Garage Gym - In Progress
- Thread starter Shock6050
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Dmomuchole
Well-known member
This is really cool brother I enjoy this thread. 
Shock6050
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Just picked up some pretty cheap thin black diamond plate that is 2’ x 9’. Going to run it along the bottom baseboard to the left of the power stack to prevent busting holes in the drywall (there’s a protective film on it right now in the pic that peels off). Also found some padded door ding bumpers to use when both cars are in the garage that are magnetic and wouldn’t fit on my car as it’s aluminum and not magnetic. To save space I put the barbell rack as far as I could based on where the studs are. As a result the 7ft bar isn’t completely centered and could definitely bust a hole on the left side of the rack if not careful. Put 2 layers of those on the side using command strips. Problem solved.
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BearPaw12
Member
Nice setup, looks perfect. I ditched our guest bed and set up a power rack in our second bedroom after the second round of gym closures in my home state. I may have found the last olympic barbell with some plates at actual retail price in the city… The gyms are open again but nice to have both options.
Shock6050
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Just a few more updates. Diamond plate is up and after thinking about it a bit, in addition to protecting the drywall from busting it with weights, I picked up a couple mountable Olympic plate holders to put in there. Just installed them tonight into the studs, but here’s a pic of the diamond plate sheet metal up. Also, FINALLY got some Olympic plates in. It’s tough finding them for the typical retail price these days. My full set of plates are due to arrive by the end of February. 
I know whoever is delivering is going to hate me when bringing 350 lbs of plates to my porch. However, good news is my adjustable dumbbells that go from 0-90lbs by a dial turn will be here early next week. 
Been managing with the standard barbell/dumbbell set I already have (1in diameter plates) and have been using my 45 lb Olympic bar for some high rep work, but now with some 45 plates I can start going heavier on some lifts. Here’s a few pics.
I know whoever is delivering is going to hate me when bringing 350 lbs of plates to my porch. However, good news is my adjustable dumbbells that go from 0-90lbs by a dial turn will be here early next week. Been managing with the standard barbell/dumbbell set I already have (1in diameter plates) and have been using my 45 lb Olympic bar for some high rep work, but now with some 45 plates I can start going heavier on some lifts. Here’s a few pics.
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Shock6050
VIP
Anytime brother, would be an honor to actually meet the infamous Bigmurph! 
However, I’ll definitely need the rest of my plates and dumbbells to make it even close to a good workout for you. As others may know I hail in the Midwest (Indiana) and some may actually be able to pinpoint my relative location since I initially accidentally had my license plate showing in the before pic I had up prior to the garage transformation process. :roll_eyes: What parts are you in @Bigmurph? From many posts I’ve read it seems a lot of members also live within the “flyover” region.
However, I’ll definitely need the rest of my plates and dumbbells to make it even close to a good workout for you. As others may know I hail in the Midwest (Indiana) and some may actually be able to pinpoint my relative location since I initially accidentally had my license plate showing in the before pic I had up prior to the garage transformation process. :roll_eyes: What parts are you in @Bigmurph? From many posts I’ve read it seems a lot of members also live within the “flyover” region.
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Shock6050
VIP
Thanks! My measurements fortunately were on mark as I didn’t want the 45 to extend above the diamond plate, but wanted the pegs to be a bit higher to make it easier to pull off the weights. Eventually (quite a ways down the road), I’d like to use that area for olympic lifts with bumper plates. I found some pegs that just hook into the power rack so can either move the iron plates over there or put some pegs on the right side of the cage to separate zones for iron vs. bumper plates. Once my plates come in towards the end of February I’ll put 4 45s on the right peg and the 2 35s on the left one, then the rest can just go on the sides of the power rack. It came with some sleeves to convert the 1in diameter pegs to 2 in. There’s 4 (2 on each side).
A little easy trick to hang accessories for cable pulls including my weight belt (I hate having stuff on the floor) I just grabbed some S hooks that I can just hang from the wire shelf I have that has my old ~20 year old stereo system which I have an old mp3/CD player hooked to it. Love the nostalgia of using that stereo still. We have a Bluetooth speaker where I can just stream music from my phone, but have been loving listening to my old CDs which is a lot of 70s-80s rock and some 90s alternative/hard rock.
