As I am getting ready to move, a house I picked out has a nice sized basement and I thought it would be a great place to pick out an area to put all the workout equipment and weights. Not the whole basement, but at least one portion of it I thought would be good to use for working out. Better than upstairs on the 2nd floor or the first even so that you can jump and do things without bothering anyone under you.
I plan to mount a tv to the wall and have a dvd and vhs player down there as well as a bookshelf for all the workout dvds I have. I could put hooks up to hang the stretch bands and then get a weight rack for the free weights and for the curl bar I intend to get. I also have an elliptical machine I could put in there and a flat bench.
But the flooring...that is always the tricky part. In the past, I have worked out on carpet and terrazzo and carpet covered terrazzo, cement and wood and lately, laminate covered cement I am sure is what it is under the laminate flooring. All of those are very bad for the feet and joints to be jumping on.
Granted, being a heavy topped girl, I don't do a lot of jumping anyway but still, you want a floor you don't slip and that you can do some jumping on.
I did buy a few of those foam tiles but they were so hard and despite being textured, they slid like crazy on the laminate floor. Laminate is slick enough already and really is cheap crap if you ask me. It's made to look like wood but it's worse as it is just like paper and scratches so easy. It's horrible.
Now the new house I was intending on putting in some porcelain tile that looks like hardwood. I used to want hardwood flooring completely but after going to the Log and Timber show in PA last year, I learned a lot not only about log cabins but hardwood floors. Hardwood floors take a lot of upkeep and despite seeing all those beautiful cabins with the cathedral ceilings with all that glorious bright warm sunlight streaming in and glowing on the floors, the sunlight? is the worst thing for those floors! Wood will fade with that sunlight. Case in point anything you put outside fades in the sunlight over time. So if you have this one shape of sunlight coming thru a window every day and shining on the same part of your wood floor, in time, you will have a faded out spot right there. UNLESS....you take measures to protect your floor and there is a lot of upkeep to the hardwood floors. They can also scratch and stain and it is very expensive to protect them correctly like they need to be.
So I looked into the porcelain flooring that looks like wood. It's tougher, cheaper (usually) and it is more fade resistant, stain resistant and you just need to put a sealant on it every few years. That's not that bad. There is also ceramic flooring that looks similar but ceramic does break a lot easier than porcelain if you dropped something on it. Porcelain is tougher. It will take more to make it break. They range about the same price.
Now although this sounds nice, I don't feel it is good flooring for a home gym. I wanted those special floors they use on the workout dvds or in the gym.
So after doing some research, I found what I wanted, it's called virgin rubber. It means that it has not been recycled and no nasty chemicals in it to make it smell bad. Be careful in choosing this type of flooring and read the specs carefully as there are some who just have virgin rubber on top but you don't want that. Yes, this is much more expensive to have it all 100% virgin rubber but I have a feeling you will be glad you did put forth the money for it.
To test this out, I have sent for a single tile to see how I like it and to really see how big it is and then to take it to the new house and measure to see exactly how many I will need.
Here is an article that covers the different floor types for home gyms:
http://homerenovations.about.com/od/floors/tp/Best-Flooring-For-a-Home-Gym.htm
I found it very informative!
Will let you know how it goes when the tile gets here! :)
No comments:
Post a Comment