Garage Gym & Your Car: The Simple Questions

Welcome to the Garage Gym Athlete Podcast with Jerred Moon! Many people starting their garage gym journey ask, “Where do I park my car?” It might seem like a simple question, but it’s a practical one for garage gym athletes juggling fitness equipment and vehicle storage. Here’s how you can set up a functional gym while keeping your car safe in the garage.

1. Invest in a Collapsible Rack

If you want to park in the garage and still have a functional gym, consider a collapsible rack. Brands like Rogue and PRx offer racks that fold up when not in use. This feature allows you to save valuable space without sacrificing the ability to perform essential lifts.

2. Go Minimal with Equipment

A compact setup with essentials—such as a barbell, plates, and a few kettlebells—is perfect for most garage gyms. Skip bulky equipment like reverse hypers or heavy machines, and look for wall-mounted storage options to keep everything off the floor. PRx has great options for wall-mounted plate and bar storage, which frees up space and keeps the gym organized.

3. Choose the Right Flooring

Having mats in your garage gym is crucial for protecting your joints and equipment. Tractor Supply mats are popular, but they come with a few considerations:

• Moisture and Cleaning: These mats can trap moisture. Regularly mopping the surface and placing fans under the mats once a month will prevent mold and keep the space dry.
• Securing the Mats: To keep mats in place, especially if you park your car over them, secure them with “hurricane straps” or framing nails. This prevents them from shifting when driving in and out.

4. Be Mindful of Garage Floor Finish

If you’re considering finishing your garage floor with epoxy or similar coatings, be cautious. While epoxy looks great, it can become slippery, especially with moisture or dust, making it dangerous for lifting. If you already have an epoxy floor, consider adding non-slip mats in lifting areas for safety.

5. Make Space Efficient

Use wall-mounted storage for barbells and plates, keep only essential equipment, and remember that you don’t need every type of workout machine to have an effective setup. With strategic organization, you can create a space-efficient gym that still allows room for parking.

Setting up a garage gym doesn’t mean sacrificing your car’s protection. With these space-saving tips, you can park your vehicle indoors while enjoying a fully functional training space.

GGA Workout of the Week

Podcast Transcript

Jerred: All right. So you've decided being a garage gym athlete is for you, but what do you do with your car? Like am I just parking it out in the driveway on the street? Like what's, what's the solution. What if you wanna park in the garage? I know this is a really simple. Question. But I got this email and I wanted to go over it. This is the garage gym athlete podcast.

I'm Jared moon. Let's dive into it. If you ever have an email. For me. You can email me directly. Jared, at garage gym athlete. Dot com. So if you ever have a question for me, You want me to answer the podcast? Email, Jared From athlete.com and you will get to me and I'll probably answer it. On the podcast at some point. But this one was a super simple question. Someone who just started training in their garage, they wanted to park their car in the garage and they want to know, Hey, seriously, I know this is like kind of silly or simple or stupid or whatever, just like, but what do you do?

What have you learned? And I've been a garage gym athlete for a long time and here's the deal. I'm going to answer this question. And it is going to be kind of simple and straight forward, but I do have some lessons learned. And so I think that this could be helpful. For people who are looking to, you know, Be a little bit more space efficient. In their gym. So, what do you do if you want to park in your garage?

Like, my wife has always wanted to park her car in the garage and it's funny because we kind of had two different upbringings. My family, we utilize the garages for storage at all times. It was just. Basically a big storage unit. We never parked our cars in the garage. So I was used to never parking a car in the garage, not having a functional garage. And in her family, it was a complete opposite that you always parked the car in the garage. If you had two cars, two cars parked in the garage. And that, that was just how it is.

And so that was kind of her expectation when we got married, but I always had a gym and for a lot of time, a lot of the time we could not park the car in the garage. But then that backfired one day that backfired here in Texas, when a massive hailstorm came through like a massive hailstorm. Ruined our roof ruined our fence. And also ruined two cars, my car and her car completely ruined. From this hailstorm and it wasn't even an option to be like, to like, oh, let's try and squeeze them in the garage because we know this hailstorm is coming.

It just had to leave outside. There was no. No issue. And part of the argument is like, well, you can just That's what insurance is for. Right. But that's not really a fun situation to be in for anybody. So here's the deal with parking in in the garage. First thing you're going to want to invest in is a collapsible rack. So the rogue rack has one. Are the rogue has a collapsible rack, which I own, and I have been able to collapse because ever since that hailstorm happened, I wanted to be able to park in the. Grush at least one of the cars. And so collapsible Rocco's a long way.

