You simply love setting up a home gym with a squat rack inside your house, but unfortunately, you have to skip it for various reasons. You cannot change your house nor refrain from buying your loved squat racks. What do you do in such cases?
You might start wondering, can squat racks be left outside? Sure, it can be placed in your backyard or any place where there is a flat surface for support. And it is a great choice if your home/garage gym doesn’t have enough clearance. But keep in mind that you should take some measurements to keep your squat rack from rusting.
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Why Place a Squat Rack Outside?
Your room’s ceiling might be too low, or there are ample chances that you have set up the home gym in a garage or basement that once again suffers from low ceiling height. In such cases, you might need to place your squat rack outside. Or you can simply find a short squat rack for your low ceilings room.
A squat rack doesn’t occupy many footprints but needs ample space vertically. The room can comfortably fit the rack, but the main problem comes when you try performing exercising using it.
A low ceiling might need multiple precautionary steps to be taken while working out, which ruins your entire session.
Moreover, you might end up with a head concussion if there is no sufficient ceiling height to perform pull-ups when the rack comes with a pull-up bar provisioning.
Will Squat Rack Rust Outside?
Any metal exposed to outside conditions is prone to rust, and if you are concerned whether your precious squat rack would rust badly when left outside, it did. This is especially true when the squat rack is placed on a surface where water stagnation happens frequently.
The outdoors are unpredictable, subject to harsh winds or chillness during winter, scorching heat during the summer season, and prolonged rainfall during rainy seasons.
Moisture is a common threat in these cases leading to rusting, which can ruin your squat rack.
Even racks placed inside will rust as regular use brings about wetness to the equipment.
Racks come in different qualities, and a powder-coated rack guarantees non-rusting of your equipment.
But it’s the nuts and bolts that pose a serious threat initiating rusting of the surface. Plates would also start rusting when the coating begins to wear off.
Your bar or anything else can also initiate rusting when the paint gets chipped off accidentally in any place.
How to Keep Squat Racks from Rusting Outside?
Any equipment remains as good as new or doesn’t suffer from malfunctioning when it is well-maintained. The same applies to squat racks, too, whether or not they are kept inside or outside.
People are wondering whether power racks placed outside could remain rust-free. In other words, how to keep squat racks from rusting outside?
And for you guys, I am happy to tell you that there are many measurements you can take to protect your squat rack. Here are three of them:
1. A good coat of paint helps you sustain the quality of the power rack and avoid rusting.
Take the pain to wipe the steel at least once a month using minimal mineral or 3-in-1 oil.
You must wipe off the oil after this. Otherwise, it might cause slippages and accidental injuries when using it.
Use soap to take off every inch of oil that could stay on the rack afterward.
2. Keep a close eye on areas that are prone to paint peeling (such as the joint where the rack attachment rubs against the upright) and touch it up quickly without fail.
But such rusting doesn’t occur when the power rack comes with high-quality attachments. This is mainly because these racks come with UHMW plastic that comes in contact with the upright instead of steel-to-steel rubbing.
Use a spray bottle of interior frame coating with a tube that fits right into the upright holes in the power rack.
Cover all other holes in the upright using painter’s tape. Insert the tube into your desired hole, making a small hole in the tape.
Cautiously spray it inside without letting the paint spray out all over the upright.
3. If you live in an area where the rack is at risk of continuous exposure to rain or mist, it is better that you drill small holes in the lowest part of the upright to help drain out water that could go into it.
If you are using safety straps instead of safety bars, you must spray them with a protectant to avoid weakening the strap by UV radiation.
Should You Put Plywood Underneath a Squat Rack?
Any protection underneath a squat rack is always better than directly placing the squat rack over the flooring. Placing plywood underneath a squat rack will help only if it can ensure stability when you are performing heavy weight training.
If you do it right, it helps prevent many generations of noise and vibrations, which could disturb people otherwise and even ruin your flooring.
It is better to bolt down the squat rack to the ground to increase the stability of the equipment, thereby providing more safety to users. It is always better to secure the rack to a plywood base instead of securing it to the concrete flooring directly that could spoil it.
Even better, when you use plywood topped with a rubber mat on top of which the equipment could be placed.
Summary
If you suffer from space crunch, especially vertically, you could always place the squat rack outside but only after taking precautionary measures to protect it safely from rusting due to outside weather conditions. Otherwise, you end up investing greatly in a versatile power rack that is bound to become rusty in due course.
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