If you’re planning to make a dedicated home workout space or prefer to exercise in your living room, do not overlook home gym flooring. Home gym floors mats are available in a variety of square footage and can be arranged in different shapes. Proper gym flooring not only protects your floors from heavy equipment and shock, but also gives your body an extra layer of cushioned support. Yes4All’s Interlocking Exercise Foam Mats promise to keep workout equipment sturdy, reduce noise and shock, and deliver plenty of user comfort. We grabbed a set and pressed play on our favorite home workout videos and tested their claims.
Material and Texture: Supportive high-density EVA foam
The foam mats felt supportive, soft, and comfortable for a variety of exercises and activities. Each half-inch thick mat has a smooth underside and textured surface that provided us plenty of grip and support. We used them for yoga and strength training and noticed an improvement on the amount of pressure we felt on our joints. The foam is also shock absorbent, so we noticed less noise and rattling in our home when we did higher impact movements, like jumping jacks, on the mats. The foam indented when we left weights sitting on it overnight or for a few days but eventually returned to its normal shape. It’s something to keep in mind if you plan to store heavier equipment on the mats long-term. The material is also odor-free, which is great because other foam mats we’ve used have given off unpleasant odors for days to weeks.
Assembly and Disassembly: Pieces snap together in minutes
There are no assembly instructions, but luckily it’s pretty intuitive to connect the pieces like a jigsaw puzzle. The mats fit easily and tightly together. The border pieces took us the longest to arrange since they’re already attached to the mats and some needed to be rearranged to make a perfect rectangle with solid edges. Altogether, it probably took us 5 to 10 minutes to assemble the mats for the first time. We do not have a dedicated workout space in our home. Any given day we may be exercising on a tiled porch, carpeted living area, or cement garage. Since the mats are so lightweight, it is easy to move them from each of these rooms as needed. The quick assembly is also great if you live in a smaller space and do not want to leave out the mats around the clock. There is a drawback to frequently relocating the mats. Reassembling repeatedly seems to cause the border edges, particularly the corners, to wear faster. We noticed after a week’s use that some of the corners were not fitting together as tightly as they did when they were brand new. Over time, this could become a tripping hazard.
Size: Just right for one person
One 24-square-feet set of Yes4All mats is perfect for a single person working out at once. Two people working out in that footprint felt a bit cramped. We found we had plenty of space for stretching out into planks, pushups, and yoga stretches. There are several size sets you can buy: 12 square feet, 24 square feet, 36 square feet, and 120 square feet. Some of the sets have pieces that are 2-feet by 2-feet. Others are 1-foot-square. All of the pieces are a half-inch thick, which was sufficient for our workout needs. It’s up to you to lay out the pieces in the shape you prefer, accommodating your space and type of workout. We store our small collection of workout equipment (an incline bench and weight rack) because any gear on the mats would take away from workout space. If you want to store equipment on these mats and still have ample room to exercise, carefully measure your space and purchase more than one set of mats.
Durability: Solid except for some shifting during high impact exercise
The Yes4All exercise mats held up pretty well and felt sturdy and supportive during lower impact workouts, like yoga, resistance training, and stretching routines. Higher impact movements, like jump squats and burpees, caused the mats to shift slightly on both carpeting and hard flooring. It wasn’t as if the mats were sliding across our floor, but there was definitely noticeable movement and a little bit of separation between the jigsaw pieces. This made us wonder how the foam will wear over time. We’ve witnessed other foam exercise mats become stretched and cracked with repeated use. This movement and separation is something to be aware of if you do a lot of frequent, high impact workouts.
Cleaning: Easy to keep clean
There’s no recommendation or instruction manual included with these mats for how to keep them clean. Easy-to-clean exercise mats are essential since anything you work out on will eventually become pretty dirty from exposure to sweat, sneakers, and dust. A quick wipe down with a damp cloth or a spritz of disinfectant spray removed sweat marks and other grime for us. The mats are water-resistant so they wipe clean and dry quickly with no evidence of exposure to moisture. A downside to these mats is that the bottom side of the mats picked up a good bit of dust, dirt, and pet hair even though we thoroughly vacuumed and mopped our floor before putting the mats down. To be fair, we assembled and disassembled the mats several times while reviewing this product so that might have had something to do with them picking up extra dirt. These mats were like a magnet for pet hair, which had the tendency to cling to the bottom side of these mats and didn’t readily brush or wipe off. The best way to clean the underside of the mats was with a vacuum brush attachment.
Price: Under $25
These foam mats are an inexpensive way to add supportive and protective flooring to your home workout area. For less than $25, it’s not a big deal to purchase more than one pack to cover a large expanse of space. If you buy the larger packs that cover more floor space, you end up saving money, too. The mats are backed by a 1-year warranty that covers any defects that may arise during regular use and a 30-day return policy.
Yes4All Interlocking Exercise Mats vs. ProsourceFit Puzzle Exercise Mats
The Yes4All mats and the ProsourceFit mats are highly comparable. They might as well be the same thing. They have the same sizes, colors, and the prices are about the same. The ProsourceFit mats share the same issue with slight shifting and attracting pet hair and dust on the underside. With so many similarities, you might as well buy the brand that is listed for a better price at the time of purchase. If you need an inexpensive way to create a dedicated home gym, you can’t overlook the Yes4All exercise mats. They’re lightweight, easy to put together and take apart, wipe clean, and provide an extra layer of comfort and protection for you, your equipment, and flooring during workouts. They’re also a great option for other areas where you want to soften hard surfaces, like kids’ playrooms or even music studio spaces.