Rogue has one. PRX probably has the best one because it just like goes up and then you can pull it back down. So a collapsible rack is huge. Other things that I've realized that are, you know, A little bit more space. Savers is like, you need to just buy less equipment, which is overall good for the garage gym, but like getting barbell rack and then the storage. Where you can like the barbell rack gun holder, that kind of goes on the wall, you know, so you can. Get everything on the wall.

PRX has great plate storage. That's on the wall. So true is trying to get everything to the walls. Minimal equipment. Don't get like a reverse hyper or any big stuff in there. A lot of kettlebells, weight plates and barbells. Just try to keep a minimum minimal kit overall is the first real suggestion. Second thing I've realized is if you buy mats, which I highly recommend every garage team app, we have Matt in your gym.

I trained for a long time without. Matt and I, it, it takes its toll on your body in all honesty, not having mats. The mats I used for a long time. We're a trout from tractor supply. They're six feet by four feet. You can grab those and put them in your gym. But what I learned with those two things was one. Moisture.

So when moisture gets on top of them, it normally sits and doesn't really seep in unless it's there for a very long time. Doesn't really see Ben. So have a way to clean that, like a mop or whatever, especially if you're pulling the car in there, right? Like cars from air conditioners or whatever can leak just. Water condensation, not necessarily like oil And so that's one big thing.

Another thing is you don't want them moving around. And so you are able to I forgot what they're called. I think they're called like hurricane. And forgive me. I'm not like a, you know, an expert on any of this stuff, but they're like the, the hurricane straps that are like spikes for framing. For like framing a house.

And so when you nail these mats down together, utilizing these You can't, the maps will move around a lot less because what I found is like, if your car has to make a turn to get in and out of your garage, the mats are gonna move all over the damn place because of the wheels in your car. And it's very frustrating, very frustrating. And then also moisture underneath the mats. If moisture or water gets underneath your mats, it's going to be there forever.

Like it just does not go away and then molds can happen. Which isn't necessarily as big of a problem as it would be in your house, but still you don't want that. And so having a way to air these mats out like the, the tractor supply mats have. The newer ones have like these little circles on the bottom.

So there's a little bit of ventilation. So if you have like a small box fan or something, being able to run that under the mats. You know, once a month or something, or just while you're training. To keep things dry. That's another thing, cause I've lifted mats up. And like maybe some water got in there or whatever, and the water will just stay forever.

It's like the black mats. Keep it from evaporating. And it just stays there forever. So those two things on mat. And then just making sure you kind of space out your equipment with what you actually need and nothing that you don't. Right. Like I already kind of talked about that. Having some kettlebells, a barbell, some plates, and then minimal equipment from there. And you should be able to park in your garage.

And that's what we do now. The floors I use now, I have a indoor outdoor gym our play flooring, which I really like, and we are able to now park. In the garage. The last thing I'll say is when we were building this home Our builder finished out the garage floors with like a. Poxy, right. And I didn't even know that was happening.

I guess it was in the budget somewhere. I didn't know it, wasn't going to be just concrete floors, which is my preference, but those epoxy floors are pretty fricking dangerous. In all honesty. So sometimes it looks really good and like, it might be good. Like if you are a, you know, you work on cars or you're like you try and clean up messes and all this other stuff, but it's not great for being a garage, gym athlete. What should be good because that just cost you money to, to do something like that.

But if you're thinking about doing something like that, I wouldn't recommend it. That's the last lesson I have for flooring, because our floors are like that now. And you, you can put mats over it, but it's kind of like a waste, right? They're just super slick. Any moisture, any dust on the bottom of your shoe? While you're trying to do anything. It just becomes super dangerous.

It's very slick surface. So just keep that in mind, if you are ever thinking about really like finishing out your garage floors or anything. But that's it. That's probably the most simple question I've ever answered. Yeah, there's the option to just park in the garage or park in the, I mean, park on the driveway or park on the street.

But ultimately if you're really looking for like, Hey, what do I do in my car? That's the best advice I can give you. And what I've learned with Matt and finishing garage floors overall flooring is very important. And being able to protect your car, your, your investment. Is very important. So that's it for this one.

If you want to submit a question, email me, [email protected]. Any question regarding training, being garaged from athlete, I would love to answer that here on the podcast, even if it is at, is simple as. What do I do with my car and my garage gym. But that's it for this. If you want to become a garage gym. athlete, go to groggy, mathlete.com start a free trial, and we would love to have you that's it for this one.

Remember if you don't kill comfort, comfort will kill you.