*Disclaimer: I am not an experienced or "good" fighter; this video is for us novice folks who love MMA and do our best to enjoy it; those of us who cannot afford $50-$100 a month to join a gym. This is the first MMA mat I made and I'll do it better next time, but for now, it works awesome! I love this gym! I just invite people over (some who train at those gyms or compete) and have a blast and awesome workouts! It's a Christian environment, by the way, so I pray before and after. Also, I'm grateful to God that I can even do this because I have epilepsy and degenerative arthritis; it's awesome! Ok, so HOW did I build the mat area? Here we go: 1) First I bought (2) 4x8 insulation foam boards and (2) 4x8 plywood for the wall. **I would much rather build my own wall pads out of polyurethane foam that you can buy at Joann's Fabrics, but I would need more Vinyl, and that stuff is expensive, so I went the cheaper and easier route. Nailed the plywood to the studs of the wall, then used this glue that is used to stick tile to cement, and put the foam pieces to the wood pieces. After that, you have the choice to either paint the foam, or cover it with vinyl or whatever fabric you want, or you can get completely ghetto and use duct tape (black & red), as I did. That's the wall padding you see. Now the hard part that I had no experience in...the mat: 2) I bought another (3) 4x8 insulation foam boards, each 1" thick for about $11.87 a piece from Lowe's (That's the 3 white things you see on the ground with tape on it). To put those onto the cement, I used RUG GRIP, which is found at Lowe's as well -it's sticky on one side and rubber on the other. This keeps these foam boards from sliding around on the cement.
3) Then comes the carpet underlayment, which I also bought from Lowe's, and just make sure to buy the one that has the red or blue lining on it, which keeps all those foam pieces together --it's there for other reasons, but keeping those things from coming apart is all the reason I need for my use. This carpet underlayment, at Lowe's, was 6" wide and about 30' long, for about $42, and this was good enough to cover my 12x8' mat area two times, so that I had double padding on top of the insulation foam. (My recommendation now: I would have repeated the process and put 2 more layers of the carpet underlayment for extra cushion. We slam each other no problem on this one, but with 2 more layers, you don't worry about landing hard on your head, which you do feel the impact of with the way I have it now). Ok, to stick the underlayment to the foam, I used two-sided duct tape from Walmart (those are the blue strips you see), and this did the job perfectly-very strong tape. Then, to stick the underlayment layers together without having it rip apart or get wet with some glue, easy: I used 3M Adhesive spray #77, which runs about $4 per bottle and we used 4 bottles to glue the entire 12X8 area of the underlayment, and then we used the spray to glue the vinyl to the underlayment as well. The 3M spray is amazing and will do the job in minutes! Since the area was 12' and the underlayment is 6' wide, I obviously had to measure and cut appropriately.
Then comes the last part: 4) Went to Joann's Fabrics and bought marine vinyl, which you see in nice boats and such. It is black in color and it is 4' wide...that was easy for me because I didn't necessarily have to cut it. I simply had to get 24' of it (which is about $130 --expensive stuff! But perfect!), and I placed two strips of it to cover the mat area and stuck it to the underlayment with the 3M spray. Then, to keep the two sides together, I went onto www.zebramats.com and bought their "Mat tape", which holds your mats in place and works excellent! Now I'm all set! That's it! The rest of the gym is puzzle mats that I've had for years and bought on eBay from a sports/MMA store there, and the bags, Bob, double-end bag, focus mits, thai pads, speed bag, and the 140lb grappling dummy, I bought all that stuff through the years from www.titlemma.com, which I absolutely recommend for any of your gear. Their stuff has lasted for a long time and their service, shipping, and prices are awesome. I bought the dummy, for example, at just the right time when it was almost $200 less than retail...just wait, check the site, and you'll find the sales. Anywho, I absolutely love this gym and I have a blast with friends and people I used to train with back when I could afford paying $50 a month to attend a gym. I want to encourage any of you who love MMA like I do, to get an idea from this and build an even better garage gym! Now go kick some butt!
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MMA garage gym and weight roomby dyoder16152 views
@Jflip52 I just spent about 8 minutes typing out an explanation and my phone erased it; I'm so sorry, I don't have time to re-do it. My advice is to simply read the long description I wrote for my video (click the "Show More" part), and in that I explain how much it was costing me and the measurememts and amounts of each product I used. For the size of the area that you are looking at just simply add on money for the additional stuff. I hope that helps.
leoetine 1 week ago