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The 10 Best Home Gym Flooring Options for Your Garage, Basement, or Living Room
Protect your home flooring—and your knees—with these cushioned gym flooring options.
These days, the average cost of a gym membership can range anywhere from $40 to over $100. Accordingly, a well-suited home gym lets you eliminate pesky monthly fees and save money in the long run—but heavy workout equipment can cause undue wear and tear on your floors, and fast.
Home gym flooring is essential if you plan on using any kind of heavy weight training equipment or cardio machines, especially if you have hardwood or vinyl floors. In addition to protecting your floors, home gym flooring—typically interlocking foam tiles or a large, cushioned mat—allows you to do stretch and do yoga, too.
Whether you're covering a whole room or just a corner, we rounded up the best home gym flooring options in a range of sizes, colors, and styles, so it’s easy to find the perfect one to suit your needs.
The Best Home Gym Flooring
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What to Consider
When it comes to selecting the right home gym flooring for your needs, you typically have three primary considerations: space, type, and material.
Space
When choosing your gym flooring, you should always take the time to accurately measure your space—don’t just eyeball it—so you don’t end up spending money on extra pieces you don’t need. Luckily, all flooring options clearly state the dimensions of each piece, as well as the total square footage they cover. Just multiply the length and width of your space to get your specific square footage.
If you have pillars or other irregular elements breaking up the room, be sure to measure and account for these as well. With most floor mat segments you can build around them or cut a few pieces with a utility knife to fit perfectly.
Type
While interlocking tiles are a bit easier for customizing your space, they’ll take a decent amount of time to deconstruct if you plan on removing the flooring regularly. Single-piece mats, on the other hand, are simple to roll up and store away, but they’re usually more expensive than tiles, and large ones can be very heavy. They also don’t work very well with irregularly shaped rooms or rooms with lots of obstacles.
Material
You should also think about what you’re going to be using the flooring for when considering materials. If you plan on dropping heavy barbells or kettlebells on it, make sure to go with a heavy-duty option designed to spring back under heavy weights. If you primarily intend on doing yoga or workouts on the ground, make sure the flooring is comfortable enough to roll around on. All of the gym flooring options we recommend are easy to clean off with cleaning solution for when your workouts get sweaty.
How We Selected
As dedicated gym rats—and that includes home gyms as well—we’ve used both interlocking flooring tiles and large mats extensively, and this hands- (and knees-) on experience has been instrumental in helping us select only the best flooring options for your home fitness setup. We also researched online review sites and combed through user reviews to ensure that we included the most popular options, making sure to exclude low-quality picks that don't stand up over time. Since buyers have different needs, we did our best to include a wide range of sizes, thicknesses, and durability.
Nick Hilden is a writer and fitness enthusiast who has written gear reviews and about health, fitness, and lifestyle in general for the likes of Popular Science, Men’s Health, Thrillist, the Daily Beast, the Los Angeles Times, Scientific American, Afar, Salon, Vice, Healthline, and many others; a dedicated runner, gym rat, and all-around health nut, he is constantly looking for new tools and methods of improving his wellness regimen.
Alex Rennie is a freelance writer who specializes in the Home Improvement, DIY, and Tool space. As a former residential and commercial carpenter, Alex uses his hands-on experience to write practical buying guides, how-to articles, and product reviews. His work has also appeared in Business Insider's Insider Picks, and before his writing career, he was a full-time carpenter living in New York City. There, he worked as part of a team designing, building, and installing large furniture pieces, as well as performing a variety of home repair and maintenance projects. Alex currently lives in Los Angeles, CA, and spends his free time exploring the beaches and mountains with his fiancé and their dog Louie.
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