Garage Gym of the Week:  Kimberly M.

What’s your name?  Kimberly McGinnis

How old are you?  33 (34 in June)

Tell us a little bit about yourself:  I have been married to my husband since October of 2008, we have a 4 year old daughter that we adopted from foster care, and I am in my 11th year of teaching high school math (anything from Algebra 1 to PreCal).  I started CrossFitting about 5 years ago, and have really only taken a short break when we first started fostering our daughter in 2014.

How would you describe your training style?  Just CrossFit.  I'm kind of ruined now - I don't enjoy other forms of exercise as much as CrossFit.

How would you describe your fitness/strength level, currently?  I feel like I am pretty strong, but we moved recently and it has been an adjustment trying to find a new routine.  So I know I wouldn't be able to lift my previous max weights, but I haven't completely lost my strength.

What are your fitness/strength goals?  I want to get back in the routine of working out at least three days a week.  Pull-ups have always been a weakness of mine - I can do them but I'd like to be able to string more of them together.  In fact, I competed in Duality a few years ago with a friend, and we finished in about 20th place out of 40 teams.  A large reason we weren't ranked higher was because my pull-ups were so weak, which was really disappointing.

Describe your garage gym.  We live in an old farm house and we don't have a garage, so our landlords actually bought a shipping container for us to keep our horse feed and tack in when we moved here.  My husband realized how much extra space we had in the shipping container, so he said I could keep my equipment in there.  I have enough room for a pull-up rig/squat rack, but it has to be moved away from the wall to leave room for kipping.  And since it isn't bolted to the ground, it moves too much when I kip, so I use 50 pound feed sacks on the base to keep it grounded.  It actually works perfectly!  My previous CrossFit gym let me take their cracked bumper plates, and a medicine ball that was starting to come apart.  I duct taped the med ball and the bumper plates still work great.  Then I bought the barbell, pull-up rig/squat rack, ab mat, bands, and kettlebell.

Who works out in your garage gym?  Mostly just me, but my husband occasionally uses the equipment, and I have made a good friend who also lives nearby and wants to get in shape, so she has worked out with me a few times.

Why did you build a garage gym?  We recently moved to Middle-Of-Nowhere west Texas, and the nearest CrossFit is 30+ minutes away.  I love spending time with my family, so joining a gym that would add another hour of time away from them wasn't ideal.  After about a month, I really started to crave lifting, so I bought a barbell since my previous Crossfit gym allowed me to take the cracked bumper plates.  I started trying to get back into CrossFit and realized how much I missed all of the equipment, not just the lifting.

What’s your favorite piece of equipment in your garage?  The barbell!  I love lifting!

What piece of equipment was a waste?  I haven't purchased anything that felt like a waste.

What’s the next piece of equipment you’re going to get?  I'd like to get a plyo box, but my husband will hopefully build one for me soon.  I just saw that you sell a kid's pull-up bar, so I might go for that next.  My 4 year old is in gymnastics and wants to hang from anything she can hold on to.  She often asks me if she can "work-out," which involves me assisting her in pull-ups (and it's so cute).

Any dream piece of equipment?  My DREAM is to have a rower, but I think a more attainable dream would be a GHD.

How did you build your garage gym? It took me about 6 months.  I was given a few things to start with and then I purchased a little bit for a couple of months.  Then I asked for a gift card for Christmas and bought the rest.

Do you have any tips for anyone else looking to build a garage gym?  You can do it!  I always felt like it wasn't likely because of the overall cost, but it actually helped us if we bought a little bit at a time.  It was actually recommended to me to save and buy a garage package because it's a better deal, but I didn't need to since I was given the bumper plates.  And I am impatient...