Home gym setup

[tomskarda]

I've been slowly accumulating gear over the past year or so. I now have a set of squat stands, 440 lbs of bumper plates from a crossfit gym that was moving up, a used Texas power bar, a pull-up bar, a glute ham raise purchased from a defunct gym, and a commercial grade bench.

What else should I get my hands on?

I've been looking for a reverse hyper, but can't seem to find a used one for less than $700 delivered.

[Dastardly]

Reverse hypers are overrated and probably redundant for most people. Louie simmons recommends them for injury rehab and thats probably the extent of their usefulness.

A normal back extension/roman chair/GH raise would be more useful for a normal person I think.

[Bradley]

I just ordered one of these sleds for my home gym.

It's on sale right now for $99 shipped. It's obviously not as high of quality as a real prowler or butcher, but it's also 1/3rd of the price. It also has pretty good reviews around the internet, including here.

[Jordan Feigenbaum]

Yea reverse hypers are cool if you don't have to pay a lot of money for it, but I'd balk if I had to buy one for more than 400 bucks. The GHR will be sufficient. My equipment list would go like this:

Build a platform
Build/purchase a rack (rip has plans for a rack you could just buy one too. I'd want one with adjustable safety pins for rack pulls/dead stop benches/ solo squatting for limit sets/bench sets)
A B/R bar or Pendlay nexgen barbell (Oly work cuz the TPB will eat your hands alive)
Prowler
Dip Bars/station
Iron plates (1-2 pairs of 45's) and fractional plates (so you can microload-fractionals- and go over 440)
An incline bench (just useful enough to warrant picking it up off craigslist)
Dumbbells (used as you can find)

[Tamara Reynolds]

Like Jordan said, you won't want to use the TPB for power cleans/snatches, so another bar is a good idea down the road. Used iron is easy to find, and you can build a platform for $200 or less depending on how big you want to go.

[tomskarda]

Tamara,

Good call on the bar. I'll start looking for one of the York crossfit bars.

I forgot to mention that I have kettlebells ranging from 16 to 70 pounds. The stand alone pull-up bar also converts to a dipping stand. I've also got bucket for chalk and about 4 pounds of chalk for it as well. I also have miscellaneous bars and weights for forearm work and some impact stands for iron palm practice.

The practice area I have set up is a raised earth embankment boxed in on the sides by 4x6s. Underneath this is a circular concrete pad i used to use for circle walking back in my martial arts days.

I'm planning on laying down cattle mats for traction and padding.

It is an outdoor gym surrounded by a pasture for my mothers horses, a chicken coop and a house for some ducks. I'll post pictures once I am done setting it up.

[Corrie]

Tamara,

Good call on the bar. I'll start looking for one of the York crossfit bars.

I forgot to mention that I have kettlebells ranging from 16 to 70 pounds. The stand alone pull-up bar also converts to a dipping stand. I've also got bucket for chalk and about 4 pounds of chalk for it as well. I also have miscellaneous bars and weights for forearm work and some impact stands for iron palm practice.

The practice area I have set up is a raised earth embankment boxed in on the sides by 4x6s. Underneath this is a circular concrete pad i used to use for circle walking back in my martial arts days.

I'm planning on laying down cattle mats for traction and padding.

It is an outdoor gym surrounded by a pasture for my mothers horses, a chicken coop and a house for some ducks. I'll post pictures once I am done setting it up.

Damn that sounds beautiful. What's your membership fee?

[Dastardly]

Like Jordan said, you won't want to use the TPB for power cleans/snatches, so another bar is a good idea down the road. Used iron is easy to find, and you can build a platform for $200 or less depending on how big you want to go.

Everyone keeps saying this but why?

I have used three kinds of TPB, all had different degrees of knurling. One was nearly new yet smooth superlight knurling, much less sharp than a weightlifting bar.

The other two had deeper/wider knurl than WL bars (like modern eleiko) but I still think you could do O-lifts with them.

None of the bars I used where the black ones, no idea what they are like.

[Jordan Feigenbaum]

At my gym we have TPB made by CAP....all black and the knurl is super rough (I wouldn't want to clean or snatch with them). Texas deadlift bar= too whippy and longer than regulation, also knurling is intense. Texas Squat bar- too stiff, doesn't spin, knurling is insane.

I'm not sure what bars you're using Dastardly, but perhaps CAP or whoever else is making TPB has another line of them. That said, I still wouldn't Oly lift with them. If you've got the dough you might as well get a good Oly bar. Pendlay's NexGen are the most cost effective in my mind. I don't particularly care for the Werksan and the Eleiko's are pricey, unless you find a used set like I narrowly missed over the summer!

[Tom Narvaez]

If it isn't black, it's not a Texas Power Bar.....