New Zealand home gym journey

[deiphid]

I've been working on my home gym since early 2012 and I am getting to a point now that I am pretty happy with everything in my gym. I'm not sure if there are many NZ posters on here, but I thought my experiences might be of some benefit to any Kiwis looking to set up a home gym.

As with many of us, I started from humble beginnings. A friend of mine lent me his bench set up. It definitely wasn't ideal. I was unable to really push myself benching and even then there were still a couple of dicey moments trapped under a loaded bar. While the bench was not the best, my friend also lent me a basic olympic set, which made upgrading a whole lot easier.

I was still training legs at a commercial gym, but my experience convinced me that I preferred to work out at home.



The bench was from www.no1fitness.co.nz I believe, but I'm certainly not recommending it!

[deiphid]

At first all I wanted was some sort of equipment to do squats at home... but after maybe 10 minutes research it became apparent that I needed some sort of rack and a separate bench.

I looked around a bit, particularly on www.trademe.co.nz and came across supasport (www.supasport.co.nz).

They had a decent deal for a weight set, adjustable bench and squat rack - similar in design to the Body Solid Multi Press and the GFID 71 bench.

These deals come and go off trademe, so I imagine this link won't be current for long:
http://www.trademe.co.nz/sports/exer...-661557000.htm

I used my friend's olympic bar and weights, so just bought the rack and bench and ordered some extra 20kg plates, a curl bar and some standard 5kg plates for a spinlock dumbbell set I bought from the Warehouse.

I also bought some squishy eva foam mat puzzle pieces from Mitre 10. I don't recommend these as they pull apart with the weight of the equipment and don't provide a stable surface to lift on.



Sorry it's sideways, not sure how to fix that.

[deiphid]

This served me well but I had caught the bug.

I wanted a cable machine - I stumbled across a trademe auction for a Powertec Shape System. After doing some research I worked out the auction was listed by the local Powertec distributor - Fitness and Leisure. I got in touch with Adrian and made arrangements to purchase one (he sold me his display model for a good price).

I didn't really have space for it, but I managed to squeeze it into a little nook. Unfortunately this meant I no longer had space to dead lift properly. I did good mornings, rows and squats, but I was no longer happy with the space I had - I started planning for a garage.

[deiphid]

A garage was not forthcoming so I decided to just max out the space I had... bad move lol.

I met Adrian at Fitness and Leisure in person when I picked up the Powertec cable system. I was pleased with his customer service and his enthusiasm for Ironmaster and Powertec products was contagious.

IM dumbbells with 120lb upgrade

I needed to get rid of the old bench so I called my friend and we found it a new home, but this meant I needed a bar and more weights. I picked up a cheapie for $99 from a friend. It is 32mm in diameter, hex bolt design. I still need to upgrade from this bar!

2 x 75kg rubber grip plate sets from www.fitnessandleisure.co.nz

Lockjaw collars (picked a couple of sets up second hand)

Powertec arm curl attachment.

My brother and I came up with the wooden dip attachment in the photos. It was removable when I wasn't using it. I painted it black and added some tennis racquet grip tape so it wasn't so ghetto.

[deiphid]

I am missing a few stages in photos, but essentially here's what happened:

I got rid of the FID bench from supasport as it took up more space than I was willing to allow for a bench. I picked up an IM super bench from Fitness and Leisure. I got the ab crunch attachment to allow for decline work.

I had a great summer working out with mates - just up the road is a walking track with approximately 1500 steps up to a lookout with a great view over the area.

My partner and I bought our first house. It didn't have a garage, but it did have a bigger room for my gym gear - plus we could plan for adding a garage (obviously there was no way we would add a garage to the property we rented).

I broke some ribs playing rugby league and then broke my fibula at practice after just one game back - I've never had serious injuries before but it really hampered my working out. I used the down time to scheme...

In the meantime I picked up the IM cable attachment for the Super bench, a heavy bag and gloves, hex dumbbells and dumbbell rack (4kg, 6kg, 8kg, 10kg, 12.5kg and 15kg). I also put a deposit down on a Steelflex leg press.



This is the biggest gamble of all with my home gym - I haven't tried the machine at all. However I'm not overly picky, and the price was right. Affordable equipment is hard to come by in NZ.

Adrian again proved to be more than helpful with the super bench cable attachment. He only had the V1 attachment in stock which requires switching the cable from high to low to change from pulldowns to rows. Adrian imported in the V2 upgrade kit for me.

