

I'm assuming the shed was purchased at another location, brought to your home where a pre-poured or existing concrete pad existed, and the shed was bolted down to the pad? I'm hoping the shed was metal. If it is wood, and especially if the sill plate isn't treated wood, you'll want to seal that up with haste so you don't end up with wood rot!

Regardless of if the shed is wood or metal, putting outdoor rated caulking in the seam where the sill plat touches the concrete on both the outside and inside perimeters should solve your problem. If you want to go a step further you could add some flashing over the caulked area, and the caulk the top portion of the flashing where it joins the shed above the sill plate. If there are other areas leaking (can happen with metal constructed sheds) and you can find the source, caulking is the remedy for it as well.

Did you install the shed yourself? If a contractor installed it he should have put a sealing barrier between the sill plate of the shed and the concrete to prevent water from coming in. You might be able to tell him to come out and reinstall it correctly. If you're able to lift the shed up an inch or so by undoing the fastening bolts and using jacks, putting a layer of caulk under the sill plate will seal it up well (this is what most contractors do when installing a pre-framed exterior door).

The most important thing, especially if the shed is wood, is to make sure water can't get under the sill plate and remain there. Dang water messes all kinds of things up ::kicks sand::

 

$1300.00! Good lord. That's probably $2-300 of structural steel, some bolts, and some welding. They must turn an amazing profit.

I'm currently planning on building something to hang a punching bag from. I'm only going to do a beam with two support pillars on either side that it's bolted to. I'm stuck on figuring out how much concrete I'm going to need to pour for the support pillars to not move, and whether or not I should use braces against the pillars that are also concreted in. I'm sure if I just poured a 4'x4'x2' pad with the pillar in the center I would be more than fine, but I want to do it with as little as possible. If I have to change the location of my outdoor gym, I don't feel like getting a workout breaking and moving large amounts of concrete ::tear::.

Stands for heavy bags are the worst. You might as well put a mattress on a tree and punch it while standing in place. No area for sufficient footwork practice.

 

If you have the money, have a contractor build a shed for you. They can build it to a spec that will handle things like a heavybag hanging from a truss. You could also go the route of getting one of the metal sheds that have metal trusses (I'm sure you could do a change order/customization to have more sturdy trusses). You can usually talk with a company that builds them and have teams come out to construct them.

You might also want to consider a pole barn. It wouldn't have walls, but it will keep everything dry enough and more so the stuff at the center of it. You can have pole barns built pretty cheap, and like the other two options you can always opt for more sturdy trusses being build so you can hang things from them. You can get them with a concrete pad or without. Personally I would go for a pole barn if you have the room. I've had weight lifting equipment that has survived two generations (passed down by my father) being outside. It gets rusty, but if it's quality equipment it's not going to disintegrate in your lifetime, or your kids lifetime, or your kid's kid's lifetime.

With a sturdy shed you can also build your own cable systems. Honestly you can build one with a sturdy tree (what I did : P) but you know, just another idea.

Disclaimer: My property is an entire acre out in the country with no home owner associations bothering me, so I apologize if anything I recommend isn't a plausible option.

 

The price is ridiculous. It was meant as an idea of what to look for or build rather than a "buy this specifically".

You can achieve something similar using scaffolding.

 

I wasn't calling you ridiculous or anything. That set up would be pretty easy to do w/ wood if you wanted to use that much room (if you had it) with four 4'x4x'10' posts, four 2x6x(however long you want it to be'), some bolts and a couple of 40lb bags of quick mix concrete. Maybe cost you $200.00 to do.

Even using scaffolding would be cheaper. About six months ago we bought 12 pieces of 5'x5' scaffolding w/braces, 10 wheels, and six aluminum walk planks for less than $1300.00.

Again I didn't mean to sound like I was calling you ridiculous. I just thought it was interesting they were charging so much for a simple welding job with simple materials for a product that has minimal uses. I think I paid about 1500.00 for a power rack from Rogue Fitness. Still way too much money, but I was able to justify it to myself because I can do just about every exercise set up I need with the thing. If they regularly sell those heavy bag set ups for so much when they do so little, I feel like I'm in the wrong profession ::tear::