Building a home gym can get expensive. And it can get that way fast! So finding places to save money without sacrificing functionality becomes important to those of us on a budget.
One of the best ways to stay on budget and still get a functional gym is to spend money where you need to and look for ways to save in areas you don’t.
My best advice for this has always been to spend a little more on your bar and your bench, but trim back in other areas like your rack and weights. Weights, in particular, can vary in price from very cheap to crazy expensive.
But weight is weight, right? A 45 lb plate that you paid $140 for weighs exactly the same as a 45 lb plate you spent $10 on. So why spend the extra $130???
Why I recommend bumper plates
I wrote an entire article about the benefits of bumper plates that you can read here. I won’t go into every reason you might want them in this article. We should, however, touch on two very important bumper plate benefits.
One is that they protect your floor if you drop your bar. For those of you that never drop your bar, this is a non-issue. For those of you that do, this is really important.
If you drop a bar loaded with 400 lbs. of iron plates onto the concrete floor of your garage, you’re going to mess up your floor. There are several ways to mitigate this (see my article on preventing floor damage here for most of them), but one is to use bumper plates
You can drop a bar loaded with 400 lbs. of bumper plates directly on your floor with no issue. Your floor holds your house and your car, it can handle your loaded barbell when it’s loaded with rubber bumpers.
The problem comes into play when that 400 lbs. consists of the sharp-edged hardened steel that makes up iron plates.
The second reason you want bumpers is to protect your bar. If you drop that same loaded bar with iron plates on it, you could very easily break your barbell.
The bearings and hardware that attach the sleeves of your bar to the bar itself cannot withstand the jarring impact of steel plates when dropped. It’s just not a great idea.
So, in the interest of protection your floor and your bar, you should definitely consider buying bumper plates when putting together your home gym.
Bumper plate drawbacks
I love, recommend, and use bumper plates myself. B