[deiphid]

I forgot to mention I bought the hex dumbbells and leg press from www.fitnessimports.co.nz

They have been helpful so far - the ETA of the machine has been delayed by one month, but communication has been ok.

My partner and I got engaged, and we also made the decision to go ahead with building a garage.

I found a Schwinn 400p crosstrainer for $100 on trademe.co.nz. I think this is just about the only real knockout deal I have found during my home gym project.

[deiphid]

I started to think more about how I would like the garage set up - a 6x7m garage with a 3x7m area devoted to the gym. The other half of the garage is for tools, a workbench, and of course to park the car.

I picked up two rolls of used rubber conveyor belt. Each piece was approximately 1.8m by 4m. I had to drive about 1.5hours to pick up the pieces, which were literally laying in mud. I had purchased one piece for I think $80, and the lady wouldn't budge or give me a deal on two pieces, despite the fact that my father and I had gone ankles deep in the mud to fish the 100kg+ pieces of rubber out of her paddock.

I had driven there (with a trailer too as the lady claimed there was no way the pieces would roll up) and fished the pieces out so I just paid the cash and took the rubber. I'm glad I did, as it was still a lot cheaper than buying rubber mats.

[deiphid]

I was getting increasingly dissatisfied with the half rack from supasport. It served its purpose, but the gun rack style meant the spacing between racks was around 3+ inches, there was no way to do pull ups, the safeties were too short and it just wasn't badass enough for me.

The Powertec rack was obviously an option, but I just wanted something on another level. Problem is, commercial racks are hard to come by in NZ.

I started a long and ultimately fruitless process of attempting to have a rack custom made by a local fabricator. I bought some j-hooks and half rack style safeties from www.no1fitness.co.nz and supplied the guy with a bunch of measurements, drawings and photos of a rack loosely based on the sorinex dark horse.

The big cost was apparently going to be the holes. A work mate mentioned his flatmate worked at a place that did steel laser cutting. Even this proved to be difficult to organise.

During a timely visit to the fitness and leisure showroom to pick up the ironmaster cable super bench attachment, I mentioned my hunt for a rack to Adrian. He mentioned the powertec commercial rack, which I was familiar with, and offered to import one for me.

I told him that I would almost certainly like to go for this, and just to get back with a price. Adrian did the next week, and the deal was on.

[deiphid]

Fast forward a couple of months and I have now started moving in to my new garage:









...I'm having trouble with the rack not being level, I may bolt it down.

Regardless, obviously more pics to come as I continue moving in...

[Gizdawg]

Equipment in Australia is expensive enough, I can't imagine how much some of that stuff must have cost you over in NZ.

Looks like you're well on the way to a nice setup, that powertec rack looks the business!

[dragon360]

Love the evolution down home gym lane. Nice rack you picked up in the end. I've heard a few times that loosening the bolts on the rack some and letting it settle before tightening eveything back up can help.

[AttyGuy]

Nice setup!

[daniel327]

Equipment in Australia is expensive ...............

No it isn't. The problem in this country is that most people expect a hand out.

[deiphid]

No it isn't. The problem in this country is that most people expect a hand out.

There are definitely a few items I'd much rather pay the Australian price for.

I don't think the issue is price, it's variety and choice. It is easy enough to get cheap stuff like the bench setup I had first, and there are distributors for Hammer Strength, Life Fitness, Hoist and Precor/Icarian. The issue is that there isn't a lot in between.

I'm familiar with a few of the Australian companies. I'll probably get the premium j-hooks from iron edge soon to give me a bit more space when racking the bar. What's the used market in Australia like?

[deiphid]

Here's some little projects of mine:

Chalk bowl made from a stainless mixing bowl, doweling and and umbrella stand-


Accessory stand made from leftover ironmaster cable tower parts after the V2 upgrade-


Accessory wall rack made from garage wall storage hook kit screwed to painted ply (couldn't find any slat wall locally)-

[deiphid]

...and a panorama from today.

http://i.imgur.com/Yx2iysp.jpg

I won't imbed that - it's a bit wide.

Leg press is being delivered this week!

[deiphid]

Just updated the post so the photos imbed properly.

[deiphid]

"Finished" gym:

[osanai]

No it isn't. The problem in this country is that most people expect a hand out.

It's not that expensive to buy the equipment. Living in Adelaide the hardest part is finding what you need locally without having to pay an arm and a leg for shipping

[daniel327]

It's not that expensive to buy the equipment. Living in Adelaide the hardest part is finding what you need locally without having to pay an arm and a leg for shipping

I live in Central Queensland, so I know all about expensive shipping costs.

