Home gym in December 2019

Here is the current state of my basement gym.  The basement is used by myself and my two kids for exercise of various types (we are trying to get my wife to use it too :-) )  Nothing here is too impressive, since if I ever wanted to use higher end stuff, the YMCA is available, but I think that everything here is good enough for our needs and they way we train (taekwondo, bodyweight, CrossFit)

Floor and taekwondo equipment

The most important part of the gym is the floor.  When we moved into the house we bought 3/4" thik squares and covered the basement floor with it with the intention of using it for taekwondo practice and bodyweight exercises.  The floor is big enough that one of us can do our taekwondo form.  It gets used for bodyweight exercises and as a workout area for CrossFit (Streetparking.com) workouts.  The second most important part of the gym are the instructional materials. We have several decks of Stack 52 exercise cards and more recently the posters illustrating various exercises for bodyweight, kettlebell, dumbbell, suspension band, stretching, etc. As my kids get older, they get cleared to use more of the posters, card decks, and equipment. This corner shows our taekwondo training equipment.  Two Century (ATA branded) Wavemaster standing bags loaded with sand (50 lbs on the small one, 100 lbs on the regular sized one).  We have a large kick pad, a pair of focus mitts, a target pad, and two kick pads.  Not pictured are our practice weapons and some agility equipment (agility ladder and cones).

Power rack and cardio

The previous owner of the house did not know what to do with this nook and used it to store junk.  In the beginning (i.e. from just after I finished grad school), I had a 40 lb dumbbell set with handles and plates along with a bench.  Over the past two years I bought a short CAP Barbell power rack, a standard barbell, and an adjustable kettlebell from Fitness Gear (Dick's Sporting Goods) that uses standard plates.  I also have been buying additional plates as my deadlifts used up all of my plates and I have around 250+ lbs of plates now.   Generally, I use the barbell for only power type lifts (deadlift, squats, presses).  For olympic type lifts (clean, jerk, snatch) I will use sandbags or kettlebell. The adjustable kettlebell is so much better for dynamic movements compared to the dumbbell handles that I don't use the dumbbells so much any more.  The power rack is used for power lifts with the barbell (and bench for bench presses).  It is also used for pullups.  And it is a mount for the suspension trainer and the resistance bands.  The rack is not bolted to the grounds, so I use the sandbags and plates on the support legs to weigh the power rack down and add stability.

I also have two RepFitness sandbags that I've had for about 1 1/2 years.  One is 50 lbs and is my normal use. The other is 65 lbs that I use for heavier olympic lifts., and as my fitness improves, I will add weight to it. In the lower right corner are sand kettlebells, 10, 15, 20, 25 lbs.  I like these because they are safe around the kids, so DS9 and DD5 are cleared for sand kettlebell use and can do deadlifts, goblet squats, upright rows. DS9 can also do presses and KB swings.  They are also good for a warmup, 20/25 lbs is a good warmup weight to get loose.  The sandbags and sand kettlebells are what I use if I want to take a workout outside, as they won't break on the driveway.  The CamelBak HAWG (in DCU) is used for rucking, I load it with a 25 lb plate.

For cardio equipment, I got the Schwinn AirDyne and the Sunny magnetic rower off of Facebook Marketplace.  I probably like the rower more, but DS9 is cleared to use it and he tends to use it when we are working out together.  I can get more intense faster on the AirDyne, but I can probably go for longer on the rower.  I had first bought a hydraulic rower off of Facebook Marketplace, but when I figured out that I would actually use cardio equipment, I bought the magnetic rower and eventually sold off the hydraulic rower, for more than I paid for it.

Boxes and odds and ends

Last corner is the DIY pylo box (16" x 20" x 24") and the steppers (church sale)  The kids use the stepper when I use the box for stepups or jumpovers.  Also in this corner are physical therapy equipment. The balance board, stability disc, and foam roller.  I started using these when I was in PT for IT band syndrome.  The medicine balls (6, 10, 14 lb) in the corner are also approved for use by DS9 and DD5. Also are the various electronics. The Amazon Fire stick connected to a monitor and bluetooth speaker provides background music.  A kitchen timer and Gymboss timer provides timing. Then I have a Polar H7 chest strap HRM, a ScoreIt band for counting rounds, and the obligatory whiteboard.  I have recently gotten the Polar M200 heart rate monitor, and I have started using it to record all of my workouts.

The two biggest benefits of the home gym are the convenience and that the kids can us it.  I am down here at all sorts of hours and I really don't have a regular daily schedule. So this flexibility is great.  For CrossFit, I can arrange the equipment as needed, and I pretty much have everything (at a low level). The kids often join me for the CrossFit workouts, and we have a wonderful time warming up together, and then figuring out the appropriate scaling options for each workout.  Then we have the space for TKD. We would never get this at any gym or fitness facility, where kids are quite unwelcome (for safety reasons).  It is probably my favorite room in the house, and our go-to when we need to get the kids out of a funk. (or me for that matter)

At this point, with various equipment collected over a decade, this gym looks pretty complete. I cover strength and cardio, power and olympic weightlifting, along with a pretty complete set for martial arts.  The need to keep space around the power rack clear and the desire to have a large open floor space fights any urge to collect anything else.  And behind all of this is a belief that it is better to spend effort on skill development over equipment (which is why this gym is focused on free weights)

For programming, I use StreetParking https://www.streetparking.com, which is an online CrossFit style programming at $19/mo.  This setup with free weights and lots of floor space works out just right for it.  They have several versions of the same workout (same stimulus) each day, A is dumbbell/kettlebell based and can include running and the pylo box,  B is barbell based, C has other equipment such as sandbags or the rower/air bike.  Then there is shift which is a simplified version of A.  When the kids are with me or I have also done something else (TKD), I do shift. Otherwise I do A or C (kettlebell or sandbag) depending on if I am feeling particularly badass (sandbag!).  Weekly, they also have a range of accessory programs.  I usually do endurance (run, row, or bike). They have two strength based programs, power (lifting) and olympic.  Over the summer when I started physical therapy I started doing Buts and Guts regularly, because these exercises tended to match the PT exercises hitting my legs in different directions unilaterally.  There is also a program called Suns out-guns out, which is semi-jokingly the bro-sessions you may find in most commercial gyms or fitness magazines focusing on arms and chest.  They also have special programs for specific goals.  I did a 20 back squat progression last year. This summer I was doing a pull-up progression where there were three sessions a week with added exercises built around building up to pull-ups.

So, my standard workout is to take one of the Streetparking workouts.  A second workout is focused on taekwondo (but this or physical therapy often becomes the warmup) where we (with kids) do a warmup/stretch routine, a few body weight exercises, forms (poomsae/kata), and bag work.  A third type of workout are bodyweight workouts. There are two forms.  One is the kids work off the posters and pick one upper body, one lower body, and one trunk/core exercise and we do rounds and reps.  A second form is to take the Stack 52 exercise cards and draw 10 random cards.  The last type of workout is cardio.  This is either the rower or airdyne (my son likes to claim the rower) and I pick one of the Streetparking endurance program workouts on hand depending on what type of interval we want to do.