Is Rubber Home Gym Flooring the Best Option?
When building a home gym, choosing the right flooring is one of the most important decisions you can make. Having all the best equipment in the world is great, but not if you’re sliding all over the place while using it. Also, you won’t be too popular with your family and neighbors if you regularly drop weights on unprotected noisy floors.
This article will explore whether rubber home gym flooring is the best option for you to avoid annoying others and get the best workout. Let’s
take a look.
Timber/Laminate
Timber or Laminate might seem like a great idea for at home gym flooring for a few reasons.
Firstly, timber flooring is unlikely to damage your weights. Because it’s reasonably pliable and springy, timber flooring can absorb some of the impacts when you drop weights on the ground. This will reduce the likelihood of you damaging your weights significantly.
Timber is also easy to clean. It can be hoovered, mopped, and anti-bac sprayed quickly, increasing its overall practicality and usability as a home gym flooring.
Finally, many people prefer to deadlift on wooden flooring because of its stability. So, if you’re an avid dead lifter, you might think timber in home gym flooring is a no-brainer.
However, all of these benefits are outweighed by timber’s most significant flaw; its durability. Timber flooring simply isn’t strong enough for home gym applications. After just a couple of weeks, your floor will likely shatter. Not only will this cost a lot of money, but it’ll also mean you can’t use your home gym until you fix the problem.
Another problem with timber home gym flooring is that it can become very slippery as you sweat. So, if you sweat buckets as I do, you’ll probably want to stay away from timber flooring.
EVA Foam Mats
EVA (Ethylene-vinyl acetate) foam mats are probably the worst option of all the home gym flooring ideas on this list. In almost every gym-related scenario, EVA mats aren’t viable for several reasons.
Firstly, EVA foam mats can’t handle compression. As a result, putting heavy equipment, like a power rack, down will leave permanent indents on the mat. Also, if you like to move your equipment around, this will make your floor uneven and look cheap and unprofessional.
Secondly, EVA mats can be dangerous when used as home gym flooring. This is because they provide an uneven and soft surface to stand on, which can cause instability during lifts. Instability can lead to injuries during big compound movements, for example.
The only practical application for EVA foam mats in a home gym is for stretching areas or martial arts gyms. The softness of the mats makes stretching routines and yoga more comfortable while protecting martial artists from being injured when knocked to the ground.
Overall, EVA foam mats are bad for regular home gym flooring.
Carpet
Carpet is widely used by many in home gym flooring surfaces. However, its use in home gyms is often for no reason other than the room already installed carpet. Furthermore, the carpet is often kept there to save time and money.
Carpet might seem like a great idea for home gym flooring because it’s soft, looks good, and has a better grip than concrete and timber. Unfortunately, however, carpet has some flaws that make it virtually unusable for home gyms.
Firstly, carpet isn’t durable. In no time, you’ll start noticing fraying, splits, and cracks in your carpet from dropped weights. Not only can this look terrible, but over time, it can cause damage to the subfloor.
Secondly, carpet isn’t the best insulator of noise. Sure, it will perform better than other materials like timber, but dropping weights onto carpet will still make plenty of noise. If you don’t want to constantly annoy your family and neighbors, you’ll need to keep the noise in check.
Finally, and perhaps most importantly, using carpet for home gym flooring can cause health issues. Some carpets are made from several toxic materials, which can cause health problems. This occurs when the fibers are agitated, which constant movement can cause. In addition, carpets found in basements are prone to attracting mold, which can cause harmful health issues.
This combination is, therefore, far from ideal for home gyms.
Ultimately, you shouldn’t use carpet in your home gym unless absolutely necessary.
Horse Stall Mats
Horse stall mats are often recommended as a good-budget home gym flooring option. At first glance, they might seem to be the case; however, in my opinion, they’re actually one of the worst options for home gym flooring.
Firstly, horse stall mats smell absolutely terrible! They have a powerful odor that only gets worse in enclosed spaces. This odor comes from the chemicals that hold together ground-up old car tire rubber. While manufacturers try to neutralize the smell of these chemicals, it isn’t always effective.
The other issue with horse stall mats is their uneven surface. The cut and sizing of horse stall mats are often inconsistent, leaving unsightly gaps or jagged edges.
Like EVA foam mats, this can make a host of exercises less safe to perform.
Unless you cannot afford any other form of flooring and you can put up with the toxic rubber smell and unevenness of horse stall mats, I recommend looking at commercial rubber flooring mats for your investment.
Commercial Rubber Mats
Many argue that the best at home gym flooring is commercial rubber mats, for a good reason. They’re the best choice for virtually every home gym, and here’s why I strongly recommend them.
Rubber home gym flooring prevents damage to both your floor and equipment. For instance, dropping a dumbbell onto a concrete floor risks breaking a chunk off the dumbbell and cracking the floor. Such repairs can be costly and likely to happen often, costing you more time and money. Rubber gym mats for home help to prevent this problem because the thick rubber surface absorbs and cushions the impact of the weights, minimizing the risk of damage.
Rubber gym mats for home are durable. So, over time, they’ll likely be the most cost-effective option, as once you’ve installed them, you won’t have to carry out any more maintenance. This is especially true if multiple people use your home gym.
They reduce your home gym’s noise considerably. Gyms can be noisy places, especially if you drop heavy weights after a challenging set. For instance, having a hard floor made of timber would cause an absolute racket every time you drop a weight. Rubber gym mats, on the other hand, act as a dampening material and will make your home gym considerably quieter, by absorbing the impact.
They’re incredibly easy to install. Commercial rubber home gym flooring comes in perfectly sized square tiles that you can install easily. This will save on costs in two ways. Firstly, you’ll be able to install them yourself, saving on labor costs, which can often be more expensive than the actual materials. Secondly, if a tile gets damaged, you’ll only need to replace that one tile instead of the whole floor.
Commercial rubber home gym flooring is easy to clean. Cleaning is a significant factor for home gyms, as you’ll often build up a sweat, which can lead to bacteria growth. In addition, these mats usually come with flicks of color on the surface that can hide dirt and dust.
Final Thoughts
To answer the question, it’s clear that commercial rubber home gym flooring is the best option. It has far more advantages than any other material on this list and virtually no cons whatsoever. In addition, rubber gym mats are relatively inexpensive and should last a lifetime if you take care of them. Choosing one of the other options for your home gym may result in you kicking yourself at a late stage.
About the Author
James is a freelance writer with a passion for fitness. He has written for multiple businesses, and takes great pride in producing high-quality articles. When he’s not pounding away at the keyboard James is sweating it out at the gym, boxing, watching tennis, and playing video games
