Unfortunately I’m not referring to bumpers, but stall mats, in the title of this post. While bumpers stacked high across the back of our garage would provide a tremendous amount of Oly eye candy – matting our garage space came as a priority.
We got our mats from Stockyards Ranch Supply. All 8 fit into the back of Eric’s 4Runner although the guy at Stockyards questioned Eric as to why he didn’t have a pick-up truck, which is understandable given the normal use for stall mats.
We drafted a plan for the installation pattern of the mats on paper using the dimensions of the garage and mats to get an exact plan. We made sure to stagger our seams for a tighter fit by alternating the start of each new row with either a full or trimmed mat. We swapped out one mat for a piece of ply wood cut to the same dimensions of the mat. This would be our lifting platform.
Cutting the mats was kind of a pain, a WOD for your wrists. We used the CrossFit Journal Sept 2002 issue for instructions on how to lay the mats. We found that putting a 2×4 underneith the mat after the first cut helped to expose and pull apart the cut line. After the second pass, we added another 2×4 to expose the crevice. Three passes with an exacto knife split the mats.
Here are the before and after pictures of the mat project.
Eric shop vacuuming the garage before we laid the mats.
Matted Garage
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Wow, that looks great! Small training space, but it looks awesome. I think you are lucky to have your gym in your garage….you don’t have to waste time driving/biking back and forth to the gym!