gym space in a shed.

[lsi1]

Currently my gym equipment is on my back porch which my wife wants back. I live on the side of a mountain so I only have a small amount of flat space to work with and need to build a structure to turn into a gym space. What size is your current gym setup? What can you squeeze in there? I have a treadmill and my wife has a exercise bike which are already in a spare room of our house but the ceiling isn't tall enough for me to put my rack in there even if I was interested in waking up my family banging weights around. I have no basement its just a glorified crawlspace.

I'm thinking that 10x14 should be enough to store weights, rack, bench, some bars, and hopefully some sort of lat pulldown setup later on.

Since I'm custom building it I could do just about whatever extra construction is needed to modify it to use with heavier weights. Building codes prevent me from pouring a concrete floor so I have to put it on concrete pavers or treated wood skids. I'm thinking about going with floor joists on 12 inch centers and using 2 inch rough cut boards for the floor itself and then lay stall mats over that with plywood inside and in front of the rack.. I would just use a sloping roof across the 10ft section that dropped from 9.5 to 7 feet. Since my rack is a short one I could put it across the shorter wall and have the area in front of it(taller side) for ohp movements or oly lifts. My plans are to leave the wall cavities open and just use thin bubble wrap insulation which I did in my workshop and it works pretty well keeping warm in winter and cooler in summer. If I leave everything open like that I can hang just about everything on the walls and out of the usable floor space and can easily build in any additional bracing that I might need.

I'm pretty sure there are some major drawbacks lifting in a shed that you all will point out to me but the thought of traveling 45 minutes each way to my closest gym or not lifting at all do a lot to balance those out. Heating and cooling come immediately to mind. I have a small propane heater that I can use for now an old window ac unit that I could just mount in the wall but since I lift at about 5am cooling isn't usually a problem.

[bcradio]

I would say a big consideration is to make sure and insulate it... all of it... this includes the ceiling (and I would also do under the floor).

[thejosef]

10x14 would work out great. If it'll only be you in there, I would think 125 sq ft would be a minimum to be comfortable. Focus on the basics and you'll be fine. You need a power rack and weights. Be efficient with wall-mounting everything you can.. You need air flow: either a door and window with fan or some type of AC unit. Depending on your climate, heat may be necessary, but where I'm located, I can survive with layering up and maybe a small space heater when needed. Insulation is a good idea.

My current gym is about 130 sq ft (18 x 7). I have one side dedicated to the rower & an open space for deadlifts/oly lifting. The other side has the rack & bench. It's a long space so I can actually have two people work with standard bars in here pretty comfortably. I've attached a photo just to give you an idea:

[sm1ke]

That's a great use of space.

I shoved my power rack in the corner of my single car garage, lol. I think it's footprint is about 9Wx7D, and that includes space in front of the rack to deadlift. With your setup, you should definitely have enough space to add a lat pulldown, and maybe a landmine. The only concerns I might have would be moisture control, and ensuring that your platform has enough room to bail on any missed Oly lift.

I've attached a crude pic of my floor plan and a recent photo of my home gym to give you an idea. The red square is the power rack (9ft total height), and the green line is my 7'8" barbell. Weight storage is on the rack. The darker red square is the 9x7 space, and the grey square is my car. The red line just shows the space that I would need to use my landmine.

[peligro113]

That's a great use of space.

I shoved my power rack in the corner of my single car garage, lol. I think it's footprint is about 9Wx7D, and that includes space in front of the rack to deadlift. With your setup, you should definitely have enough space to add a lat pulldown, and maybe a landmine. The only concerns I might have would be moisture control, and ensuring that your platform has enough room to bail on any missed Oly lift.

I've attached a crude pic of my floor plan and a recent photo of my home gym to give you an idea. The red square is the power rack (9ft total height), and the green line is my 7'8" barbell. Weight storage is on the rack. The darker red square is the 9x7 space, and the grey square is my car. The red line just shows the space that I would need to use my landmine.

sm1ke it looks like a pain to load plates onto that barbell. How do you go about it?

[lsi1]

thank you all. Tonight I'm gonna stake out a space to see how big I can go. I also have to ask a contractor friend of mine just how far I can span with that style roof and how much fall it actually needs because I'm just guessing off the top of my head now. my current porch space is about 6.5x14 and I'm sharing that comfortably with a grill and some recycling containers. I would expect humidity to be an issue of course as it is now. I just keep my bars oiled fairly regular and buy cheap weight plates so I don't care if they get rusty.

[ironwill2008]

thank you all. Tonight I'm gonna stake out a space to see how big I can go. I also have to ask a contractor friend of mine just how far I can span with that style roof and how much fall it actually needs because I'm just guessing off the top of my head now. my current porch space is about 6.5x14 and I'm sharing that comfortably with a grill and some recycling containers. I would expect humidity to be an issue of course as it is now. I just keep my bars oiled fairly regular and buy cheap weight plates so I don't care if they get rusty.

You could use just a very slight pitch (just a little above flat for rain runoff, and then put a membrane (rubber) roof on it instead of the usual shingles, which require a much steeper pitch. That way, you'd get maximum headroom inside.

[sm1ke]

sm1ke it looks like a pain to load plates onto that barbell. How do you go about it?

It's not as annoying as it seems. There's 8-10" of space between the barbell and the wall, so when I need to add/remove plates, I do something similar to this (:30s in). I don't straddle the barbell of course, but hopefully you get the idea.



This would be huge problem if I wanted to load the 100lb plates I just got, but I'll likely only use those for deadlifts anyway.

[gym62richard]

Structurally my gym is based on a timber framed shed, initially the inside dimensions were 29'x17', I've just added a 6'x17' extension, making the overall dimensions 35'x17'. I was lucky to be able to cast a concrete base for the main building, but on the extension I had to construct a timber floor, I have 10"x2" joists laid at 16" centres, with 2 layers of 3/4" plywood under the rubber mats.

Irrespective of the final dimensions of your proposed building, the basic construction of my gym may suit your purposes, 10"x2" joists should easily span 10'-12'. I have 4"x2" wall framing, timber cladding on the outside and a mixture of drywall and plywood sheets line the walls inside the building, the wall framing is fully insulated and lined with a membrane moisture barrier between the cladding and the framing.

The roof is a mono pitch and runs from 9'6" to 8'6" (inside headroom) over a 17' span. I used 12"x3" for the main roof timbers, with 4"x3" purlins carrying insulated corrugated steel sheets forming the roof covering.

I have been lifting in this building for 10 years with no issues, a radiator style panel heater in Winter and a small air con unit in Summer do the job of keeping the temperature to a manageable level, but this is the UK and we don't generally suffer the extremes in temperature that you have in North America.