A home gym is a convenient and practical solution for your workout needs. Plus, you can set everything up much easier than you might think. That said, when installing your home gym floor, you’ll likely be doing so directly on a concrete slab.
If so, there are certain considerations you should be aware of when designing the best home gym for yourself. Here’s everything you need to know about laying home gym flooring over concrete.
Why Not Keep the Concrete Floor for Your Home Gym?
Before we dig deeper into the details, let’s address the most obvious question first. Why should you install a specific type of home gym flooring and not just use the existing concrete surface?
First and foremost, you can use concrete as a viable home gym flooring solution. But, you should realize that there are many reasons why you shouldn’t.
The most notable reason you should install a suitable home gym flooring material over your concrete floor is that concrete is very unforgiving on the body and is not a safe surface to workout on. Regardless if you’re lifting weights or doing cardio, it’s simply far from the best flooring solution.
Concrete Cons
Concrete will increase the strain on your body during workouts and can even lead to long-term discomfort and muscle damage. Besides this, concrete doesn’t provide good traction, especially when it gets wet. So, when you’re jumping and doing cardio, you can easily slip and fall. Plus, it doesn’t take much to suffer a concussion or even break something when you fall on concrete.
Not only is concrete a poor choice for keeping your body safe, but it also underperforms in keeping your equipment safe. If you exercise with heavy weights or lifting equipment, dropping it on the ground can crack or damage the concrete and damage your workout equipment.
Lastly, there’s one more crucial aspect to consider — maintenance. Keeping concrete clean and bacteria-free can be challenging. It can quickly soak up sweat and other fluids.
Moreover, it takes a lot of time to dry. This is a disastrous recipe for mold and mildew in your gym. With all of the considerations in mind, let’s move to this page’s next vital topic.
The Best Home Gym Flooring Options Over Concrete
If you’ve been doing some research before reading this page, you’ve probably already narrowed down your choice to a couple of popular home gym flooring options. With that in mind, we’ll take a closer look at each of the three most common home gym flooring solutions to help you decide which one is best for you:
Rubber Flooring
The first and arguably most prevalent home gym flooring solution is rubber floors. They come in many design varieties and thicknesses. Rubber gym floors come in three distinct forms:
- Rubber Rolls
- Rubber Tiles
- Rubber Mats
One of the main reasons rubber flooring is so popular among home gym owners is that it’s straightforward and easy to install. They don’t require any advanced tools or even adhesives. You can roll them out or lock them together to install them quickly directly over the concrete slab.
Once installed, they are effortless to maintain and keep clean. They’re water-resistant, so all you need to do is wipe them down with a mixture of water and a strong cleaning solution.
PVC Gym Flooring
If you plan on refurbishing your basement into a home gym, PVC gym flooring is an excellent option. As many homeowners battle with moist and humid basements, plastic flooring material is the ideal solution in this case.
When it comes to the best type of PVC home gym flooring, we recommend installing interlocking PVC tiles. They are easy to set in place and will keep your workout surface dry even when your concrete is damp underneath it. After rubber floors for weight rooms, PVC flooring is the second-best solution if you’re a lifter.
Foam Tiles
If you have a reasonably small gym and are looking for a quick and cheap flooring solution, foam tiles are hard to beat. They are the most affordable of the three materials featured on this page and are easy to set up.
Unlike large-scale sports venues, which have to prepare their concrete slab for installation thoroughly, you don’t have to worry about any of this as a home gym owner. Just simply lay down the foam tiles directly on the concrete, and you can start working out!
Most importantly, foam tiles are water and odor-resistant, making for an easy-to-maintain home gym floor. Foam tiles are an excellent choice for home gym owners. Just keep in mind that they will likely wear out within a couple of years. With that in mind, they’re not the best long-term home gym flooring solution.
Choosing the Best Flooring For Your Home Gym
At J&J Gym Floors, we put in great effort to ensure our customers consistently choose and receive the flooring solution that best meets their workout needs, budget, and design preferences. Hopefully, this detailed page has helped you recognize what type of gym flooring you want to install in your home gym.
Don’t hesitate to reach out to our friendly customer service team. We’re happy to guide you through the selection process, help you find the most suitable solution, and install your new home gym flooring! Contact us online or call (973) 933-4078.