Home gym - flooring suggestions for a finished basement

[Frank Drebin]

Hey all

Doing the basement in our new house and we're going to have a workout room. Dimensions will be 10'4" wide by 13'4" long. Not that big I know but that's all we have to work with.

Now this room is right off the living area so I can't just have stall mats and bare concrete. Whatever I put in there has to look good next to the carpet.

I'll have my half rack in there as well as a treadmill and maybe an elliptical for the wife.

My first thought was to go tile the whole room, but I'm wondering if anyone has had any experience with say laminate, cork or engineered hardwood? Obviously the rack would be overtop of a rubber mat, along with the treadmill, just wondering if anyone has used these and noticed any pros and cons?

Thanks!

[BAVE]

Not perfect but how about simulated wood flooring: http://www.rubberflooringinc.com/int...wood-tile.html

[ironwill2008]

Now this room is right off the living area so I can't just have stall mats and bare concrete. Whatever I put in there has to look good next to the carpet.

Unless you have money to throw away on expensive flooring that's going to get really beat-up, just put down stall mats over the concrete and keep the door between the gym and the living area closed so you don't have to look at the unfinished gym floor when you're not in the gym.

[Stasher1]

Why not invest in proper rubber flooring?

http://www.rubberflooringinc.com/rub...duty-roll.html

You can get it with different colored chips so it complements the wall paint, and it'll look 100x better than individual rubber mats. The 1/2" ought to be thick enough to protect the concrete from an occasional dropped dumbbell or plate, and you can get a couple smaller pieces to place under the plates when/if you do deadlifts.

[eternalprimate]

Horse Stall Mats are what most people use. Can you imagine dropping plate on a tile floor? Get at least 3/4" thick mats or 1" if ya got the cash.

[hulked]

I would suggest you still give the stall mats a chance. At least in my opinion, they dont look bad. If you cut them to the dimensions of the workout area and align them well, they look really good.

[Seatard]

Acid stain and seal the concrete so it looks nice.

My last workout room had a nice red oak floor. I would not hesitate to use it in a home gym. I don't drop stuff though.

Now I have painted concrete and I've always just used a few small pieces of 3/4" rubber mat for dead lifts and where I set down dumb bells. I don't think I would use rubber for the whole floor unless it was one piece and I could mop it without crap getting in the seams.

[steve0914]

[QUOTE=BAVE;989292623]Not perfect but how about simulated wood flooring:

That's pretty cool even if it's not the most practical choice.

[deadwoodgregg]

Thick horse stall mats if you are on a budget or 2' x 2' x 1" rubber flooring tiles if you have the bank for something nicer. InfinityMax, Rubber-Cal, Everlast Nike-Grind, CFF even has some 2" rubber flooring. You only need about 140 ft.

[Andrew_WOT]

I would look into specialized gym flooring, stall mats are great but bear a strong smell and not always perfectly consistent in thickness and size.
Humane flooring carries a variety of *vulcanized* gym flooring, mats, puzzle tiles, rolls. Most "gym" flooring is just compressed and glued together pieces of recycled rubber that crumble over time, vulcanized is one solid piece of dense rubber.
I have their 3/4" puzzle mats installed, pretty happy so far. IronCompany carries them.

[dumb.bell]

I can't remember the brand, but Legend Fitness carries what I think are 1 x 1 x 1 rubber tiles that you connect with little pins or dowels. When installed it should look something like the picture below. This is what I eventually plan to install in my gym.

[Frank Drebin]

I can't remember the brand, but Legend Fitness carries what I think are 1 x 1 x 1 rubber tiles that you connect with little pins or dowels. When installed it should look something like the picture below. This is what I eventually plan to install in my gym.

Wow those are really nice! Thanks everyone for the suggestions so far. As for the stall mats, someone had mentioned the smell. I almost forgot about how bad mine smelled when I first picked them up. After being on the floor for 5 years they weren't too bad but there is no way the wife is letting me drag those downstairs.

I'm gonna look into what dumb.bell suggested, I think those look great. If I don't have any luck I'll probably go with engineered hardwood with a 3/4" mat underneath the rack.