Bells of Steel Weightlifting Platform Review: Build Your Own, Any Size, and Modular!

Introduction

The new modular Bells of Steel weightlifting platform is an absolutely perfect solution for having a professional deadlift or Olympic weightlifting platform that is customizable to fit your exact needs, space, and budget constraints. With their online platform builder, you can choose the platform height, length, and depth, and select your preference for band pegs, the type and material of the of tiles, and more. I am excited to share with you my experience building my configuration and of course lifting with this for the last few months, so let’s check it out.

Hey guys this is Michael with the Jungle Gym reviews. Over the past few years I have found my own creative solutions for being able to deadlift in my home gym. Since my home gym actually started in my basement on exposed tile floors, and at the time, I only had iron plates, I resorted to stacking some shag rugs and those cheaper rubber foam puzzle pieces tiles underneath where I was dropping the weights. Eventually I graduated to stall mats, bumper plates, and then even built my own DIY 3 removable 3 piece “platform”. When I moved up to garage I didn’t like the look of my simpleton DIY option, so opted for an off the shelf set of rubber deadlift tiles I would bring out and put back as needed right in the middle of the floor since I didn’t have a permanent dedicated location for deadlifts. Witth all these prior situations, I am not alone in this dilemma because even though we all want something to protect out floors and have a consistent feel for our heaviest lifts rep to rep, its hard for home gyms owners to either make dedicated space for deadlifting or Olympic movements especially with the typical huge 4x8 deadlift platform. Or even shell out $600 to 1000+ for one of those 4x8 versions or a  custom made smaller one. And even the alternative to just DIY requires either knowledge, skills, patience and even still a bit of money and time.

How to build it/What I chose

Enter this new build-your own weightlifting platform option from Bells of steel. It’s so simple and beaufitul and I don’t how it’s taken until 2025, but now we have an off the shelf option for a modular platform design that building is as easy as it sounds. You can now go onto their website, click a few boxes and configure your platform pretty much literally however you want because if they don’t have what you want already configured, according to their website you can get a custom quote for literally any size if you need something even bigger.

Now because the big standard 4x8 platforms already have existed in the wild for some period of time, I wanted to showcase what I consider the best home gym oriented version which is the narrowest front to back depth they offer at 60CM or 2 FT but I chose the full size length profile at just shy of 8ft at 240CM. I have previously only seen this 2 ft depth version in a DIY or custom version you have to order from a third party prior to Bells of Steel releasing this version. They do also offer an even shorter width version at 180CM or 6ft if you are tight on side-to side space and/or just need enough width to cover a trap bar. I would also consider the 6ft width version if you aren’t frequently maxing out the full length of an Olympic bar with bumper plates for deadlift PR’s or similar. Depending on your lifting preferences you can also choose to do these platform in the standard 1 tile layer height as I show here, or they have a 3 layer version which is a taller height version to accommodate thick crash pads on the sides instead of rubber for Olympic lifts, but since I only do deadlifts and more bodybuilding type movements I didn’t want or need the crash pads and only need the traditional single tile height rubber tile. Once you select the total layers or height, the front to back width, the side-to-side length, you then can choose to add on band pegs, which as you can see here, I opted not to do because I don’t use bands in my training but for those who do you can add them for a few extra dollars. The last thing you will select is the type of center tiles and the type of outer tiles that you want. I like both the look and feel of hard wood for the center tiles since it doesn’t give as much during heavier deadlifts but there are a few considerations or situations where I think all rubber might be preferred that I will mention soon.

What I like about it

So after using these for a few months a couple of the things I like in general are the fit and finish of all the parts. The laser cut corner brackets and connectors look aggressive with the Bells of Steel cutouts and the 2x2 frame is easy to piece together and assemble with a drill and just a bunch of bolts. I think it took maybe 10-15 minutes to set mine up. The other I was really surprised a, was how nice the bamboo tile inserts are. They are fully solid and have a nice faux distressed, patterned, basketball court-eqse wood finish. The bamboo tiles are reversible with one the bells of steel insignia nicely in the center and if you order the 8ft width version with 2 bamboo tiles, the opposite side of the tile has half of the bigger logo version that you will see here so you can set it up on either side for whichever visual orientation you prefer. The other main thing I like about their platform is really how simple and effective this whole modular concept is. If you buy any configuration you can add, remove, or upgrade things at any time: you can make it wider, you can make it deeper, you can swap out from rubber tiles to add bamboo tiles, add or remove crash pads and add band peg holders later if you want. So I would consider that when you order that I would recommend going a little more minimal at first and adding to it over time. For myself personally, in hindsight I could have definitely gone with the shorter 6ft width version instead of the 8ft width version because I don’t have bumper bumper and I am not repping out more than 315 very often to where my plates would be handing off of a 6 ft width platform, so that would width have been just as effective for my personal, but ultimately the 8ft width just gives me the peace of mind that I won’t need wider and I have more room to breathe and load the weights. The last thing I want to mentioned in case you haven’t used these rubber tiles they are super thick at 2 inches tall, just like the wood and the frame of the platform as well, so that’s 2 inches of rubber to protect your floor against all drops while being still supportive enough to not change what lifting feels like on a completely solid surface. Overall, this platform works great for deadlifts but also just as easily for barbell rows, and even open trap bar work in the single tile height configuration.

Considerations

Speaking of trap bars if you use those are a primary life or deadlift option, it would probably be better suited to get shorter width 6ft version because, like my trap bar here, most of them aren’t wide enough have the weight plates be positioned on the outside rubber tiles. It’s not a problem itself but then it somewhat defeats the point since the weights aren’t going to be as cushioned when you drop them since some of them are still on the bamboo tiles, unless of course you select that shorter 6 ft version or you select all rubber tiles across the entire plate. If you don’t mind the weight placement, the other consideration is that if you have an open trap bar that uses feet to prop it up on it’s side, it could scratch the wood tiles depending on the type of feet from turning it on it’s side. My trap bar here doesn’t have UHMW on the feet or any sort of plastic liners like you will see on other open trap bars. This one I have is more on the budget friendly end so it’s bare metal ribbed feet and it’s definitely scratched and imprinted these metal feet marks into the bamboo tiles which definitely caused me a little emotional pain when I noticed this on my first use. So in the end if you do have any trap bar and that will be your primary bar to use on a platform, I would recommend just selecting all rubber tiles or doing the 6ft width version so that your weights end up on the rubber tiles.

The other thing to mention which seems self explanatory is you need to consider that a platform is heavy duty and therefore the individual tiles are heavy, so it becomes semi permanent once you get it setup. With the frame you can’t break it down without removing bolts but you can remove the tiles and stack them on the side. Collectively though there isn’t a good way to move it around or move it out of the way. To be clear, this isn’t Bells of Steel’s fault but inherently more of the nature of having a fixed deadlift platform in the first place. For me, I think in the future I would prefer just ordering the free floating tiles and not the frame so I can stack it up in a corner easily in use, because when I am doing reviews where I need to shuffle products around and in and out of frame it exposes how difficult moving a platform even as small as this is, but if you plan to set it up and leave it, like I assume most sane people would, then this is a non-issue. 

Signoff and Q&A

So guys that’s it for this short review of the simple but effective Bells of Steel Weightlifting platform. As always, if you have any questions, please comment down below and I will be happy to answer or at least try. Thank you for tuning into The Jungle Gym Reviews, we will see you next time, take it easy, peace.