Are horse mats suitable for making a platform? I wish I could post a link. I prefer to get most things from Amazon. Please feel free to delete link. I am not sure it counts as exercise equipment though.
https://www.amazon.co.uk/Horse-Stable-Mat-22mm-thick/dp/B001IHNP74
Yes, they are often used for platforms, usually on each side of a 4x8 sheet of plywood.
would that mean I need 4 mats as these are 6ft by 4ft.
Alan Thrall has a pretty good instructional on how to build one of these using 1 mat on YouTube
It’s a deadlift platform but it is definitely good thanks.
Cut in half, 2x6 rubber on each side of a 4x8 sheet of 3/4" plywood. Two sheets of the 4x8 underneath, or four if you would like it thicker. Put the rubber to the front, at the back put a 2x2 piece of plywood on each side.
This is what I used to build my platform. Here’s what I did:
2 sheets of 4’ x 8’ Plywood side by side (running east and west)
2 more full sheets side by side running north and south on top of the the first two. This keeps the seams from lining up.
1 higher quality 4 x 8’ sheet of Plywood. You can leave it at full size but I ripped it down a bit so there is more room for the plates on each side. I think I cut off 6 inches so that it’s 3.5’ wide. This piece obviously goes in the center of your platform.
Lastly I used the horse stall mats. I think I bought three. I cut them to width and centered them. This left me one foot short on each end so I used my third piece and cut two 1’ pieces for each side to fill in the gaps. I did this so I wouldn’t have any seams in the middle of my platform.
My platform is great but 8’ x 8’ is plenty big. The Cybex platform at the gym is 6’ x 8’. You could cut your platform down and then use one full length horse stall mat on each side.
Found the website that I used.
I use to have one that was 4x8. That’s a pretty good size too.
@Frank_C did you add the metal framing to your platform? If you did, where did you get the metal from?
Nope. I just have rough edges.