Hello ladies and Gentlemen,

I am seeking some advice on building the best home gym I can in my garage at a resonable price.  A squat rack caught my attention on fb made by (rogue fitness) that allows you to still park your car with ease.  I would like to know if any of you have experience with the Rogue Fitness squat rack or the PRX squat rack?  I am looking for something of that sort that can fold up to take up less room.  Besides the rack, I will also need rubber plates that can withstand the heat, a good solid barbell or two, EZ bars, and clips.  Last but not least a solid bench that is very portable and could hang along with some solid floor mats for the area I will be working out on.

I have never done a at home gym, but with a baby on the way, working a lot of on call at the hospital, I need something that will save me some time as my gym is a little further of a drive than I would like it to be. How do I go about this? I want to make sure I have everything I need and not buy anything of waste. Besides the obvious what are the most important must have equipment for an at home garage gym?

Thank you

Bump

I am still persuing my own home gym. I decided I am going to build my own squat/power rack out of wood and use galvanize pipe as my pull up bar and also my safety bars.  I am also going to build my own floor for the rack and outside the rack to squat and deadlift barefoot on a nice surface.  I am still looking for advice on what to purchase to have all the basics for my home gym. 

check out sports authority. they're going out of business. might get good deals. ive been checking it every week waiting for some weights to get cheap.

You can also purchase PVC pipes to make some stuff for the floor to do dips and push-ups and even some ab exercies. DEFINITELY an ab wheel and some resistance bands... once you build your power rack you can attach the bands to it for more exercise combinations!

@scott_herman I have already started with pvc. I built me the palattes however you spell it. I remember you posting a video about it to help with core. I can use them for tricep dips, push-ups etc. Do you guys feel it's worth building my own power rack or buying one from a reputable company like rogue? @ohawkey. Also what bar is best? Olympic or standard? Not sure which one I would utilize more.

I built my home gym over time by visitng thrift stores and finding weights and barbells/dumbbells for cheap. It takes longer this way, but it does save money. I stopped by two stores every day during lunch and scored a BowFlex Xceed which gives me all the cable work that I need. :-) People are always selling their old barbell sets on our local TV station classifieds website. Shipping weights gets expensive real quick, so looking local is best. Otherwise if you have money to spend each month, I found my squat racks on Amazon, along with a wall-mounted pullup bar and solid 6' and 7' standard bars.

Regarding weight size, you'll find a lot of second-hand stores carry standard plates - 1", which are cheaper than Olympic weights - 2". I really don't think it matters too much cuz weight is weight. You can get larger 45# plates with Olympic, but I don't know that it's worth the cost for the convience.

My setup is the following:

Olympic size bench press with preacher curl attachment and leg curl attachment (I don't use the leg part), which gives me the wide setup using a solid 7' bar that takes standard plates.

2 - 6' bars for squat and deadlift

2 - 5' bars for curls

EZ curl bar

Tricep press bar

Wall-mounted pull-up bar

1 set of squat racks

Various hex dumbells - 10 - 30 lbs.

About 500 lbs in standard weight plates ranging from 25# down to 2.5#

4 sets of dumbell handles to load up more weight.

A variety of resistence bands, a physio ball, and a 10# slam ball

I would consider those the basics and lets me do everything that I want. Again I bought most of these second-hand and it took a year or two to build up. Finding the BowFlex Xceed was a nice bonus that gives me the ability to do most of the cable exercises.

I do have to say that I recently invested in Powerblocks Elite adjustable dumbells which go from 5# to 90# in increments of 2.5#. I really like them and it makes it much easier to do drop sets and switch weights quickly. Plus it takes up a lot less room. Expensive, but perfect for the home gym.

Brent

EDIT: oh and I've got a flat bench, and an incline/decline bench - a real cheap Walmart special that has 90 degree incline, 45 degree incline, flat and 45 degree decline.

@iBrent can you post some photos of your home gym herE? I would love to see it!

To be honest... not only will it save a lot of time... but you will know you are 100% safe with a professionally made power rack if you buy one. As for a barbell.. ALWAYS go with Olympic! The "standard" barbells are the weird ones that are like half the size of the ones in the gym. All gyms carry Olympic barbells

It has been quite awhile since I've been on here. It's hard for me to remember to log in. Can't wait till you have an app for the iPhone. @scott_herman. Update: I purchased a Black Friday special from

wrights-equipment. $1,000 for rack w/ pull-up bar, jhooks, barbell, 230lbs rubber plates, flat bench, bench holder and bar holder. I am ready to get out of a conventional gym!

Glad to see you back @Okinawa82!! Hopefully the app will be ready for iPhone very soon to make things even easier to use :-)

That sounds like a good bargain you got!! Looks like you'll be making some serious gains at home now! Let's see it man!!!