That is a thing of beauty. I thought I had a good setup at home, but that thing - wow.
I’ve taken a couple of weeks off from training while I made the journey out of Iraq and then got home and had to begin relocating everything from my garage to the shed that I built specifically for this purpose…that is, to get everything out of the garage so that I could build the weight room.
Then I had to build the platform, drive to Columbia to pick up the rack/bench from Williams Strength and then over to Sorinex to pick up the Root Hog, GHR, chains, bands etc…then get it all put together.
Anyway, I’m glad all that is over and now I can get back to 5/3/1 in my own damn gym!
Wow. You could probably charge a membership fee and recoup some of your money. It’s a thing of beauty.
How much did it all cost, and where did you get everything?
Nicely done, JP. It’s a thing of beauty. I know what you mean when you say “visualizing,” as I have done this a million times. It is such an incredible feeling when things finally come together like you pictured it. I hope that weight room provides you with decades of quality training.
Is the thing in pic #7 the GHR? If so, I have never seen one like that before.
Lastly, thank you for your service to our country. I am glad to see that you apparently made it out of Iraq alright and greatly appreciate your sacrifice.
[quote]johnconkle wrote:
Wow. You could probably charge a membership fee and recoup some of your money. It’s a thing of beauty.
How much did it all cost, and where did you get everything?[/quote]
When it was all said and done, it was about $13,000.00. Like I said, I budgeted this into my Iraq deployment, and essentially stayed there longer to fund this purchase. Without that, I obviously would never be able to afford this.
As far as suppliers…
EliteFTS:
Collegiate Rack
Collegiate Bench
Sorinex:
GHR
Roothog
Chains
Bands
Blast Straps
Texas Strength:
Olympic Bars
Trap Bar
Curl Bar
Tricep Bar
Olympic Plates
Dumbbells
Dumbbell Rack
Iron Strength:
Bumper Plates
Youth Trap Bar
Youth Olympic Bar
Med Balls
Gym Mats
3/4" Rubber Stall Mats
New York Barbell:
Plyo Boxes - 12", 18", 24"
Front Loading Weight Racks
9 Position Bar Holder
I might be leaving out some smaller things…but that’s the bulk of it.
Needless to say, it was a good Christmas!
[quote]eic wrote:
Nicely done, JP. It’s a thing of beauty. I know what you mean when you say “visualizing,” as I have done this a million times. It is such an incredible feeling when things finally come together like you pictured it. I hope that weight room provides you with decades of quality training.
[/quote]
Thanks. I was really happy to see it come together as I planned. It may not be obvious, but if you think about it, planning this from a continent away was difficult. It would have been a lot easier if I could have been standing in my garage imagining things with a tape measure in my hand. Instead I had to keep bugging my wife for different measurements, and creating what was to become a measured to scale drawing of my garage and equipment in PowerPoint. So I was relieved when everything actually fit as I intended.
[quote]eic wrote:
Is the thing in pic #7 the GHR? If so, I have never seen one like that before.
[/quote]
That’s what Sorinex calls the “Poor Mans” GHR. I don’t have the size in my one car garage for a full size GHR, so this is what I went with. I needed something to train hamstrings with knee flexion, and this did the trick.
[quote]eic wrote:
Lastly, thank you for your service to our country. I am glad to see that you apparently made it out of Iraq alright and greatly appreciate your sacrifice. [/quote]
I always feel like I’m flying under false colors when people thank me for my service when they hear I’ve been in Iraq, assuming that I’m in the military. While I did serve in the Army for 7 years, and my first deployment to Iraq was as a soldier, this most recent 2.5 year deployment to Iraq was as a defense contractor. I am no longer in the Army. But I accept your thanks for my prior service… 
…that’s better then the full size gym I go to. Hell you even have a larger variety of bars, anyhow, looks great man.
I’m assuming there are bolts going from the rack through the 2x4’s into the foundation right?
[quote]Tyrant wrote:
…that’s better then the full size gym I go to. Hell you even have a larger variety of bars, anyhow, looks great man.
I’m assuming there are bolts going from the rack through the 2x4’s into the foundation right?[/quote]
There are lag bolts going through the feet of the rack, the two 2x4’s, and the platform. …it ain’t goin’ no wur.
I forgot…
EliteFTS:
Economy Framers Walks
Sorinex:
8" Training Log
Edit: “Farmers” Walks…
Awesome!
[quote]JPCleary wrote:
[quote]Tyrant wrote:
…that’s better then the full size gym I go to. Hell you even have a larger variety of bars, anyhow, looks great man.
I’m assuming there are bolts going from the rack through the 2x4’s into the foundation right?[/quote]
There are lag bolts going through the feet of the rack, the two 2x4’s, and the platform. …it ain’t goin’ no wur.[/quote]
fantastic, wouldn’t want you to survive the shit to be crushed by some weights. 
Is this heaven or am i dreamin’?
Do you mind saying how much it set you back in total?It looks fucking amazing,you seem to have thought of everything.Great work.You should definately do a King of the Hill on it and charge a few people in the locality to come in and use it.
Excellent!! Home gyms are the best. I thought I had a good set-up at my house but yours is even better. Enjoy!!
Nice work! What did the rack alone run you?
If I still lived in SC I’d ask if you needed a spot
[quote]JPCleary wrote:
Mac and a few others know that I’ve been deployed to Iraq for 2.5 years and just got home a couple of weeks ago. I’ve been conceptualizing this garage gym in my mind for that amount of time and specifically budgeted it into this deployment. I wanted to share it with the only people who can truly appreciate this…that would be you folks. Here are the pics…[/quote]
Don’t know if you need the extra cash or not, but I think you should strongly consider setting up home gyms like that as a little side business, because you did an amazing job.
I’m sure there are plenty of people (both lazy and dedicated) that would pay a hefty premium to have someone come in and setup a gym like that for them, and since you already have the experience yourself, I don’t think it would be that tough.
Just a thought. Awesome job.
I’m completely jealous. I wanna lift at your place man. Great setup, better than the commercial gym I go to.
this is what i envisage my dream home gym to look like… did you build the platform that the rack is on or did you buy this aswell…
Congrats man, that is badass. I love the gym we have now and enjoy going, that is really the only thing holding me back from starting work on our own garage gym.
Train hard on that stuff, and thanks for your service!
Monopoly