Sometimes, if you want something, you have to just bite the bullet and pony up.

[mywebcollection]

It is coolllllllllllllllllll.

[deiphid]

Latest pickup:

So I just picked up a Sports Art commercial FID bench for NZ $250 yesterday:



I am really happy with it. Commercial benches pretty much never come up on the used market in NZ, so I swooped on this one.

When I first saw the photos of this bench I did think the pad design was a little weird for my liking. I'm still not a fan of it aesthetically, but it's actually not so noticeable when using the bench.

It is the perfect height, width and pad firmness. It is also heavy. I would say at least 50kgs (110lbs).

My favorite feature is the gas assisted incline adjustment. You can quite easily adjust the bench angle while you are sitting on it:



Pad gap is approximately 2" - I tend to lay fully on the backrest when flat benching, so I don't really care.



Here is a comparison of the Sports Art bench with my Ironmaster bench:



I should also add that I now have the powertec dual hyper extension crunch. Adrian from Fitness and Leisure recommended I try it when I mentioned I was after a glute ham developer for glute ham raises and back extensions.

It is a solid piece, it works well for 45 degree and flat hypers. I like it enough that I won't be looking to purchase a GHD anytime soon.

However I am surprised Powertec haven't sought to add a GHR function to their lineup, perhaps by tweaking this machine.

[lums115]

Nice bench, i almost pulled the trigger on the plates/tree and bar they were selling, but talked myself out of it for some reason, probably couldn't be bothered driving to Hamilton.

I'm in the process of swapping out my gear from standard to Olympic, so Trademe is getting a bit of a workout at the moment.... anyway, thats an awesome set-up mate, put's my ghetto gym to shame.

[deiphid]

Nice bench, i almost pulled the trigger on the plates/tree and bar they were selling, but talked myself out of it for some reason, probably couldn't be bothered driving to Hamilton.

I'm in the process of swapping out my gear from standard to Olympic, so Trademe is getting a bit of a workout at the moment.... anyway, thats an awesome set-up mate, put's my ghetto gym to shame.

Thanks. Yeah they were selling a lot of good gear. I wish I got in earlier to see what other goodies they had. I'm lucky the guy held onto the bench for me, apparently a few people asked about it.

I haven't had much luck with Trademe - I've seen some good stuff but never had the cash on me at the time. Man there are a lot of ab circle pros though right?

[lums115]

Thanks. Yeah they were selling a lot of good gear. I wish I got in earlier to see what other goodies they had. I'm lucky the guy held onto the bench for me, apparently a few people asked about it.

I haven't had much luck with Trademe - I've seen some good stuff but never had the cash on me at the time. Man there are a lot of ab circle pros though right?

Your bench, the plates and Olympic bench were the only things worth looking at, the rest were just big flash overpriced isolation machines.

Ab circle pro's and cross trainers...so many cross trainers.

[morebarbell]

The pneumatic adjustment for the bench is neat! I haven't seen that before.

[deiphid]

A few updates:

I designed and had fabricated some "sandwich style" j-hooks. I discussed these in detail in the "look what I bought today" thread.

I purchased an Ivanko OBX-20KG barbell



I had some strap safeties made up, based on the Sorinex style.



I couldn't exactly take my rack into the fabricators, so I had no way of knowing for sure whether the strap brackets were going to be able to be adjusted without removing the hitch pin or bolt. To be safe, I purchased some hitch pins to allow the brackets to be adjusted that way. Once I got all the parts and put them together, I was stoked to find the brackets could indeed be adjusted without removing the pins. I'm really pleased with how these turned out.



The straps are massively overbuilt. They are 2500kg breaking strength webbing looped around three times and stitched.

I am thinking of having some half rack safeties made for the front of my rack so I can have that set up for bench, and leave the rear uprights set up for squats.

The other plans in the pipeline are a lat/low row machine with weight stack (probably powertec), and some specialty bars (swiss and safety squat).

I have also looked into replacing my plates with Ivankos (probably OMs). I will have to buy new as I have never even seen genuine Ivanko plates in NZ.

[AttyGuy]

Nice!

[judgecrandall]

Awesome! It's always great to see you update your gym. You probably have the nicest home gym in NZ . Loving the strap safeties - really cool that they can be adjusted without removing the hitch pin.

[deiphid]

Update time:

- New building
- Just under 250kg of Ivanko OM KG plates
- Powertec lat machine with weight stack (I have reviewed this elsewhere).