Hello. I’m Ietore(＠ietore.jp).
Three years ago, at the age of 43, I had a gout attack and decided to get serious about my health and start exercising (muscle building). At the time, I was living in a regional city in a snowy country, so I built a home gym in the living room of my rented apartment for training purposes.
Three years ago, at the age of 43, I had a gout attack and decided to get serious about my health and start exercising (muscle training). At the time, I was living in a regional city in a snowy country, so I built a home gym in the living room of my rented apartment for training purposes.
All of the training equipment pictured was purchased through online commerce, so no matter where you are in Japan, it’s just a click away.
The centerpiece of my home gym is the Irotech Muscular Set R140, which was recommended online for newbies to muscle training; after 3 days of agonizing over it, I took the plunge and paid ¥120,000（approx 1,000USD) to buy it on Amazon without telling my wife (I’m thankful that I can buy it through mail order in rural areas).
I’m not serious about muscle training, so my results are poor, but I still went from 91kg to 85kg in 3 years, my body fat percentage went from 27% to 19%, and my uric acid level went from 9.4 to 6.8. After all, zero travel time to the gym and zero waiting time at the free weight corner is the best. As long as you’re motivated, you can train as much as you want without stress.
The good thing about home gyms is that you can take as many intervals as you want during muscle training.
You can do as much muscle training as you want when you have a power rack set at home. I seriously recommend it.
When I bought the muscular set R140, I was 43 years old @ Yamagata Prefecture, but now I’m back in Tokyo and doing muscle training at my home gym.
I bought the home gym set for 120,000 yen and used it for 3 years, so I believe I saved money over going to the gym.
アイロテックで家トレ[目次]
- １．A muscle training home gym made from Irotech’s Muscular Set R140
- ２．Area of mats needed for Irotech home gym installation
- ３．Space required to install the Irotech Muscular Set R140. Note the width of the bar （180cm or 200cm)
- ４．Irotech Power Rack. Home gyms need to pay attention to the length of the bench and space to get in and out.
- ５．Our home gym area is 4.5 tatami mats (7.2 square meters, 4.36 tatami mats)
- ６．Irotech Muscular Set R140 (Home Gym) assembly time, initial defects, etc.
- ７．Incline bench of the Muscular Set R140
- ８．I love a house with a power rack!
１．A muscle training home gym made from Irotech’s Muscular Set R140
The Irotech Muscular Set R140 is a set product with a total of 140kg of weights (plates) including wire-based exercises (rowing, cable press down, etc.), a power rack that can also do chinning and dips, an incline bench and a “barbell shaft + dumbbell shaft” weight.
I bought the set on Amazon 3 years ago for 120,000 yen, and it was an innovative set for me as a beginner in muscle-building excercises who wanted to build a home gym.
I took a brief video of the home gym at the beginning of my purchase and you can see the video below.
The bench press is only 30kg and I’m wobbly, and I couldn’t do a single pull-up properly, but please forgive me. Now, after 3 years, I can do 3 bench presses of 75kg, so I’ll replace the video sooner or later.
What we want to tell you is that with just one Irotech Muscular Set R140, you can do all the serious weight training you see in the video at home in Japan. This is what we call a “home gym” in Japan.
The video shows bench presses, lat pulldown behind the neck, pull-ups, leg extensions, leg curls and more. You can train all of these at once.
(I used to bench press with a safety bar at this time.)
The pull-ups that I couldn’t do once are now able to do 10 like I did in middle school. I realize that if you don’t use your muscles, you won’t be as strong as you could be, and I’m so glad I realized this at age 46. I’m going to work out every muscle in my body to extend my healthy age. Before I knew it, I could do 10 pull-ups that I couldn’t do even once.
嬉しい😄 pic.twitter.com/PCmWrLyWtf
— ホームジムで家トレ！ (@ietore_jp) August 9, 2020
２．Area of mats needed for Irotech home gym installation
1) Twelve joint mats are needed for home gym installation (power racks) (60cm square).
When I purchased the Power Rack (Irotech), I bought two sets (12) of joint mats on Amazon when I was recommended to buy a set of 6 joint mats, large size 60cm and 1.2cm thick, at the same time.
If you put the 12 60cm wide joint mats together (4 x 3: 4 vertically and 3 horizontally), the set is 246cm long and 186cm wide, as shown in the photo above (the side parts are 3cm wide).
Since the width of the power rack is 118cm, it is naturally possible to put the rack on just two joint mats (60cm wide) side-by-side (painted in yellow in the picture below).
However, since you will be placing weights around the power rack, I personally think it would be better to use at least 4 mats vertically and 3 horizontally (4×3=12 total joint mats of 60cm square).
However, the above space (12 joint mats) is not long enough to accommodate the incline bench, which is 186cm wide and 246cm long. The details are explained in detail in the next section.
