How to design an uncompromising strength garden gym with Rogue

This design has originally been published in the article "How to design a 3.6m x 4m gym with Rogue". Refer to this article if you want to see multiple options and how to use the Rogue Zeus engine most effectively and plan the space before putting gear into it.

This gym throws out any cardio or conditioning needs to fully focus on strength. There will be no kettlebells, sandbags or treadmill in this one, because why bother with cardio if the maximum we have to do is 9 lifts in one day. Also, there is more than enough woodlands, concrete and trails to run through to get your cardio in. Just get a pair of runners and leave that patsy stuff out of the beast cage. This garden gym built will will roughly put you back $27.800 if you built the room with gardenrooms.ie for €20.400 and get the equipment for roughly $5000.

This gym has been designed with the big powerlifter in mind who does not care about cardio or for someone who does their cardio outdoors. Compared to the All Rounder design this frees up some space as less storage is needed and the office and cardio spaces are removed. This leaves you with a less crammed design that will give you more space to breathe. All in all this is the design to become the next Brian Shaw.

Item list for the beast garden gym

The Rhine Squat belt drop in will enable to train harder for longer without wrecking your lower back. A challenge with the barbell back squat is that it puts a lot of compression in your spine. Especially for seasoned athletes or for younger athletes who suffered injury this can be suboptimal. The belt squat will allow you to stress your lower back less to develop massive quads to crush the competition. If you do not fancy the Rogue Rhino drop in you can leave it out to free up space for an additional athlete to train in parallel with you or turn the half rack of the RM6 into further storage space for plates and kettlebells. Rogue can provide the necessary shelves to do this. For other options you can read my article on which strength equipment to buy from Rogue.

The Rogue RM6 is the flagship rack from Rogue. This beast will last a lifetime and gives you access to the Monster range of Rogue. This means your investment is protected in two ways. Firstly the resell value of Rogue products and especially the Monster racks is quite high. So even if you want to downsize or use the room for another function, you won't lose as much money as with other products. Secondly, you will be able to get all the latest and greatest in upgrades from the Rogue range. This ensures that you will have fun for a long time with your rack rather than buying something else, because you are missing out on the latest inventions. If you don't want the Rhino belt squat you can also downsize this rack to a RM4 to free up more space. Be aware that you will definitely need the plate tree of you do this to store the plates. When you configure your RM6 don't bother with the name plate and get a gusset instead. You can also consider to add a crown pull up bar to the RM6 at the front. The side is blocked by the west side bench in this design. For other options on racks please read which rack to buy from Rogue for under $1000.

The Rogue chalk stand is the place where your belt and collars will live. This little stand also comes on wheels and can be freely moved around your gym. A chalk stand is optional as chalk is not 100% necessary to get strong like Hulk, but it is a nice little addition to make your gym complete. If you want to save some money to store your chalk you can also get a dedicated chalk bag from Rogue.

The 5 slot gun rack is the place where your barbells will live. You might think that 5 barbell slots are a bit of overkill for a gym that has been designed with a single person in mind, but once you have your own gym, people usually start to collect things like barbells. If you want to save money and go one step down get the 3 slot gun rack.

No gym is complete without a whiteboard and a timer. If you think that massive timer on the wall is overkill and you rather want to use your phone i recommend the Doc Artisan phone cases. They make your phone stick to the rack via magnets so that you won't step on it or drop the weights on your phone while still being close.

The Rogue west side bench will be your uncompromising bench press station. It provides extra pins so you can train west side style. If you use bands often for your bench press and need a spotter often because you go so heavy, this is the bench for you. If you get two barbells you also don't have to bother with packing things back and forth to train. If you think this is overkill you can also opt for an adjustable bench to free up space and save some money. Surprisingly the Adjustable bench and west side bench station only differ $200 in price.

Not in the picture but required for a functioning gym

Calibrated steel plates 159kg/459kg $885/$2060
Floor mats

Calibrated steel plates are the golden standard for your powerlifting needs. The have little tolerance to veer off the stated weight of the plate. Lower quality plates can vary considerable from the nomination on them. If you want to learn more about other plate options like bumpers or urethane read my article on which plates to buy from Rogue.

Floor mats will be necessary for this built as i did not incorporate any deadlift or weightlifting platform. If you want to train overhead lifts this would be a mandatory addition.

Pros of the beast gym

This gym gives a big strength athlete the space to move around freely and not to be worried to be banging off any other equipment when doing their thing. The west side bench gives you the experience which you would have on a powerlifting meet without having to change around a combo rack. If you work a lot with bands you don't have to move them from one station to the other and just leave the setup as is. You have plenty of space to store a lot of plates for going heavy on all big three lifts. Compared to a multi purpose built you also save money on the equipment.

Cons of the beast gym

You will have no desk to work from or storage for conditioning equipment. Cardio will also not happen in this design The west side bench is a little close to the rack, so watch out when you get in and out of your setup.