Love when a plan comes together (queue the A-Team theme)
A little easy trick to hang accessories for cable pulls including my weight belt (I hate having stuff on the floor) I just grabbed some S hooks that I can just hang from the wire shelf I have that has my old ~20 year old stereo system which I have an old mp3/CD player hooked to it. Love the nostalgia of using that stereo still. We have a Bluetooth speaker where I can just stream music from my phone, but have been loving listening to my old CDs which is a lot of 70s-80s rock and some 90s alternative/hard rock.
Love when a plan comes together (queue the A-Team theme)
futureICUdoc
Well-known member
Wow this entire thread is legit goals. Living the graduate student life in an apartment has me mad jealous of you guys with garages.
Gyms coming along great
Gyms coming along great
You’re in the good ole days now. You won’t realize it for about 20 years. @futureICUdoc
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Shock6050
VIP
Definitely agree with @Poppy on this. College years and your age were some of the best times of my life! When I was in graduate school in TX, my wife and I were in tiny apartments too, but we made the best of it. Our 1st apartment in TX ended up being in a bit shady area which we were unaware of when we were apartment hunting. I remember nights seeing helicopters shining spotlights down only to assume they were trying to track someone down. It’s funny as we lived just next to an area of the city called Beverly Hills, TX. LOL. After our lease was up after 1 year, Baylor fortunately designated an apartment complex on campus with a huge discount for graduate students so we moved there (still very small). Waco is a wild place. The Baylor bubble as many call it is beautiful (kind of resembles Notre Dame’s campus), but once you go on the other side of the highway it is pretty rough with a lot of homeless and dangerous neighborhoods. Also, had access to the university gym which we of course didn’t have to deal with covid and since I was a graduate student I had access to the strength labs 24/7 as well as being able to run my own blood tests for free (sometimes even had some extra ELISA kits for measuring testosterone and other hormones which we could use if there was room left). Had it pretty good, though the annual stipend was basically unlivable unless you had a significant other with a big boy/girl job, which for me was the case (fortunately was on scholarship as a research assistant, so had no costs for the graduate program).
Funny story was that as I was doing my thesis research project on different variations of creatine. We measured quantities based on the study participants body weight and put the powder in a plastic bag. Many times I had students participating stop by my apartment where I was giving out little bags of this mysterious white powder! Luckily no one really saw it or at least reported any concerns.
Definitely don’t neglect your younger years…there is unfortunately no going back! To me age is just a number. If you continue to take care of yourself you’ll likely look decades younger than the average Joe. Also house maintenance can be quite a chore…miss those apartment days where they would just fix what ever it was for free.
Funny story was that as I was doing my thesis research project on different variations of creatine. We measured quantities based on the study participants body weight and put the powder in a plastic bag. Many times I had students participating stop by my apartment where I was giving out little bags of this mysterious white powder! Luckily no one really saw it or at least reported any concerns.
Definitely don’t neglect your younger years…there is unfortunately no going back! To me age is just a number. If you continue to take care of yourself you’ll likely look decades younger than the average Joe. Also house maintenance can be quite a chore…miss those apartment days where they would just fix what ever it was for free.
Shock6050
VIP
So my OCD side kicked in the other day. I absolutely hate having something I installed to not be almost perfect. That diamond plate worked great but found I should have used another method using liquid nails and a strong double sided commercial grade tape to prevent any bowing of the diamond plate. Also had a few screws I knew were not going to hit the studs but thought it would still catch it enough, but they are starting to come out. Not scraping the diamond plate but found an even better deal for a 48x120 in black diamond sheet metal made by the same company. So grabbed that, a 48in corner bracket, and an outlet plug cover that have the same black diamond plate material. Going bigger! Planning to reuse the current plate and use some power metal sheer cutters to run a thin runner of diamond plate that goes across the rest of the baseboard wall to make it look cleaner. Supplies come in tomorrow so will be busy with that after work. Also moving my barbell rack over 1 stud so it is perfectly centered even with the 7ft bar. Dumbbells are currently in the hands of UPS so hopefully will arrive in the next couple days.
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