３．Space required to install the Irotech Muscular Set R140. Note the width of the bar （180cm or 200cm)
The width of the Irotech Muscular Set R140 rack is 118cm, but the length of the barbell shaft is 200cm. Furthermore, it is necessary to leave a space of about 35 cm on both sides for the replacement of the plates, which means a width of 200 cm + (35 cm x 2) = 270 cm.
This means a width of 200 cm + (35 cm x 2) = a width of 270 cm.
270cm is the same length as the short side of a 4.5 tatami mats (270cm wide x 270cm long) or 6 tatami mats (270cm x 360cm wide).
I had hoped to install the power rack in the dining room area, but the width was a bottleneck, so we placed the power rack in the middle of the living room.
The standard length of the Muscular Set barbell shaft is 180cm.
However, you can change the length to 200 cm for an additional 2,160 yen (I don’t recall, but I think they selected 200 cm). Depending on the size and shape of the room, I think it would be better to choose the standard 180 cm barbell shaft.
４．Irotech Power Rack. Home gyms need to pay attention to the length of the bench and space to get in and out.
The other thing to consider when setting up your home gym is the length of the bench.
The position in the photo above is fine if you are using the bench for bench presses, but if you are doing seated rows or seated barbell shoulder presses, you will need to move the bench to the right side of the photo position.
In other words, you need to give yourself about 100cm more room to the right than the current mat position in the photo, or you’ll have trouble moving the bench when you actually train.
５．Our home gym area is 4.5 tatami mats (7.2 square meters, 4.36 tatami mats)
As you can see in the photo above, we used a total of 20 sheets 60cm x 60cm joint mats (set of 6 large size 1.2cm thick mats) to make a 240cm wide and 300cm long (7.2 square meters, about 4.5 tatami mats). The photo shows the Muscular Set R140, which is 240cm wide and 300cm long (7.2 square meters, about 4.5 tatami mats).
The photo shows the bench being moved out of the power rack for seated row.
Since I’m working alone, I set up my home gym in the middle of the apartment’s 16sqm LDK, and I’m happy with my purchase because I can work out at my own pace without meeting other people.
６．Irotech Muscular Set R140 (Home Gym) assembly time, initial defects, etc.
１）Irotech Muscular Set R140 on arrival
The Muscular Set R140 arrives by courier service in 13 pieces.
I was surprised that the complete power rack set arrives in a cardboard package only.
２）Assembling the Muscular Set R140 incline bench
I assembled it from the incline bench. It took me 1.5 hours to build it by myself.
Although the bench is a manageable size, the structure of the bench was far more difficult to understand than the power rack, and it was fiddly.
However, I think I would have been frustrated if I had assembled it first, starting with the parlor rack, which requires more assembly time than the bench to assemble it in three dimensions.
It is better to start with the incline bench first to familiarize yourself with the atmosphere of assembling Irotech products (such as the content level and component structure of the instruction manual).
The advantage of assembling the incline bench first is that the incline bench can be moved after it is completed, and you can use the size of the bench as a reference to decide where to place the power rack.
Unpacking the power rack’s cardboard can be done later.
３）Assembling the Irotech Muscular Set R140 power rack
I also assembled the power rack (Muscular Set R140) all by myself.
It took about 2 hours. I think you should have no trouble doing it by two people until you put up the vertical pillars and install the horizontal pillars at the top.
Well, a lot of people on the internet have done it all by themselves.
Note that the power rack has high frictional resistance with the EVA joint mat, so once it is assembled, it is not easy to move it.
Again, it is better to assemble the bench first to get an idea of the required space before assembling the power rack.
４）Muscular Set R140 reputation and initial failure
I purchased the Muscular Set R140 from Amazon, and I took a look at the reviews on Amazon and Rakuten.
Some people have commented that the holes for the screws on the power rack itself are not in the right place, but I didn’t have any initial problems with it that would be troubling.
７．Incline bench of the Muscular Set R140
The Muscular Set R140 is a great power rack set, but there is one negative in terms of usability.
That is that the seat of the incline bench is too high.
I’m 181 cm tall and I consider myself a long legged person, but even so, I can’t put my feet on the floor when doing bench presses.
I had no choice but to use two 5kg plates stacked on top of each other as a footrest, but there were several times when I wished I had these 5kg plates, so I made my own footrest 3 years after purchasing the Muscular Set R140.
I had two 4 cm thick boards cut at a home improvement store, laminated them together with wood glue and painted them black with lacquer to finish.
The home-made footrest is about 1 cm thicker than two 5 kg plates stacked on top of each other, and it’s much easier to perform the bench press.
There are comments on the website such as, “I’ll use a stack of magazines for the footrest,” but it seems that everyone has their own way of dealing with this.
８．I love a house with a power rack!
Thank you for staying with me until the end.
I hope we can make the home gym installation happen! I’ll be tweeting on Twitter (@ietore.jp) when I train, so if we can encourage each other by liking each other, it’s fun!