Deadlifting In My Garage

[Tony Moma]

Hello everyone,

I set up a home-gym in my parents garage this past summer, including a heavy duty shark-tooth mat for me to do heavy deadlifts on (See item here). However, even while deadlifting on this mat (400+lbs), the rest of my parents say they feel the house "shake" when I do them, and are concerned about the house's "foundation". (It's worth noting that my parents are not weightlifters and do not have much experience being around them)

Is this something to really be concerned about? And if not, how do I assure them to not worry? Should I purchase a second layer of heavy-duty mats?

[Mark Rippetoe]

What is the construction of the garage floor? Slab? Pier-and-beam? Over a basement?

[Pluripotent]

Is this something to really be concerned about? And if not, how do I assure them to not worry? Should I purchase a second layer of heavy-duty mats?

Don't cheat the eccentric portion of the lift?

[Tony Moma]

What is the construction of the garage floor? Slab? Pier-and-beam? Over a basement?

No basement. Slab, I believe?Garage - 2.jpgGarage - 1.jpg

[Satch12879]

I do a lot of work with construction vibration damage in my professional practice. The engineering literature has established that the threshold for perception of vibration of structures due to an external source is lower than that for actual cosmetic or structural damage. We're talking an order of magnitude difference. People will feel vibrations at a much lower level than will result in harm to a building.

You're deadlifting 400+ lbs. That's two adult males. This is not a professional assessment, but that's not heavy enough to do anything to a house's foundation. You may be getting some transient vibration of the surrounding walls, but again, you're below a level that's going to cause actual physical damage to the structure.

[Mark Rippetoe]

Unless the slab is extremely sub-code, you cannot damage it with a padded deadlift.

[Tony Moma]

Don't cheat the eccentric portion of the lift?

I don't. I don't drop weights. I control during both the up and down portion.

I do a lot of work with construction vibration damage in my professional practice. The engineering literature has established that the threshold for perception of vibration of structures due to an external source is lower than that for actual cosmetic or structural damage. We're talking an order of magnitude difference. People will feel vibrations at a much lower level than will result in harm to a building.

You're deadlifting 400+ lbs. That's two adult males. This is not a professional assessment, but that's not heavy enough to do anything to a house's foundation. You may be getting some transient vibration of the surrounding walls, but again, you're below a level that's going to cause actual physical damage to the structure.

Thank you for this post. In your experience, is their a deadlift number (that is actually achievable) at which one should start being concerned about causing cosmetic or structural damage?

Unless the slab is extremely sub-code, you cannot damage it with a padded deadlift.

Got it. Thank you.

[m_sporkboy]

My wife was worried about me damaging a slab. I told her it was no worse than two fat guys jumping up and down.

[Dave M]

Are they REALLY concerned about the foundation or is that just a cover because they hate the house shaking?

If they just hate the noise/vibration you might need to get more padding to appease them.

Two or three layers of yoga mat (or similar) under where the plates touch the ground will help somewhat. You'll then need a piece of shark tooth mat to stand on to even out the height. You could also play around with putting some yoga mat or camping pad under your rubber mats, though you obviously don't want it to feel at all squishy underfoot.

[Bryan Dobson]

The garage slab will be fine. You can disperse the load with a laminate lifting platform but setting a deadlift down is simply a sharp noise for a residence. Plenty of gyms have endured much worse and they are not crumbling.
You can ask your folks when they plan on grocery shopping or do they have a night out? , to be fair it's their house and you probably should not do it during their down time, some people find the noise very stressful.
I tend to avoid it @5am before work, it would wake my wife and my neighbors, but late morning to 7 pm is fair game.