Sizing Home Gymnastics Gym

Working on putting together my home gym. Currently everything I have is outside - rings, squat rack, olympic bars and bumper plates, kettlebells, clubbells, grip training stuff, and other implements of destruction. This is not ideal. I have made it work for the last year, but I would like to get some shelter up and be able to expand.

I have a little over 3 acres of property to work with, but it is a very steeply sloped hill with lots of redwood trees. There are a couple of small cleared flat areas - maybe 20' x 10' and 12' x 14' in size respectively but neither are really ideal locations.  Not sure if clearing a new building site is going to be viable though so I am looking at two possible paths - either getting it down to a small enough building size that it could be viable, or just continuing with my outdoor based setup.

My intended use is for myself as well as my youngest son (currently a 7.5 year old level 4) to be able to practice at home. I am sure my oldest son will want to use it to, but he isn't comptetively focused so whatever my needs are should be fine for him. I want my youngest to be able to condition at home, not so much work on skills - except for those that can be safely trained without a trained gymnastics coach nearby.

I am looking at the following questions and was hoping others here might have insight to share.

1) I need to figure out what is the minimum building size necessary and had some questions about the following equipment.

• Rings :: The rings I have are okay, but I would like to get a full regulation ring frame setup. However, this takes up approximately 18' in width by about 13' in length from what I could find (accomodating the tie-down cables). Two possibilities here that I was entertaining: A.) save a bit on the width by putting the edge of the ring frame against the building wall  B.) hang the rings from a ceiling beam over the floor rather than use a ring frame. Is there any disadvantage to either of these approaches?
• Pommel Horse :: I want to have a competition sized pommel. Does this have to be secured to the floor? Are there any that are portable and meet the size and stability requirements of gymnastic use?
• Parallel Bars :: Same question here as for the pommel - does it need to be secured or are their portable units that are stable enough and properly sized?
• Floor :: I want to get a spring floor installed but am unsure about the size it should be. Is 20' x 20' acceptable or can I go smaller? The limitation will be for what my little gymnast needs as he gets older. I don't want to undersize this component but I am not really sure what a good minumum would be either.

There are some other things I want to get into this mix as well, but they would all mount on walls and not be a real issue in determining building size. The biggest svings would be if I could get the rings hung from a ceiling beam, and have a portable pommel and p-bar set that could be moved onto the floor as needed. Is this even possible, or does the spring floor make that a non-option?

2) Barring being able to get a building put up I would need to figure out a way to make my outdoor setup work. In that case the following questions are what come to mind.

• Pommel Horse :: Are any of the units out there capable of withstanding being stored outdoors?
• Parallel Bars :: Same basic question here. Anything suitable for outside? I could build a set from wood, but what size would I want to make them? Seems I would need the adjustable nature of the competition units to accommodate myself and my boys.
• Mats :: The landing pads would be the biggest issue. Is anything made suitable for gymnastics in an outdoor environment?

Hopefully some folks here have experience in setting this stuff up. Any other suggestions are welcome as well.

- Chris

if you're not going to do ring swings, you can probably get away with a structural engineer putting the rings into a beam, but I think most of what you have asked is going to need to be answered by a seasoned coach.

Very nice project; I can't help you with the set up, but I'll be looking forward to the pictures...

On second thought, one of our member from Scotland posted a nice video of his training recently (I can't recall his name right now ); it shows a wonderful set up in an old stone building/room that he has dedicated for his home gym. This could give you ideas for yours, size, equipment, etc...

High jump mats usually sleep outside.

You may consider the height of the structure if you wanted to hang a rope too.

Thanks guys.

I did see that video Fred. Looks like a pretty decent setup he had going on, and all would be much simpler if I didn't want to try and accommodate an appropriate practice area for my little one as he gets older. Of course I will be making good use of it too.

A woman I work with told me today of "space savers" for the tie-downs. She said they used them for securing the uneven bars in her daughter's old gym and that they might be able to be used for the ring frame as well. They basically allowed the apparatus to not take up as much room as they typically would need. http://www.american-gymnast.com/shop/Space-Savers-P350.aspx'>Space Savers

The planned ceiling height was going to be 25' ... figure that would give me enough clearance to hang some decent climbing ropes. Backup plan is to attach a rope to an arm off of the side of the house, our house is 3 stories tall but the area where it would be hanging might get me about 20 feet or so of height. 

