Garage set up

[Liquoricelace]

Hello. I’m interested in whether anyone has a really good home/garage set up for lifting and can advise on what to consider and what’s really worth investing in?

I’m very keen to start lifting weights properly. I spent a few months lifting at a gym and loved it but I have a full time job and little kids, and I just can’t get away from the house enough to consistently go to a gym.

So, my only real option is to workout at home. Assuming a decent sized garage and up to about £1-1.5k to throw at this what would be your recommendations?

Can’t help but shamelessly placemarking to bump this up and to steal your ideas.

Is the garage insulated for summer/winter use?
Is the garage door insulated or just single skin steel or fibreglass?
Has it got a ceiling as if it is an open, pitched roof that is not going to make it feel like a "room".
Is the floor in good condition?
Is the garage close to neighbours (i.e. link detached) as there is young to be some noise (including when the weights hit the floor) and I guess music & groaning!😵‍💫

If the concrete floor is sound, interlocking PVC tiles are a great buy.
We have them in the workshop that I share with my OH, not the silly foam ones but really HD ones which both insulate the floor and give grip.

I have a garage gym, have had it for ten years and use it regularly. I keep mine simple - I have a squat rack, with a barbell and weight plates, which isnt just for squats, it's a means to safely train with a barbell at home, so you can rack the bar at whatever height you need, and have safety catchers in case you need to bail. I have space in front of the rack to do deadlifts. The rack has a pull up bar, and an attachment to do dips. I have an adjustable bench, and I have adjustable dumbbells too. That set up allows me to do all the main lifts - squat, bench, deadlift, press, RDLs, rows, hip thrusts, as well as any accessory work. It's simple but extremely versatile. If I had the space I'd get a rack with a cable attachment, but they're much bigger and more expensive.

Things I would advise:
You want heavy duty, solid things. Anything flimsy you'll end up binning. For that reason, be sure before you buy it because getting it delivered and set up is a PITA and you only want to do it once - and once it's there, you don't want to move it!
If you want cardio equipment, go to a commercial gym. Treadmills, stairmasters, etc are expensive, take up a lot of space, and anything with moving parts needs maintenance, regular gyms have contracts for these but there's no option for home users.
Most adjustable dumbbells are too impractical to use. You don't have space in a home gym for a dumbbell set, you'll be surprised how quickly you 'grow out of' the ones you start with. If you can get good adjustables then great, if not, stick with a barbell, or kettle bells.
I really do think a squat rack is the most versatile. Without one, you're always going to be limited by how high you can lift the weight you want to use.
Only buy from reputable sellers - you need someone who can package and properly deliver things, and has good customer service. You don't want to be trying to return a 20kg 7ft barbell to Amazon!

Sorry for the essay, it's a bit of a passion of mine!!

@Nourishinghandcream thank you, all sensible thoughts. We’re pretty remote so not worried about noise but I hadn’t thought of temperature and insulation. On the other hand I’m not after a luxury environment necessarily - just functional.

@Proteinpudding this is incredible, thanks. Not interested in cardio machines personally, I have running shoes, a bike and some fields for that! So this is just about weights. Do you mind if I ask a ton of follow up questions? What brand of rack you have? Is there anything in particular I should be looking for when purchasing apart from ceiling height and safeties?

Is just using the garage gym plausible - do you supplement with a commercial gym and if so what for?

@Liquoricelace ask away!
When I bought my set up, home gyms weren't as common (pre COVID) so suppliers were limited. I bought most of it in one go from strength shop. They're not the cheapest, but they're good, they're based in the UK and I could pick up the phone if I needed to. There are more suppliers now as garage gyms have become more popular , but do look at the reviews. Mirafit are one of the cheapest but can be very hit and miss.

I'm on a couple of Facebook groups, like home gym community, and I'd recommend if you can joining some sites like that so if there are brands you're looking at, you can ask if others have bought from them - user experience is really helpful! Height is a big thing for racks for garage gyms (you can get racks designed for garage gyms which I got, though that's also partly because I'm short and it's nice to have a pull up bar I can reach without jumping!)
Folding racks (that bolt to the wall) are popular now, but honestly I don't really see the benefit - they're to save space, but you need to have the space available to unfold them, so I don't really get how they help!
I'm not personally bothered about attaching things to my rack, as long as I've got safeties (I have webbed straps rather than bars) and the dipping bars. But lots of people do like extra attachments, if you might go down that route, look at the spacing of the holes of the rack, and then Google that + accessories. Then you'll know how universal it is, and whether you can buy add ons from other places or not. Eg 75mm or 60mm is common.
Cheap racks have fewer holes in the uprights - the more holes the better quality the material needs to be to keep the structure strong. It's not impossible to work with fewer holes but it is limiting as that dictates how many options you have for setting the bar at a comfortable height for whatever you're doing.

