If you've ever struggled with finding high quality gym flooring for your home gym or garage gym needs, look no further, because we have some solutions for you! Not only is flooring one of the top concerns for most home gym owners, Crossfit boxes, personal training facilities, and commercial gyms need to consider good gym floor for their members as well.
A lot of people decide to go with sub-par EVA foam sold at Walmart for their home gyms, and some commercial gym owners will go with paper thin 1/8" rubber flooring for their gyms. However, neither of these presents much protection for the flooring beneath.
Enter horse stall mats, one of the greatest economy gym flooring options on the market today. Stall mats are 4' x 6' and usually 3/4" thick. We would never recommend anything thinner than 3/4" thick rubber flooring for a gym flooring solution. You risk damaging your floor with thinner rubber. However, with stall mats, you can put hundreds of pounds of force on them without damaging the subfloor or cracking the concrete underneath.
(Stall Mats)
If you are deadlifting heavily, the best option is to create a standalone deadlift platform with wood underneath and rubber side pieces to deaden the sound. But for most gym owners, flooring the entire gym area with rubber stall mats is an ideal solution both from an economy perspective as well as a protection standpoint.
Another fantastic option is Premium Gym Flooring, a solution which provides an alternative to horse stall mats, with speckled fleck patterns, true cuts, and low odor, a great option for indoor lifting. While horse stall mats have an "off-gassing" rubber odor that lingers for months, premium options for gym flooring generally have very little odor, are cut far better than stall mats and have a wonderful aesthetic look and feel, while being just as durable as a stall mat.
Premium gym flooring can come in sheets, rolls, rubber tiles, or different sizes depending on where you purchase. Freedom Fitness Equipment also offers a selection of premium gym flooring for home gyms and commercial facilities.
(Premium Gym Flooring)
Again, as with any gym flooring, you still need 3/4" thick mats, so be sure that whether you are purchasing rolled gym flooring, or regular rubber mats, that you are purchasing a sufficiently thick mat.
Check out this video series which presents an in-depth look at the various types of rubber gym flooring available, from stall mats to premium rubber flooring, that gives you a bit more information about what you can expect from both!