How I Built the World's Best Backyard Gym

Minus pictures, this is my article that was recently published in HomeGym Quarterly. I think I can legally post this here since I do not remember signing away my rights to the article, which I wrote. This is much shorter than my original draft. The magazine's publisher wanted me to cut it by 500 words and shorten the sentences. Huh? He said, "The people who read this magazine do not read as a hobby. They want to get the information and move on." OK, that makes sense. So I shortened both the total length and many of the sentences.

Bio: Zane Hodge is a 64-year old endurance athlete from Greenwood, Mississippi, who along with Pee Wee, a 25 pound Mountain Feist, owns and operates Plate City Gym. He makes his living teaching English Composition, literature, Film, and Bible at Mississippi Delta Community College. His hobbies include swimming, running, and lifting weights.

Instagram - @zaned.hodge

YouTube – EndangeredSwimmer, Zane Hodge

Facebook – zane.hodge.5

Twitter - @HodgeZane

 

How I Built the World’s Best Backyard Gym

I did not set out to build the world’s best backyard gym. But that is exactly what I did. It took a bunch of years, forty to be exact, but my little piece of heaven, Plate City Gym, is a marvel to behold, and it is all mine. Let me tell you about it and how it came to be.

The Beginnings

My obsession with weight lifting equipment began in 1969 when I was thirteen years old. That was the year my dad gave me a set of Roberts Barbell weights totaling 110 pounds. I still have every plate of that original set. From the start, I loved the sound of metal clanking against metal. I loved the flexibility of changing weights, changing exercises and lifting when I wanted and as long and as hard as I wanted. When I left home at the age of 20, besides my clothes, the weight set was the main thing that went with me.

Over the years, I picked up additional weights through my job. Working for a pest control company, occasionally I would come across a set of weights piled loosely under a carport. When I did, I always asked if the homeowner wanted to sell them. The answer was almost always yes. A twenty dollar bill was usually enough to make the purchase and even to secure their help loading them. These additions fueled my desire to lift and my love for weight plates.

During that time, the early 1980s, my coworkers and I began lifting together in a little 13 x 15 building behind my house. There was hardly enough room for the three of us to turn around in there, but we enjoyed it and lifted hard. Eventually, we took to calling the place Plate City Gym because I had acquired so many weight plates.

The Next Level

Somewhere along the way, I discovered Play It Again Sports. At Play It Again, I could buy used plates, barbells, dumbbells and other workout equipment. Whenever I went there, I never made large purchases. But I always picked up a few pair of plates at nominal costs. I could buy one inch plates for fifty cents a pound, and Olympic weights for sixty. Besides plates, I bought bars, dumbbells, kettlebells, a battling rope, and tubing form Play It Again. I always loved rummaging through their collection. Whenever I found an odd pair, say a set of threes of sixes, I took them home.

Facebook Market Place

Once I discovered Facebook Market Place, the gym really took off. I was going somewhere almost every Friday and picking up some used plates. On one run, I came home with 450 pounds of plates for an amazingly few number of dollars. I found deal after deal until I finally had to stop looking. Plate City was full.

The Next Level

The next level began when I found out about Titan Fitness. Like many people today, I have become somewhat taken with the sport of strongman. Titan offers the person like me, who has a limited budget, the opportunity to acquire things I could never get any other way.

From Titan, I purchased an eight inch log, a husafell stone and a slam ball. I also got a reverse hyper machine, a duck walk apparatus and farmers walk handles from them. I especially love the farmers walk handles, and I hope to write an article on that in the future. 

The New Home

Plate City began in a 13 X 15 outbuilding. When that building got turned into an office, Plate City went outdoors. Lifting outdoors is OK, except when it rains. There are other problems to boot: cold, heat, mosquitoes and lighting.

About a year ago, my wife and I began looking for a new home. Our house was old, in need of lots of repairs, and the neighborhood had deteriorated terribly.  To my surprise, one of the requirements my wife set out was that the new house had to have a backyard big enough to house Plate City. She even suggested that I pour a slab and cover it with one of those portable carport tops. Cha ching! Thank you, Jesus!

On the first day of May 2020, we closed on our new home. I hired a worker who built an eight-foot privacy fence and put in a 20 x 25 slab. I would have gone larger, but that was what I could afford. Then I got the top put over it. I never had it so good. Now when it rains, I lift.

The Current Inventory

Currently, Plate City has a hack squat/leg press machine, standing and seated calf raise machines, two benches, and a rack. In addition, it houses a Viking press, a deadlift station, a squat rack, dumbbells from 5 to 70 pounds. Also I have welded barbells from 30 to 75 pounds, a keg, a duck walk apparatus, a 100 pound slam ball, kettle bells, farmers walk handles, a log, a literal ton of Olympic plates, a reverse hyper machine, and a literal ton of one-inch plates. Furthermore, I have two sleds, one home made from a tire and one made of iron by a local machine shop and an eighteen wheeler tire for flipping and hitting with a sledge hammer. I also have a treadmill, and Swiss bar, three Olympic bars, a TRX system and a stationary bicycle. In short, I can workout just about any way I want to.

You might think my weights are a little light. But I am not a body builder. I am not a powerlifter. I am a small man and an old man.  I am, in fact, an endurance athlete, specifically a marathon swimmer. All the gym stuff is for general health, enjoyment and cross training for marathon swimming.

Recently, I was counselled to close the gym in and add an air unit, but what I have is what I could pay for. As far as the heat and the cold go, I have always dealt with that. Besides, this is such an upgrade that I am as happy as a dead pig in the sunshine. I have not seen a better backyard gym on Facebook, Instagram or YouTube. I have a solid and level slap under my feet instead of uneven grass and dog doo doo. I am protected from the sun. (In the Mississippi summer sun, bars and plates can get so hot you can’t touch them.) I am sheltered from the rain. There is no reason that weather can make me miss a session of lifting unless a tornado comes along.

The first thing people ask when they see my Plate City is, “How much money do you have in all this?” My answer is, “I do not know.” I don’t, but it is not as much as it looks because I got so much of it at rock bottom prices. Besides that, I would rather spend money on toys that keep me healthy that to spend it on medicine. At 64, I am thankful that I do not have a single prescription.

Lessons

What can be learned from the world’s best backyard gym? One lesson is that small changes add up over time. For forty years, I have been building this gym sometimes a single pair of weight plates at a time. Now the collection is truly impressive. Another lesson is that your health and mine is worth the investment. Don’t be afraid, or feel guilty for investing in your body. If you don’t you will be paying the physician and pharmacist instead. All my friends my age do exactly that. And finally, if you build your own gym, a pandemic will have little to no effect on your ability to work out. I never gloated during the COVID-19 shutdown, but I was awfully relieved that I owned my own gym that no one could close.

If you are ever in Greenwood, Mississippi, look me up. You can workout with me free of charge in the world’s best backyard gym. I will even take you out to sample some of the local cuisine. We have some places here that have been featured on the Food Network. Good gym, good food, good company. What’s not to like?