How to build a gym in your garden

How to build a gym in your garden

Human physiology has evolved for a challenging existence on the African savannah. It doesn’t cope well with sitting in front of a computer all day, with high energy foods constantly within easy reach. But going to the gym is a hassle: get your gear together, drive to the gym, get changed, do your workout, have a shower, get changed back, drive home. Even just going for a run means 2 changes of clothes and a shower. I wanted something high intensity that I could do in a few minutes every day. I work from home, so I built a gym in my garden, right outside my office. I posted some pictures of it on social media and a few people asked for details of how I made it. So I thought I would write it up here, in case anyone else was interested.

Construction materials:

• 3.0m x 0.1m x 0.1m fence posts (2 of)
• 1.8m x 0.1m x 0.1m fence posts (3 of)
• 1.2m outdoor pull-up bars with fixings (coach bolts and washers) (3 of)
• 20kg bags of Postcrete (19 of)
• 20kg bags of gravel (2 of)

The total cost of all the above was about £240, including delivery of the fence posts and pull-up bars.

You should be able to get the fence posts from any fencing supplier. Make sure they are pressure treated, so they don’t rot away in a few years. Anything narrower than 0.1m x 0.1m might not be strong enough. Anything bigger is going to be pretty unwieldy to work with.

You can buy outdoor pull-up bars from various sources. I got mine here. Make sure the bars and their fixings are either galvanized or powder coated, so they don’t rust. I choose bars long enough that I have the option to do wide-grip pull-ups.

Postcrete is a special form of concrete for fence posts (I think it might be called Quickcrete is some countries). You just add water and it sets solid in minutes. Leave it to ‘cure’ for 24 hours before putting any weight on it. I used 5 bags of Postcrete for each of the 3.0m pull-up posts and 3 bags of Postcrete for each of the 1.8m dips posts. You could probably get away with less, but I preferred to ‘over-engineer’ it. I also threw some old bricks and hardcore into the holes for extra bulk. You can use standard cement, which is cheaper, but not as convenient.

You need to dig your post holes according to the height and spacing you want for the bars, which will depend on your height. The pull-up bar should be roughly the same height as your knuckles with your arms full outstretched above your head. The dips bars should be slightly more than shoulder width apart and level with your lower ribs. If you are very tall, you might need longer posts than I did. The holes should be approximately 3 times the width of the fence posts. Put approximately 0.1m of gravel in the bottom of each hole for drainage. The gravel also helps with getting the posts at the same level.

Digging a 1.0m deep by 0.1m x 0.1m across hole is difficult using a spade. I recommend you use a post hole digging tool. I bought one from building supplier Wickes for £25. The bolts were a bit loose, but once I had tightened them up it was fine. You can also rent them, but 3 days rental was as expensive as buying one new.

Digging the holes is hard work! I did 30 minutes of digging every now and then. Usually when I got fed up with whatever I was working on. Tip: Cover the loose dirt from the hole with something waterproof as it is much harder to move later if it gets wet.

Attaching the bars before you set the posts isn’t practical. Setting all the posts before attaching any bars is asking for trouble. So we alternated setting the posts and attaching the bars.

Setting the posts and attaching the bars is definitely not a one-person job, so I conscripted the family to help. We used rubber bands to hold 2 spirit levels onto 2 adjacent sides of a post, to make sure it was completely vertical (you can also buy specialist post levellers). One person then held the post while the other one added the Postcrete and water. To attach the bars just drill 4 pilot holes into a post and then use a socket and ratchet to tighten the coach bolts onto the washers.

I also bought a heavy duty rubber mat and post caps to finish things off.

Normally I only create digital things (software, websites, documentation, blog posts etc) so it was really nice to make something physical for a change. Given my modest DIY skills, I am very pleased with how it turned out. It feels very solid and everything is pretty straight and level. Not bad for a software engineer!

Pull-ups, dips and leg raises cover a lot of the major muscle groups between them. Currently I am trying to do pull-ups and dips on alternate days. I usually do 3 sets of as many as I can, with at least a few minutes rest in between. I also do some negative reps. A negative pull-up is where you jump up and then lower yourself as slooooooowly as you can. This sort of eccentric training is very good for building strength (and also useful if you aren’t yet strong enough to do a pull-up). Just hanging from the bar is good for stretching your back muscles.

Because my gym is right outside my office and only takes a minute or so per set, there is no excuse. I also have a reminder set up in the Balanced app on my iPhone. In a few weeks I have gone from 3 pull-ups to 8 pull-ups (with good form). Once I have improved my strength futher and reached a plateau on those exercises, I may try some more exotic exercises. I hope eventually to be able to do a ‘muscle up’!

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