I had considered the track and field style mats, just wasn't sure if they would be suitable (read: dense enough foam) for gymnastics use. 

Plan on making some calls soon to try and sort some of this out, but if anybody has some brands or such that could get me a head start lemme know.

- Chris

I wouldn't know where to begin with this kind of project but please keep us updated and pics when you're done!

- Rings, here it's very common in schools etc, to have rings mounted either to the ceiling or on a wall mounted swing out bar.

The advantage of the swing out bar is you can set it to regulation height.  In either case the rings are on an adjustable pulley system so they can be raised out of the way. These systems also have adjustable spring systems to absorb shock. 

- Pommel horse there are stable ones out there that can be moved

- Parallel Bars are too heavy to plan to move on a regular basis

- Horizontal Bar, this wasn't on your list but is pretty important if you are doing GST. The space savers look like a great idea, going to mention them to our gym owner. OUr apparatus area is a cable jungle.

- Floor, you don't want to plan to put apparatus on a sprung floor

A possible solution would be to make a sprung track and use gymnastic padded carpet mat, same stuff that goes on top of the sprung floor everywhere else.

This sounds like an awesome project!

Thanks for the insight Cole. Regarding h-bar ... with a post like that I knew there would be something I left out.

The rings setup sounds interesting. A height adjustable set would be ideal as I could have them at regulation when necessary and a more appropriate height otherwise, but I wasn't sure if they would be stable enough. Are you aware of any problems with those types of setups?

- Chris

The Rings set ups are very stable, as long as everything is installed properly.

Cole Dano said:

- Rings, here it's very common in schools etc, to have rings mounted either to the ceiling or on a wall mounted swing out bar.

The advantage of the swing out bar is you can set it to regulation height.  In either case the rings are on an adjustable pulley system so they can be raised out of the way. These systems also have adjustable spring systems to absorb shock. 

 

- Pommel horse there are stable ones out there that can be moved

 

- Parallel Bars are too heavy to plan to move on a regular basis

 

- Horizontal Bar, this wasn't on your list but is pretty important if you are doing GST. The space savers look like a great idea, going to mention them to our gym owner. OUr apparatus area is a cable jungle.

 

- Floor, you don't want to plan to put apparatus on a sprung floor

 

A possible solution would be to make a sprung track and use gymnastic padded carpet mat, same stuff that goes on top of the sprung floor everywhere else.

 

This sounds like an awesome project!

Cole, do they actually have and use gymnastics rings in schools there in Finland? That sounds awesome! I have NEVER seen ONE pair of gymnastics rings in ordinary schools that I have seen. In fact, a current trend in Elementary schools seems to be that they are taking out the old-time climbing ropes and chin-up bars, and they are now discouraging or prohibiting running; in recess! Go figure. The students are instead encouraged to do "fast-walking". Sad state.

Cole Dano said:

The Rings set ups are very stable, as long as everything is installed properly.

Awesome, if you could get me a name brand or a couple of keywords to search for that would be great. I did find the following, but wasn't sure if that is what you were referencing: Ring Hoist

- Chris

Cody H said:

Cole, do they actually have and use gymnastics rings in schools there in Finland? That sounds awesome! I have NEVER seen ONE pair of gymnastics rings in ordinary schools that I have seen. In fact, a current trend in Elementary schools seems to be that they are taking out the old-time climbing ropes and chin-up bars, and they are now discouraging or prohibiting running; in recess! Go figure. The students are instead encouraged to do "fast-walking". Sad state.

Here in the Netherlands we have gymnastic rings and ropes in school gyms as well (or at least they used to have them when I was younger). We had to perform (elementary) series of ring exercises and also ring swings, and to pass rope-climbing at the age of 13 or 14 we had to climb up and down (using the legs, of course) at least six times if I recall correctly. We also had to climb to the top (about 8 m high, I think) and then move from rope to rope across the hall before climbing down again. Good times!! We also did 'pommel horse leaps' and I think we even did stuff on parallel bars.

Anyway, I'm going to keep an eye on this thread because building a decent home gym is priority #1 when we move to a bigger place.

Rings, ropes, stall bars are all common here. In general there is a very different attitude about personal risk and liability.

Here is an example of the Ring set up I was referring to

http://www.gymnova.com/en/catalogue/f1-AGR-apparatus/f2-ANN-rings/f3-ENT-practice-training/id-1338-wall-mounted-foldable-rings-with-adjustable-height-

The Flex Adjuster, is a spring dampener.

