How can you easily move home exercise equipment that is heavy and cumbersome? Make the relocation of your home gym an easier task. Here are five tips to move your exercise equipment to your new home.
-
Clean Your Exercise Gear Thoroughly
Even if exercise equipment is only used for a few hours a week, your equipment can become loaded with bacteria and other microorganisms that cause disease. Disease-causing germs thrive in warm, moist conditions on the surfaces of weight benches, exercise bikes, and free weights.
Each time your sweat lands on a surface, you provide a host substance for germs including:
- E. coli
- Staphylococcus Aureus
- Bacillus
- Streptococcus
One study of gym equipment by FitRated showed that free weights were covered in 362 times more disease-causing bacteria than toilets in public restrooms. These nasty germs can stay alive on your exercise gear for weeks.
Don’t take the germs along when you move. Instead, as you break down each piece of equipment for the move, dry wipe each piece to remove dust and debris. Wipe the components down with disinfecting wipes, spray cleaners, or a mixture of quaternary ammonia and water. Let washed pieces dry completely before packing.
-
Use Your Phone and Equipment Manuals When Disassembling Gear
Before you break down more complicated gear like treadmills, exercise bikes, and deluxe weight benches, snap photos of your gear from all angles. If parts of the machines have complicated fasteners or other multi-component assembly issues, get images up close of the proper way these parts are assembled.
Use your assembly manuals (if you still have them) to break down your equipment properly. Simply follow the assembly instructions in reverse order from last step to first. If you don’t break down equipment in the proper order, you could leave out a vital component. You might break important pieces by removing components out of order.
-
Pack Weights Separate From Benches and Machines
Many moving companies will not move assembled weight machines and benches with weights attached. That’s because the weights could break loose while equipment is being moved by workers or in the moving van.
Weights are extremely heavy and can break bones, crack floors, and damage your other furnishings if they fall away from equipment while loading the moving van or in transit. Exercise equipment is also bulky and heavy enough to move without adding all of the weights.
Remove all weights and label each individual piece. Make a note on each label to show which equipment uses each weight.
Divide up weights in several boxes rather than loading them all into one big box. This distributes the weight and makes for safer transport. Use rigid boxes to hold weights, and don’t stack these boxes on top of other packing boxes.
-
Gather All Accessories in One Place
Exercise equipment can have many diverse parts that must be removed from the equipment before you move your gear. For each piece of equipment, use a large, durable zippered freezer bag to collect its various parts.
Inside each bag, place:
- Manuals and guides
- Bolts and screws
- Washers
- Protective fastener covers
- Cords
- Safety keys and locks
Clearly label each bag to indicate which equipment goes with the parts inside. Some experts suggest taping the bags of collected parts to the frames of benches, bikes, and treadmills. However, the small parts may fall off or be damaged when the frames are being relocated.
Instead, use one box to hold all of the individual bags of parts. You’ll thank yourself when it’s time to reassemble your home gym at the new place.
-
Reduce the Size of Large Pieces and Move With Helpers
Treadmills and elliptical machines are bulky and often heavy. Once you’ve broken down all the accessories and pieces of the machines, seek help to move the items safely. If you can’t find assistance, wait and let the moving crew transfer your big gym gear to the moving van.
You may be tempted to move larger pieces without fully breaking down each part. After all, this will mean less set up and assembly time when you get to your new home.
Measure all door openings out to the moving van before you try the all-in-one move with a treadmill or elliptical. If the equipment came into the home gym in a box, and you assembled the gear in your gym room, the put-together exercise equipment may be too wide to fit through doors.
A large, long, bulky frame from a gym machine is harder to move through hallways. Even with a dolly or a moving crew, the transfer of the cumbersome equipment out of your home can lead to dents and dings on floors, walls, and doors. Large, bulky exercise pieces are also harder to safely and securely arrange on the moving van.
Break down large gym equipment into manageable sizes of parts whenever possible. Any time you might have saved by leaving your big pieces whole is wasted when you must spend extra time patching drywall in your old place before you move.
Contact Wheaton World Wide Moving to speak to one of our local relocation agents about how to move your home exercise equipment. Your agent will schedule your move and offer you durable boxes for your weights and other gym gear.
