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Home Wall Mats/Padding
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What are people using for their home wall pads? I know there is some info on that splattered through the three "what does your woody look like" threads but thought this would be a good place to share padding options. I'm mostly interested in what the best (but still affordable) options are for a standard 8'x12' 40 degree training board are? I'd like to forgo the haggard pile of crashpads and get something a little more professional. I was thinking of going 10' x 10', is 12' x 12' a better option? Links to different retailers would be greatly appreciated. Thanks! |
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I went to a local company that makes mats for gymnastics. These are 8” mats. I was able to pick them up and it was good to avoid shipping, which is really expensive. Still pretty expensive, but probably cheaper than a broken ankle.  |
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I surfed craigslist and kept an eye out on trash nights and grabbed free/cheap foam mattresses. 2 queens or 3 fulls do a great job. Definitely the cheapest way to get safe coverage. |
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I use Asana 6” thick drag pads for my 8x12 home wall at 35 degrees. 2 pads cover an 8’ by 6’ area. At 35 degrees the overhang comes out to about 7 feet from the wall. I have the pads spaced 2-3 feet away from the kickboard, so I have coverage out to 8-9 feet from the wall. I have found this sufficient and never not landed on the pads, even when swinging out from dynamic moves to the top holds. However if I think it will cut close I can drag the pads out a bit more from the wall, they are easy to move around. I have a 1.5” layer of polyethylene foam protecting the unpadded 2 feet in front of the kickboard. This is mostly to pad my tailbone on scrunchy sit starts. I bought the foam from Foam Factory. The biggest issue is side to side protection. It is very easy to fall to the side of the board when doing dynamic moves near the edge. I have a BD Mondo pad I use to pad one side, giving me almost 12 feet total horizontal padding. The Asana pads are not cheap but they are the same padding the gyms use. Per square foot of padding they are about the same price as crashpads. For 40 degree 8x12 I’d want to pad out from the wall 10 feet and ideally 12 feet horizontally. But as mentioned above you can get away with not padding the area immediately in front of the wall or only using a thin foam layer, since the falls will be from a low height. |
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I use two layers of vinyl gymnastics mat (the standard blue 2" thick 8'x4') which can be found used on CL. I have 6 of these mats to cover a 12'x 8' landing area 4" thick. These are not as soft as a mattress, so you should try to not land on your head. |
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I have a 45 degree board (12'x8' with a kicker) and went the DIY route via the Foam Factory. Here's what I got:
Then it's cutting it up to make it into the right rectangle. Base is the 6" foam, with 2 sheets of 82x76 you can turn it into this:  Then the more dense 1.5" goes together like this (I just used extra wide gorilla tape to hold them together at the seams).  There was a bit of left over foam when I was done but not much and it gives a nice wide fall zone (board is 8' wide). Pad is probably 4' back from the wall. I ordered a 10 oz Natural Untreated Canvas TarpsSize (12' X 15') from tarpsnow.com to cover it. Had the setup for a year and have been very happy with it. For reference here's what it looks like:   |
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Sweet! Thanks GPRP for the detailed DIY instructions! |
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Btw, you can also get foam in thinner sheets (like 2x 3/4" closed cell sheets & 2x 3, w/ neglible price difference) & glue them together in overlapping pattern. There will less of a seam that way. |
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Kenny, look into the Mad Rock Triple Mad Pad. I went through the same calculation as you 6 months ago. Did all of the $/sq foot calcs for Foam Factory and Asana. Foam factory comes out to roughly $9-13/sq foot depending on thickness, Asana $16-20/sq foot. These prices do not include shipping! Long story short the Mad Rock Triple Mad Pad is designed to be linkable together with strong velcro. You can convert them into essentially one big gym pad. I was able to buy them for $209 each, out the door, at backcountry when they were 25% off (think I added 5 or 10% at checkout) with no tax (woot OREGON!) and free shipping. Came out to $9.5/sq foot. A screaming deal for a full, put-together pad. I've got 6 and they work perfectly for my tension board. An organic blubber pad helps to give a little extra cushion for any gaps/seams. If your patient, a sale of triple mad pads could be a good choice. Other nice things are resale, really easy to sell normal pads then drag-pads/home made pads and also they function as normal bouldering pads. Heading outside with a large crew of newbies? Everybody walk into the gym and grab a pad! Cheers, Rob |
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https://smile.amazon.com/gp/product/B01N7R9IHA/ This is the main pad I have and it's dreamy. |
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Wait, you guys aren't just using mattresses you find in dumpsters? I just wait until move-out time at the local college and grab free mattresses lol |
Gold Plated Rocket Pony wrote: Rocket Pony - 3yrs on, how has this DIY pad held up? Any issues with moisture coming up from the floor (put a tarp below the foam)? Anything you wish you had done differently? Also, what did you use to cut the LUX-R Foam? |
