Carpet and pad on rubber floor over concrete - how to work out safely?

[cooldham]

We're in the (looonnnggg) process of redoing my workout room and installed a rubber floor. It's not as cushy as I was hoping as it's right on top of the concrete. And my DH ordered plain black bc it was less expensive, which does not hide dirt well! So I was planning on putting a large, attractive area rug over the main workout area, with a rug pad underneath. My favorite workouts to do are step and then just regular lifting. I've never worked out on carpet before and was wondering if that will mean I just need to be more careful about twisty type moves during step? I had wood laminate over the concrete before but it was damaged during a hurricane flood.

Any tips/thoughts are appreciated!

[bzar]

our house is built on a slab, we have wall to wall carpeting with carpet pad underneath, and I have no rubber floor. the soles of my shoes did not grip the carpet, nor do my shoes slide when doing step aerobics. torqueing my knees was essentially a non-issue.

if you use an area rug on the rubber floor, just make sure the rug is heavy enough that it won't slide. your rubber floor might be good enough to grip the carpet.

[bfit]

We redid our exercise room floor in rubber too (almost two years ago now), and it was disappointingly hard for me as well. For floor work I use a camping pad that's meant to put under your sleeping bag on the hard ground. For low impact I'm OK on the rubber floor although it is hard to do things like grapevines on it. For higher impact I have a fairly large mat that I put down - it's a 360 mat that was recommended in another thread here on mats. Finally, for gliding discs I have a big towel that was marketed as a "yoga towel". Our rubber floor is black with little multicolored polka dots on it, and it doesn't show dirt too badly.

[bjones]

We ripped out all our carpeting and installed tile floors. So for my workout area I use the following:
layer 1-a 6 x 9 Mohawk home dual surface felt pad that has a very grippy rubber underside against the tile (Home Depot, many sizes). The top felt side works well under my layer 2 which is:
layer 2-at Lowe's I bought a 9 foot length of their nicer carpet pad-its their highest density rebond sold by the foot. However, I don't like the lumpiness of the rebond and would recommend buying a smooth one.
layer 3-an oriental 6 x 9 foot rug at Walmart on sale for $99.
I anchor one end of the rug with my free weights all lined up on the 6 foot side. I anchor the other end with 2 15# dumbells on each corner. Its necessary to keep the rug from bunching up during aerobics. You can move them back to the weight row when you aren't dancing around.
It works very well to cushion my aged body. You can't do some twisting motions with your feet, however. My prior carpet was Berber and I COULD twist on that, so I"m thinking a Berber top layer would work better than what I have. It really depends a lot on your shoes though, and how grippy they are.

[tiffanywu]

My garden hut has a concrete floor. Handy hubby made it more aesthetically pleasing by putting a vinyl-like "fake wood" liner on top of it. I then added puzzle mats (6 feet by 6 feet... used to have it in the living room when the kids were smaller and we didn't want to have our nice carpet out there!) and put a square yoga mat on top of it. The yoga mat only slips a little if I'm moving very vigorously or pushing against it hard in a static position (think: wall sits) but really not any trouble at all. The setup works great for weights and low impact cardio and also helps with insulating my feet from the cold concrete in the winter! My garden hut only has a space heater so I still put on socks with rubbery gripper bottoms to insulate a bit more. For yoga that requires serious traction and anything that requires a lot of weight bearing on my wrists (e.g. planks, push-ups), I put a separate yoga mat in front of the set up above -- I am very particular about sticky yoga mats and the square one isn't sticky enough, and with the puzzle mats underneath, it's too squishy for my sensitive wrists. I am partial to the classic Journey mats sold at yogaprops.net

[Taiga]

Flexi-roll mats are a little pricey but they are the bomb. Perfect for just about every fitness activity, including step. You can leave them down or roll them up (takes about 10 sec) as they are super light. They have the perfect amount of give---not so much that you sink but perfectly comfortable for step, floor work, grappling, barre etc. I can't recommend them enough. I bought 2 (5'x10') mats in sand camo color (I have furry friends and it also hides footprints). The mats cover most of my workout surface (10x10' total). I chose the smooth texture option to allow foot pivoting.

[cooldham]

This is all such good stuff! Thank yoi!