Putting together a home gym in the basement now that I’m getting settled in North Carolina. It’s time to get off my butt and get back in shape. Place before last I had a lifting platform and used all 3/4” stall mats. I really didn’t like the overwhelming smell.

I’ve got a 360 sq foot basement with an epoxied concrete floor. I prefer to go barefoot and don’t want to leave the concrete bare. There’s a semi-local place selling 8mm or 3/8” mats or flooring rolls with a suggestion of 3/4” mats just for the heavy areas. I’m not sure those will work without being glued down. The 3/4” mats I think are heavy enough to be ok without glue. Of course I over think stuff like this but the 8mm or 3/8 stuff is a lot cheaper than 3/4” for the same area.

It’s a basic setup. Concept rower, Power rack, a couple barbells and about 400 lbs of bumpers, 5-50 dumbbells, lat pulldown/low row machine and a leg curl/extension machine. Both machines use plates for simplicity. Granted all that’s been in storage about 4 years so putting it all back together will be fun.

Those of you with a home gym, I was hoping you’d be willing to share your setup, especially what you did for floors.

I got horse stall mats from tractor supply. I think they are 4x6x3/4. I drop 250lbs on a 7ft olympic bar from 2 or 3 ft on them daily. Not even a chip let alone a crack in the tiled floor beneath them.

They were heavy and cumbersome to carry into the basement and cutting to size was not fun but once done they have been worth the trouble.

I just have a cage with cable system from anazon, olympic bench with 600 lbs, dumbells and bowflex c7 bike.

I was also going to suggest the horse stall mats from TSC. They are a serious PITA to cut. I ended up using a circular saw. They work really well.

Take a look at Johnsonite/Tarkett and Rubber-Cal

I put the 2x2x1/2” play mats from Home Depot down in the walk areasand weight/stretch area then added carpet remnants over the whole area before bringing in the equipment. Not a heavy lifter so this works fine for me. The carpet helps with the acoustics too

If you are going to be dropping weights a lot a shock absorbing platform. They were pretty simple.

If desired, I can try to find the design.

It’s basically a box, built heavy enough to be stable, and a box on each end to hold high density carpet foam, topped with the TSC stall mats.

The foam is strong enough to hold the weights, and as it’s “dead” there’s no chance of bouncing on reps.

I’m not sure the machines are worth the space unless you need them for some particular rehab reason.

We got some really heavy mats, probably 2" thick heavy rubber like material. They're about 5'x5'

Agreed, they're very tough to cut.
Another place that had the same stuff for their gym, we used some kind of electric cutter that used what was effectively a round razor blade [I think it was some kind of textile tool]. It cut through the rubber surprisingly easily.

You may be able to find some old / used wresling mats or tatami mats from a school or gym closing. FB Marketplace usually has tons of those. But some wrestling mats would do good.

But I did what others did and have my garage mostly covered in Horse Stall mats.

I read (possibly on this forum) that you dont want to breathe the stuff those stall matts off gas, especially in an exercise room where you will be breathing heavy. And the damn things STINK. I left one outside on the driveway for several months before I would even put it in the garage.

They make rubber gym mats for that purpose.

https://www.uline.com/Product/...dP4SdeMaAuKlEALw_wcB

I used Race Deck for my man cave. It gives it a nice finished look and are very easy to install. Can be done in anything from a single color to wild designs. They will not deform with a rolling weight limit of 80,000lbs so setting a heavy barbell on them would be no problem. The downside is they are kinda pricey.
https://racedeck.com/racedeck-...m_tsXr4aApaqEALw_wcB

We went a slightly different route at my old partner's place after he took a whiff of the stall mats (nukeandpave is right-they smell horrible!) at TSC.

He went with something very similar to this.

Had no discernible odor at that point in its life, and he wasn't really concerned with appearance. Give his home gym, if anything, a grunge vibe...

I am very satisfied with green indoor/outdoor carpet (Home Depot, on the big rolls, $ by the linear foot) over some kind of silver synthetic stuff; it has little holes and a thin layer of foam that supposedly allows the floor to breathe and discourage funky smells.

I had stall mats in the last place I was able to have a home gym. Last place, I only had five mats total. Three years later when I had to put everything in storage the entire basement still smelled heavily of rubber. I gave the mats away. I’ll probably end up building another platform for the rack. Last platform was basically three-quarter inch plywood two pieces side by side, another two pieces laid perpendicular to the first two, and then one nice piece of plywood down the middle and 2’ wide cut stall mats on either side. Wasn’t pretty but it worked, wasn’t fun to take apart though when I moved it out.

There’s a place out of Charlotte selling three-quarter inch lifting mats that are supposedly a lot less smelly for about 10 bucks more than horse stall mats, but I’d need 15 of the 4 x 6 mats to floor the gym. Or I could try the 3/8 flooring rolls that you have to glue down and just use the three-quarter inch gym mats on the platform. And maybe by the dumbbells. I think mats or rubber flooring rolls are the two big options. I’ve seen that some other vendors are pushing interlocking tiles, and I imagine they would also need to be glued down to keep them from slipping. Don’t really know anything about them.

Not a huge rush, but I guess I’m gonna have to decide before too long because I’m trying to get everything out of storage and at least into the basement so I’m not paying the storage fee anymore.