Home Gym - Power Cage

 

Song:  To Glory

Group:  Two Steps From Hell

My Power Cage arrived...

along with an olympic bar and weights.

The bar is 7' long and made strong enough to load on up to 750 lbs.

(In other words...

more than strong enough to hold more than I will ever be able to lift).

My home workout room is in the first floor storage room

(I will still have enough room for storage in the room...

even after I complete the home gym).

There was a very surprising number of parts and nuts and bolts.

I gathered all the tools I would need for the assembly...

...and I unpacked everything and bagged up the trash as I went.

I had to rip up the boxes so they would fit into the trash bags as well.

And...

as always...

playing music just made the process far more enjoyable than it otherwise would have been.

I also bought a white board to write out my exercise program.

I will be mounting it onto the wall to the left (not in the photo).

I use the trashcans as extra dry food storage...

such as for beans, rice, and pasta.

Even though I already have hundreds of pounds of dry goods near the kitchen...

I love having plenty in ready storage.

Although the number of parts seemed overwhelming at first...

I did not mount all of the included accessories...

as they were for bodybuilders.

I won't be using this power cage for anything else but as a safety measure to ensure 

I won't get struck at the bottom of a rock bottom squat using heavy weights.

I will also be using it to do weighted dips and pull ups.

I had to stand on the cooler to secure the pull up bar.

The Power Cage came with cables and pulleys for weighted pull downs and rows...

however, I will just be doing weighted pull ups instead of weighted pull downs...

(I have a special belt to attach weights to my waist as I do pull ups and dips)

and I will be doing barbell rows instead of the weighted rows...

as I may use weights much heavier than the cable attachment will allow...

and as such...

I simply didn't attach them to the power cage.

The white board will be on the brown peg board to the left.

As you can see...

there is plenty of room for my storage containers...

and the power cage has weight holders so I may store the weights off of the floor...

as well as allowing easy access.

I had stored the weights on the power cage...

and you can see the dip handles in the front.

I can easily take the bar out of the cage...

as I will be doing clean and jerks outside of the cage.

The weights are olympic bumper plates...

rubber coated weights...

in case I drop them on the concrete floor.

I have another delivery of weights coming.

These will be of the lesser weight denominations to allow 

progressive overload.

I placed the heaviest weights on the bottommost holders

to ensure stability of the cage.

Later on...

I am thinking of putting an elliptical machine facing the window...

for winter aerobic training...

and I will place my iPod and speaker on the window sill.

Also...

fresh air will be refreshing during exercise...

and I may open the windows in the entertainment room and the door leading to it...

or I may open the garage doors and the garage access door...

to allow a cross breeze as well.

And...

it is completed.

All of the braces are easily movable to accommodate various height ranges.

This little speaker halo fills the whole room with great sounding music.

Working out to music really helps inspire me to workout harder.

Now...

my home gym has a great start.

And...

as the room is heated (with its own thermostat)...

winter workouts can be conducted without having to dress in sweats.

I will keep the trap bar in the garage for outdoor Farmer's Walks...

so long as the driveway is free of snow or ice.

And...

so long as the driveway and roads are free from snow or ice...

I will be using my recumbent trike for aerobic exercise.

After I clean up the gym area...

my next project will be fixing the electrical system on my trike.

But for today...

that is it.