Also, barbells - there are men's and women's specific. I had only used men's barbells before, but I wouldn't change back now. Womens barbells are slightly thinner, and it makes a big difference for smaller hands! Mine is also a garage version, so slightly shorter than standard, as my garage is old and narrow.

You will likely need more plates than you think, so consider storage (mine are on pins on my rack) Bumper plates are essential for deadlifting, but a bit of a pain for anything else (bulky, hard to move around compared to say, tri grip plates) I started off only with bumpers but then added smaller tri grips as well)

Oh and I don't use a commercial gym at all now. I've tried them occasionally when travelling, and although it's fun to have a bit more variety, having to wait for equipment, or finding equipment isn't good for me (eg I'm 5ft 2, so lots of machines just don't adjust enough for my leg or arm length) is such a pain. The only things I say I miss are having a lat pull down, seated row and a couple of legs machines eg for hamstrings. But I can replicate them reasonably well by using bands looped around the rack, I just don't get the kudos of knowing what the weight stack would be!

Oh and dont do what I did, and buy all your kit before deciding what flooring you wanted! Horse stall mats are a surprisingly good budget option.

Again, thank you, this is such generous advice. With the dumbbells and space - do you just mean because you need so many of them to provide the right amount of range?

I’m feeling quite excited about this!

Yep, when you look at how much shelving you'd need to accommodate a typical set of hex dumbbells from say, 2kg to 30kg (which is a relatively low weight limit) it's a lot!
Adjustable dumbbells can be very bulky - much longer and larger than regular, making them difficult to hold in one hand. It's not always obvious but cheaper ones often have awkward features such as big jumps between the weight intervals, or the weight intervals actually mean that the weight is unbalanced (because to achieve the interval means taking a weight plate off one side of the dumbbell not the other, which no one would ever do in real life) I have the stealth assassins which are amazing, they are expensive and I had a gym for years (which was perfectly fine) before deciding to invest in them to expand what I could do.

One of the main benefits of having a home gym I've found as I've got older is being able to do shorter, but more frequent workouts. If I went to the gym I felt I needed to do as much while I was there as possible, whereas when I'm at home I'll just pop out and do one or two compound lifts for 15-20mins. I still do some longer workouts too, but I think the higher frequency but shorter session helps my recovery, and keeps me focused.

Keep us posted on what you decide!

Ps my home gym is honestly one of the best things I've ever done - I love being on my own, listening to my favourite podcasts, finding I can do more than I ever expected. But it's something I keep quiet on IRL because very few people understand, and think I'm a bit odd 😂 so I'm more than happy to talk about it on the internet!

@Proteinpudding That last paragraph is music to my ears. I work pretty long hours, have a brilliant partner but he works away a fair bit, and a (also brilliant) kid with quite complex additional needs who needs fairly close supervision. Life is full and I just don’t have 90min stretches regularly to dedicate to working out. But I used to be fit and I miss it a lot!

I’ll let you know where I land - thank you again.

Ah it sounds ideal for you. I don't have children, but I do think workouts at home are good for children to be around in terms of setting an example (especially one that's focused on health and strength rather than specifically for weight loss) Even tiny amounts add up over time, and its so much easier to be consistent.

I have a incredibly simple set up of

1. pairs of kettlebells ranging from 8kg up to 25kg (the big boy 25kgs are for farmer walks
2. pairs of dumbbells ranging from 2kg up to 20kg
3. 1x sandbag of 35kg
4. 1X weighted vest 5kg but considering getting a 10kg one

for cardio I just go running out and about. Thought about barbells and weight machines but really, kettlebells and dumbbells are great. there are so many exercises you can do with such variety of movement and muscle groups being worked with minimal tools.

Also just to add, I’m seeing in other posts about racks - as I said my set up is basic so I don’t have a rack, just have them lined up on the floor!

Thanks @BarbarianBabs. I think the sort of movements / weight I would want to do would require a barbell but it’s encouraging to know a basic set up is doing the job!