Advice

Procedures set out in the order they happen

Every page here follows one job through from the first step to the last check, and names the step that everything downstream depends on. Products appear only where a procedure genuinely needs one — and several of these end by recommending no purchase at all, because measuring the ceiling does more than any purchase would. Where the answer turns on your own floor, a torque figure or a limit the maker sets, the page hands over to the documentation rather than rewording it.

Getting started

The first purchases that earn their floor space, and the order to make them in.

Measure the room before you buy anything Almost every return on this shelf is a measurement that was never taken. Six figures, written on paper before a single listing is opened, decide more about what you end up owning than any comparison does.

A first home gym

Working from the room outwards: what fits, what it costs, and what to leave until later.

A first home gym, in the order the purchases depend on each other The order matters more than the list. Three of these decisions constrain everything bought afterwards, and four of them can be postponed indefinitely without cost — telling the two groups apart is most of the work.

A bar and plates

Matching a bore to a collection, reading a load rating, and the arithmetic of sleeve length.

Matching a bar to plates, and the arithmetic of sleeve length Two published figures and one piece of arithmetic settle whether a bar and a collection of plates belong together. The arithmetic is the part nobody does, and it is why a bar rated for 200 kg often cannot physically hold 100.

Fitting a rack

Substrate, fixings, hole spacing and safety catches — the four things that decide whether a rack catches a failed rep.

Fitting a rack, and the four things that decide it A rack’s published figures describe a rack. What it is standing on, what it is bolted to, and where its safeties sit relative to a person are not in any listing — and they are what the outcome depends on.

Flooring a gym

Thickness against the job, tiles against rolls, and what goes under a rack leg.

Flooring a garage gym, and where the thickness actually goes Most gym floors are bought as a single product for a whole room, and most rooms need two or three different things in different places. Working out which job each square metre does costs nothing and changes the order substantially.

Buying

Reading a listing on this shelf: which figures are specifications, which are descriptions, and which are neither.

Reading a listing, and telling a specification from a description A listing on this shelf mixes three kinds of statement and formats them identically. Separating them takes a couple of minutes per product and removes most of the risk in buying without handling anything.

Care & maintenance

Cleaning, storing and checking the parts that fail — bearings, bungees, latex and velcro.

What wears out first, and whether a spare exists Almost nothing in this catalogue fails as a whole. It fails at one part, and whether that part is sold separately is what decides whether a product has a service life of years or of one component.