Crossfit has been a big part of my life. And a big part of my husband’s life too. We love it! That’s why, in the midst of budgeting for family life and spending time with our kids, we knew we needed to build our own crossfit gym at home! Today I’m sharing with you everything we had set up in our first ever DIY Crossfit Garage Gym! (You can view part 2 here)

My Crossfit Journey

In 2007, while I was in college, my brother in law started training me at the college gym with something called Crossfit! I had no idea what it was, but I was immediately hooked!!

I started at a local Crossfit gym and dedicated all my extra time to it! Crossfit had everything I needed and wanted in a workout and in an overall fitness lifestyle! I was able to gain lean muscle all while working on functional movements at a high intensity.

You can read about my entire fitness journey (the ups and downs and what I’ve learned) here!!

It’s EASY to see that Crossfit has been apart of my life for years and years and years!!!

Why A DIY Crossfit Garage?

When Jeff started crossfit, it became more difficult to afford and make it work for the both of us. Between juggling our kids, work and finances, we couldn’t seem to make it work. So Jeff and I said a very sad farewell to our beloved crossfit gym that him and I had been going to.

We were sad but knew it was the right thing to do for our family at the time. We also knew that wasn’t the end to our crossfit journey!! Jeff and I had both dedicated to each other that we wanted to slowly buy crossfit equipment for our garage and continue working out together. Although our crossfit garage gym isn’t quite complete, we still wanted to let you in on a few of our secrets, tips, tricks and must-haves for a perfect crossfit gym at home!!

So…I feel kinda stupid even saying this {because I would hope all y’all have enough common sense to know this already}…BUT I just want to cover all my bases, instead of assuming…because I’ve done that in a blog post before and people left evil comments! So…don’t be making your own Crossfit gym if you don’t know how to properly do the movements ‘IGHT!?! I don’t want anyone commenting on this post in 6 months and telling me they started doing crossfit in their garage and broke their frikin’ back! This stuff is no joke. So, if you want to have a garage gym…make sure you have some training first K?!

ANYWAY…

back to my ridiculously awesome garage gym…

DIY Crossfit Garage Gym Must Haves!

1. Dry Erase Board

There are a few basic things you want to start out with when building a garage gym! It is SO important to have a board to write down times and PR’s on different WODs and lifts. It gives you visual motivation!

Jeff bought a 4×6 piece of white board from The Home Depot and simply screwed it to the wall.

For the bottom piece he took a 6 foot long 2×4 and routered out the middle to make a base for the white board. It’s perfect for all our extra things like tape, wraps, record books and can even hold some stretching devices.

He even screwed an old storage container to the wall for our wedding rings to sit in while we are working out!

After the white board was up he got down to business and made one of the staple pieces in our gym!

2. Pull-up Bar

You can get the full DIY instructions on our DIY Pull-up Bar in part 2 of this series. It’s amazing!

Besides the fact that I have to use a box to reach the bar…

He actually designed it that way so he could hang comfortably from it, without having to worry about his feet touching the ground!

3. Bars, boxes, weights, and mats

It can be sooo expensive! So after most of the ‘construction’ was done, Jeff and I started searching.

The #1 tip for finding great crossfit equipment is to search EVERYWHERE!! Jeff literally looked on KSL, Craigslist, DI and other online buy, sell, trade places…EVERY NIGHT! All of the equipment we have, we found used! If you go back to the first picture where you can see the whole gym, you can see our AIR-DYNE bike!! Jeff found that beauty in PERFECT condition at the THRIFT STORE for 10 BUCKS!! It was an amazing find and it is perfect for our gym!

Most of the other equipment we have found through buy, sell, trade pages on Facebook or on Craigslist.

Make sure to give your gym some love and some positive energy!

You can hang old run numbers and medals from the walls and even pictures of inspiring athletes!!

4. Warm Up Sticks

Jeff simply cut these out of PVC pipe. Easy! Cheap!

We LOVE having the crossfit gym in our garage but if I had the money I would go back to the gym again for sure!!

It’s harder to find motivation and it’s harder to push yourself when you are alone…but that’s why I have my husband right!?!

Although I may not get the most out of my workouts NOW…I still am so glad we made the change! Now we have more time with our family and we don’t have to spend money on gas.

I think over time I will get the hang of it and I will see that I can still PR and excel!

Like I said at the beginning of this blog post, we have SO much more to collect for our gym but I will keep you posted on our ever growing gym!!

Some of the things are our wish list are…

BUMPER WEIGHTS

(These are a MUST for all the Olympic lifts we are doing, but they are also very expensive…so we are saving up for those!)

2 MORE BARBELLS
ROWING MACHINE
SQUAT RACKS
MORE KETTLE BELLS
WALL BALLS
RINGS
DIP BAR
AND MORE FREE WEIGHTS

To name a few.

We are well on our way though, and we are so excited for the future!

FOR PAST WORKOUTS {OR IN CROSSFIT TERMS) WODS REFER TO THE W.O.D. TAB ON THE TOP OF MY BLOG!

Whether you workout in your home, garage or in a gym…it doesn’t matter…GOOD FOR YOU for taking the action and sacrifice to appreciate your body and make it stronger! And remember…

“THE BODY ACHIEVES WHAT THE MIND BELIEVES!”

“MOTIVATION IS WHAT GETS YOU STARTED. HABIT IS WHAT KEEPS YOU GOING!”

“THINK POSITIVE. BE POSITIVE. AND POSITIVE THINGS WILL HAPPEN!”

“IF YOU HAVE DISCIPLINE, DRIVE, AND DETERMINATION…NOTHING IS IMPOSSIBLE!”

DIY Crossfit Garage Gym Part 2 (The DIY Tutorials!)

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DIY CROSSFIT GARAGE GYM: part 1

My Crossfit Journey

Why A DIY Crossfit Garage?

DIY Crossfit Garage Gym Must Haves!

DIY Crossfit Garage Gym Part 2 (The DIY Tutorials!)

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simplysadiejane