Home gym

My wife and I have been regularly lifting weights in the evenings at the gym for the last year and a half or two years. This ended up being a little taxing as we would leave the gym late at night, still needing to cook dinner. So, we would end up going to bed late, and this became quite tiring.

We entertained the idea of lifting in the mornings, but the gym does not open until 6:30AM. This made it impossible to fit a good workout routine before work. Plus, my wife does not like locker room showers. Can't blame her, really. Anyways, one day I found this video:

and the whole home gym idea was born. Usually, it takes a few months of talking to convince my wife into these types of projects. However, for this one, she was sold on day one. (Lucky guy, right here!!!)

So, we had this family room, we were not using:

It was a nice room, but it was almost never used. So, on a Saturday morning, I started moving the couches around. My wife devised a plan and we set our living room up just giving up one couch:

And we had an empty room to build the home gym. First thing was building the power rack. I followed the instructions in the video:

Secondly, I had to make a deadlifting platform. This consisted of two 4'x8'x23/32" panels of plywood glued together for the base, a 4'x4'x3/4" fine sanded plywood panel for the center, and two (cut with a box cutter) 2'x4'x3/4" stall mats (bought a 6'x4' piece at Tractor Supply).

After that, I applied a coat of marine epoxy on top of the middle piece of plywood:

In this picture, you can see a bench press we bought on Craigslist. I cut it and rewelded it, so that it could fit inside the power rack. Then, I painted it black:

The plates and adjustable dumbbells were included with the bench press. Now, if you are going to deadlift with your spouse, you will be swapping weights often (unless you both lift the same, we don't). So, we needed a deadlift jack. I more or less used the dimensions of this one (dead lift bar jack) and welded it myself. The candy red paint, is the only leftover paint I had and since I am stingy... red it is!

This thing is awesome. It makes loading and unloading the bar a breeze (well, as much as it can be, you are still lifting the 45lbs plates).

I have my bike on a trainer, to do some cardio. Soon, we will get one for my wife.

and that's that. We just got a little curl bar and have pretty much everything we need for our workouts.

Happy building!