You will want to consult with a good gymnastic supply dealer undertaking a project like this, and maybe find someone with experience in setting this equipment up.

Thanks again Cole. My plan is definitely to have a knowledgeable person set most of this stuff up if possible. At this point I am just gathering requirements and trying to find the minimum size which I could build that would still have everything it needs within it. As I won't have a bunch of gymnasts in the building some of the space requirements can almost certainly be trimmed down, but figuring out which ones is the trickier part.

- Chris

yeah, this sounds freaking epic. I want to include a home gym in my future plans as well.

Since your son is level 4 it might be better to get a mushroom or ege trainer and just a old school vault to put on the floor. You can screw in handles and he can work on loops and circles, and just do scissors at the gym. Later you will probably need to get a folding pommel setup so you can move it.

Rings can be done with hooks as said above.

Pbars is somewhat more difficult. The problem is that they weather well outside and hard metal ones aren't ideal to work on. You can use parallettes to train handstand and strength, but I would keep the swinging at the gym where you have plenty of mats. Nothing worse than falling from some above bar element onto hard ground.

Daniel Burnham said:

Since your son is level 4 it might be better to get a mushroom or ege trainer and just a old school vault to put on the floor. You can screw in handles and he can work on loops and circles, and just do scissors at the gym. Later you will probably need to get a folding pommel setup so you can move it.

Have a mushroom already - it lives on our back deck currently.

Daniel Burnham said:

Rings can be done with hooks as said above.

Pbars is somewhat more difficult. The problem is that they weather well outside and hard metal ones aren't ideal to work on. You can use parallettes to train handstand and strength, but I would keep the swinging at the gym where you have plenty of mats. Nothing worse than falling from some above bar element onto hard ground.

Yeah if I have to keep it setup outside the lack of a reasonable amount of mats will be a problem.  I am really hoping to be able to get a building put up though and then those problems are a non-issue.

I have been doing a lot of thinking/planning and think I have it down to a couple reasonably sized options. I am going to put together a couple of layout diagrams in the next few days when I have the time and post them up for feedback.

- Chris

ewethestuff said:

/Demands future pics

Hate to leave you guys hanging for so long. So, here are some pics of the areas for folks to check out.

Here is the current Gym Area. You can see my two sets of rings, squat rack, bench, kettlebells in the background, a pullup bar off the edge of the deck, heavy bag further down, and some grip training stuff is hiding in the back corner.

Here is the best flat area we have. Picture is taken from the edge of the current workout area. But it is the leach field for the septic system so no building there. It is kind of undersized anyway, but if I was forced to keep my outside gym approach this is where much of the equipment would be living.

Here is the view from our back deck looking up the hill to where I would like to put the gym. Right before the fence is a small reasonable flat area. The fence we had put in prior to moving-in to keep our dogs contained. Our property heads up the hill much further, but nothing currently level exists further back. The flat area is not near big enough for what I would like, but between the sets of trees I might be able to get a decent sized building in place, optionally we might cut down those handful of trees and then I could get a bit larger setup in there. Would probably build on posts instead of trying to excavate.

Here is the view of the proposed site looking at it from the left hand side of the yard towards the gate on the right hand side of the yard. For reference I believe the double gate is either 9' or 10' in width.

That is what I am working with. A reasonable amount of space, but it is hilly and building on it can get pricey - especially being in the silicon valley area.

- Chris

Great thread! My wife and I are currently undertaking a similar project. We live on 2.5 acres, but most of our land is also uneven and wooded, although our land seems to be waaaaay more even than yours. We had a tornado come through our area 2 years ago that uprooted some bigger oaks, so we are currently working on clearing these out and cutting down the smaller trees (all manually). Once this is complete we will rent a Bobcat to try and clear the land as best as possible, get a concrete slab poured, then build the building ourselves (I'm hoping for a 30x30 building). So I feel your pain.

However, I wasn't planning to have quite so much gymnastics equipment as you. I've got rings, will get a squat rack with a few benches, thought about other things like a mushroom, climbing rope, maybe some homemade stall bars, and so on. It also sounds like you'll have quite a lot more money tied up in yours. Please keep us updated on your progress; I'm interested to hear how things move along.

Thanks for the well wishes. Good luck with your project as well. Time/money those are almost always the two inversely available trade offs. I will probably build some of my smaller projects (like those stall bars) while trying to work the details out for the big one.

- Chris